Splash...

Adidas Warehouse 'Siao'

2009-05-29T23:06:00.003+08:00

It's Friday morning and I went to work as usual without realizing that it was the first day of the Adidas Warehouse Sale at Atria Shopping Centre near my office. When I reached the office area, it was around 10:15am. The traffic volume was unusually high and there were cars coming from all direction out of nowhere. I started to look for parking as I am using the MBPJ monthly pass which allows me to park at any parking bay under MBPJ.

As I made rounds looking for parking, the traffic was at a standstill on and off and I was stuck in the stupid jam on and off too. Some cars had even started to 'tripple parked' on the 1-way lane around the shops surrounding the Atria Shopping Centre building or illegally along the roadside. To make the condition worse, there were some idiots who drove against the way on the 1-way lane, almost causing deadlock to the jam. It was horrendous!

Having sore throat and empty stomach, hungry and thirsty, I was so pissed off and frustrated and kept cursing in my car. Don't these people need to work or they purposely took leave for the warehouse sale?! Please leave if there's already no parking and don't contribute to worsening the jam!

Boss was on leave, I got to be in the office in case there's any urgent matter that needed to be attended to. I left my notebook charger in the office and the battery of my notebook had already gone flat. Else I would have chosen to get the hell of of this place and go back to work from home.

I continued searching for parking but still to no avail and it's almost 12pm!!! I left for SS2 for lunch. When I came back, I finally managed to find 1 bloody parking around 1:25pm after making rounds and rounds!

This is insane! I spent more than 2 hours looking for parking to get to my office! Half of my day was gone and wasted just like that! I could have reached Ipoh already with the amount of time spent!

Who said the economy is no good? Hordes of people came out from the sale with big bags and small bags in their hands as if they didn't need to pay for what they bought. These people willingly got stuck in the jam, parked their cars illegally and haphazardly, queued up for hours to get in to the sale venue and queued up for hours again to pay. A friend even went twice to this Adidas Warehouse Sale. He gave up the absurdly long queue in his fisrt attempt and returned about 2 hours later only to find out that the sale was 'nothing much' in his second attempt. Well, you can never imagine how 'siao'(crazy) some people can be when it comes to warehouse sale!

What a Friday day thanks to this Adidas Warehouse 'Siao'(Sale)!

A Day Less Spicy

2009-05-27T23:13:00.003+08:00

I am down with sore thoat. Ouch!

I have quite high endurance on physical pain. The real pain I am experiencing now is not so much on the soreness of the throat but the pain of not being able to eat spicy food in order to avoid aggravating and prolonging my sore throat condition.

When it comes to eating, having something spicy is almost a daily affair, be it sambal belacan, chili padi or at least something spicy.

I was supposed to go to see doctor this morning before going in to the office. Unfortunately, I realised that my wallet was just left with RM3 which is not even enough to pay the RM5 co-payment at the panel clinic. To save the hassle of making a big detour to withdraw money before heading to the clinic, I changed my plan to only visit the doctor during lunch or after work.

When I reached the office, I had a cup of plain Milo 'kao' with a few pieces of biscotti from La Manila for breakfast. Breakfast was safe, spice free. Hehe...

A friend was coming over to look for me for an impromptu lunch. Considering my throat condition, obviously I had to eat something not spicy and indirectly it would normally equal to something plain which would not satisfy my taste bud. Friend asked what I wanted to eat. I told him I am having sore throat and threw him back the question. I was cracking my head on what to eat and the seafood noodle from 潮州铭 (Chiu Chow Ming in Cantonese) at SS2, which is famous for its seafood porridge and noodle crossed my mind! Yes, this is me, won't forget about good food though having sore throat. LOL!

Off we went, heading to the shop. Friend had Shark Fin Seafood Meesua (1 of the famous dishes there) and I had my Mixed Seafood Clear Soup Meehoon. We ordered another plate of Mango Kerabu for sharing. My seafood soup was rich and tasted heavenly with fresh seafood and ingredients such as prawn, squid, fish, fishball, minced pork, seaweed, veggie, and crunchy fried garlic as topping. Yummy! Too bad, no food pic this round. I was too busy eating and too lazy to take pic though I had my camera with me... and now I regret. LOL! Guess what, I just couldn't resist and took a little bit of Sambal Belacan. Yes, A LITTLE BIT ONLY, probably 1/3 of the pathetically half filled small saucer. This is really nothing compared to my normal consumption. Conclusion - Lunch with a little bit of Sambal Belacan, super low intake to satisfy the craving for it and to feel bad less. Eat Sambal first, see doctor later! LOL!

I went to see doctor after lunch before heading back to office.

It's dinner time, I had Kai Lan fried with Roast Pork (Kan Lai Chow Siew Yook). It was so delicious! I was so tempted to add in some Chili Padi but I managed to resist doing so. Phew! Dinner was safe from anything spicy!

Not bad, I have survived a 'less spicy' day, but my throat is still sore. Hope I can have '0' spicy food intake tomorrow. I hope so... :P

How Are Ya?

2009-05-27T22:22:00.002+08:00

It's been a long long hiatus since I last blogged. What have I been up to? Well, long story cut short, life goes on and I am back. :)

Received a message from a friend in FB. The message ended with "How are ya?". I pondered for a long while on how to answer this question. It's supposed to be a very simple question, isn't it? what took me so long to answer such a simple question? Well, as we grow older, this very simple question is not that simple to answer anymore...

Very often, when we are asked this question, to be polite, we tend to answer it with the programmed set of standard answers such as 'I am good', 'I am fine' or 'I am OK' in a very surface manner, when the people asking are not so close to us. Are we really that good, fine or OK? Sometimes, what we answer might not be the true answer.

On the contrary, when I am asked this question by people closer to me, I would be more honest. It really makes me think: Where to begin, what should I tell and how should I answer...

I wonder if you feel the same when you are asked the same question. Or, is it just me who is thinking too much and making thing complicated? I wonder...

Food Overdosed, So So Full!

2009-02-09T22:19:00.014+08:00

Today is Chap Goh Meh, the 15th and the last day of Chinese New Year. Am glad that CNY has finally come to an end.

Never thought that I would be eating excessively during this CNY. In fact, I had been eating moderately during the first 7 days of CNY back in hometown to avoid feeling disgusted eating the same CNY dishes almost everyday. No, I don't have any weight issue and neither do I need to control my eating to avoid gaining some extra weight. I was born to be skinny and it's something in the gene. :)

Somehow, when I was back to work, I had a round of office Lou Sang ala Thai at Kinarree, a Thai restaurant located at Jaya One, Section 13, Petaling Jaya. The food was not bad generally but not to be rated as excellent. I am not really a fan of Yu Sang, but I must say that their Salmon Yu Sang, comprising mainly veggie and fruit (pomelo, find it quite special) without any coloured ingredients was good. I love the dish.

After the Lou Sang session, I thought that's it and there would be no more CNY gluttony. Well, thing didn't seem to be the way I expected it to be when some unplanned and impromptu dinners with friends came up.

Went to Jaya One again with 2 friends on Saturday for dinner. After walking around, exploring the food options available there, we settled for Fire BBQ Steamboat buffet since they was promotion. It's buffet style, I quite enjoyed the first round of food and we ordered another round of it.

As we continued eating, we started to feel full and were struggling hard to stuff ourselves with the food in order to finish it. Fortunately, there were fire performances by a macho tattoed guy at intervals and we took a break to peep at the performances as we were sitting quite a distance from the stage.

We struggled really hard and we finally managed to finish the food. I don't take beef, hence the 2 guys had no choice but to finish the excessive beef balls while I handled the pork balls. I was full till dropped and kept burping. It's an eating session with meat balls overloaded till our faces also looked a bit like meat balls! LOL! Think I am probably not gonna have any meat ball for the next 3-6 months! We then adjourned to have coffee to get rid of of the meat ball taste lingering in our mouths. Haha :D

I was so full and felt very bloated till I couldn't really sleep that night. Aftermath was I had constipation the next day as a result of eating too much and too full!

It was Sunday afternoon, I initially planned to just rest at home but another dinner appointment just got set via MSN with an ex-colleague whom I have not met for quite some time. We decided to have dinner at Sushi Zaimai at The Gardens, Mid Valley.

There were only 2 of us but we actually ordered and ate quite a lot. Pictures below are only showing some of the food we ate. We had Tofu and Chawamushi too. I was feeling so so full again on Sunday night!

What a weekend of excessive gluttony! I was so so so full, 2 nights in a row!

Prayer Of The Night

2009-01-06T21:46:00.010+08:00

Doreme (name altered) is a Filipino SAP professional that I had placed in a consulting firm in Malaysia back in end 2004. Leaving his family and friends back home, he took up the opportunity and came to Malaysia to work.

Time really flies, 4 years have passed and it's coming to the 5th year for him working abroad, away from family and friends.

Had a short chat with him in YM this evening while I was still in the office. Below is part of the conversations.

Doreme: hi, happy new year!
Me: hi, happy new year to u too!
Doreme: how are u?
Me: am good.
Me: so are things getting better after xxx bought over yyy? another one to follow soon, right? your contract renewed?
Doreme: yes, things are better. am in US now.
Me: great.
Me: which part of US?
Derome: east coast
Me: r u gonna be based there for long?
Doreme: got visa for 3 years.
Me: so u spent your x'mas in US?
Doreme: nope, i was back to the philippines. i fly back every 6 weeks.
Me: time really flies. how old are your kids now?
Doreme: 4 & 6. my son is diagnosed with ASD, have to work hard to send him for theraphy...

Knowing ASD as a disease name but not entirely sure what it is, I politely asked further.

Me: Sorry to hear this. Mind me asking what is the full term for ASD?
Doreme: Autism Spectrum Disorder

The medical term of Autism Spectrum Disorder is something new to me. I quickly checked it out at www.answers.com.

Me: I am so sorry to hear this...
Doreme: pray for me... if you do... add my son in...
Me: ok

Lost for words for a moment... I could deeply feel his pain as a father and his love for his son. He's been working abroad for the betterment of his family (I assume) apart from gaining overseas working exposure and he has to now continue working hard abroad (for the money) for this new reason. Thank god for what he is having is quite a niche skill with demand and quite some overseas opportunities with rather good pay. Knowing that I got to respond or at least say something positive, I continued.

Me: stay strong.
Doreme: thanks. am staying strong.
Me: may the force be with you and your son...

So, I took it as a promise to pray for Doreme tonight. I am a free thinker and I do not know what's the best to pray for and the best way to word my prayer but I am trying my best here to fulfill my promise.

Tonight, I sincerely pray that:
1. Doreme's son will recover asap
2. Things will be fine and may the force be with Doreme, his son and his family
3. Doreme's prayer will be answered

I hope my prayer will be heard.

Spring in Aus 2008

2008-12-13T22:31:00.011+08:00

It's been a long hiatus. Went Aussie for 2 weeks holidays 2 months ago. Left my mind in Melbourne and am suffering from the remaining of the withdrawal syndrome.

It was an impromptu decision that had brought me to Melbourne and Sydney in Spring 2008. The route of PJ->Singapore->Darwin->Melbourne->Sydney->Melbourne->Darwin->Singapore->PJ encompassed 3 countries, 5 cities and 5 airports. Quite statistical though it was only a 16-day journey.

Distance
It always makes me wonder, how far can the distance be between 2 people? How far is far and how near is near? At times, it's so near yet so far and so far yet so near...

It's Spring
It's spring time. I smelled it and felt it everywhere. All the flowers were so beautiful and in their full bloom. The trees and the grass were so green. The invigorating and cooling wind (chilling for me sometimes) under the hot sun and clear blue sky was bringing the best out of the spring weather in Aussie. It was wonderful roaming around the relaxing city of melbourne in spring.

St Kilda Beach - Loving It
Like St Kilda Beach very much. It's such a calming, peaceful and relaxing beach. A nice stroll by the beach embraced by the invigorating wind, a cup of nice coffee and the breakfast at Little Blue, St Kilda Pier, and the tranquil moment was the best time spent there. Found out that XW who went there somewhen in March also shares the same feeing on this beach - just loving it!

New Discovery
Discovered the same great voice - Joanna Wang in both Singapore and Melbourne from the trip. Love her voice, love her songs. Immediately bought her CD when I was back. Each time I listen to her songs, the good time and memories in melbourne linger in my mind...

The Desire
It felt great to have entirely left everything behind, care not where I am from and just keep going, enjoying every scenery along the way, setting myself free and breathing in the air of freedom. The thought and desire to leave everything behind to begin my journey to see the world started to linger again...

Adieu
The happiest thing about the trip was to be able to meet up with some people that I don't get to see often at a city so far away from home. It doesn't really matter where we went, it's the time spent together that matters more. Well, after bidding adieu, it's time to miss them again and look forward to the next meet up.

Thoughts
For every step I took, every place I went, I was in moments of thought in the wonderland very naturally. Had been thinking and wondering a lot during the trip, and having new thoughts and decisions.

Lost
Gone were the good times that did not last long, as always. Distance and everything are back to the original position. Back to reality, what's left is the feeling of lost...

A Merdeka Day with Love-Hate

2008-09-04T23:49:00.002+08:00

When I was drafting this post, National day was just 2 days away. As I was driving home on that night in a crawling traffic in the drizzle, the word 'love-hate' crossed my mind and was registered to best describe my mixed feeling towards our country at this juncture, in conjunction with the 51st Merdeka Day.

Strategically located geographically, full of natural resources and almost free of natural disasters, this is the blessed piece of land where I was born and where my ancestors had set foot on and rooted.

Clear blue sky, coconut trees, hibiscus, kampung houses, beaches, rivers, tropicana fruits, loads and loads of awesomely delicious local foods and drinks, and the authentic smile and laughter of the people are probably some of the symbolic things that paint the picture of the nostalgic Malaysia in those good old days. This piece of beautiful land has given us loads of very unique Malaysian memories as we grew up.

When I was a kid, whenever there were Badminton matches between China and Malaysia, be it Thomas Cup or any other tounaments, I would naturally cheer for the Chinese players, ironically. It was probably the influence from my dad, who is more patriotic towards China comparatively, as my late grandparents were from China.

From the recent Beijing Olympics opening, I discovered that dad's heart is still more towards China, which caught me a little bit in surprise but on a second thought it's understandably not that surprising. Though dad was extremely sleepy, he waited till the China contingent to march in to the Bird's Nest Stadium and he sang along enthusiastically when the national anthem of the People Republic of China was played! I can't really recall if I've ever heard him sing the Negaraku in front of me but can clearly remember hearing him sing the national anthem of China more than once. Of course, he did sing the Negaraku on offical occasions but not in front of me. Well, when the people love the country but the country doesn't them in return... You know...

As I grow older, I started to be 'clearer' of my identity and feel proud to be a Malaysian. Patriotism started to grow within me. I love my country, that's where I was born and bred with lots of unique fond memories, with my dearest family and friends around.

When I entered university, the first thing that I was exposed to was injustice in student intake under the quota system and hostel allocation. Everything is not based on qualification but 'kulitfication'. While some friends scored straight As in STPM just to be denied an entry to University of Malaya, the uni and course of their choices, some people who got shitty results and didn't even deserve a place in uni were everywhere in the local universities. Nothing much has changed till today. Pissed and disappointed, these friends left the country to study in Singapore and have become doctors there and would never want to come back.

Over the years, when I get exposed to more and more realities that really bite and hurt, I am getting more and more pissed off and disappointed with the country, should say the morons in power to be more exact.

With rocketing crime rate, worsening economy, inflation, continuous brain drain, severe corruption, injustice, racism, one after another ridiculous political dramas and a lot more saddening situations, our beloved country has been turned into a very sorry state. Am even comtemplating to leave... So, don't get surprised if I tell you I am leaving one day.

I didn't find any reason and meaning to celerate the national day. Even Anwar's political come back into the parliarnment wasn't a strong enough reason. We, the people want something more, an entire change for the betterment of the country! Will that really happen on 16 Sep? I wonder...

It's a Merdeka with a love-hate mixed feeling. I didn't even bother to read or follow any news about the celebration. The only thing that I felt happy about on 31 Aug 2008 was a friend's wedding.

Chain Reaction Revisited

2008-08-24T20:00:00.012+08:00

It seems that I have been in hiatus since my last post about a month ago. So many things are keeping me preccupied lately, not to mention the tireness of the eyes and mind after work, as a reuslt of staring at the computer for long hours.

Well, this is a backdated post, which I have wanted to pen down but just couldn't find the time. Since I am not going anywhere this weekend, am finally sitting down to write it.

The weekend 2 weeks ago was a happening one for me back in Ipoh. YT was back from Singapore and so was Pao. Chai was also back from Japan for vacation. I went back too, not knowing that Feilo, Sailo & Shyang were back too. Seemed that everyone was heading back to home sweet home in Ipoh coincidentally.

08.08.2008, Friday
Sharp at 5pm , I headed straight from office to Damansara Toll for the North South Highway on my way home, alone. Yes, I drive home alone quite often whenever I spontaneously feel like going home for a cup of nice Ipoh White Coffee and catch up with friends or feel like getting of town for a peace of mind. Occasioanally, there will passengers along with me. So, don't be surprised to spot me, probably speeding on the North South Highway one fine day. :)

It was actually quite boring to drive alone on the highway. I accelerated and speeded home, just in time to catch the grand Beijing Olympics opening at 8pm on 08. 08. 2008. What a prosperous date and time, especially to the Chinese! It was a magnificent and splendid opening. China has demonstrated to the world on how capable they are. The awaken mighty dragon is definitely going to rock the world for a long long time to come...

09.08.2008, Saturday
Being a sport lover, I was busy cathing the Olympics live on Astro on Saturday till I had no time to use my Dellnosaur (notebook) to go online, a routine in my daily life. In the evening, the electricity supply was suddenly out! The weather was bloody hot and I was under massive mosquito attack! Damn it! Quickily had my dinner and shower, and went out to meet up with the Chai, Pao, Feilo and Shyang for a drink.

We went to 'Indulgence', a colonial style bungalow converted restaurant that serves Malaysian and Chinese street fare on a more upmarket scale in Ipoh. It was actually my first visit there. Heard about this restaurant which is known to be a pricy place to dine at Ipoh standard and drove passed it many times prior to this. Well, the ambience there was cosy but the food was proven to be pricy. The guys ordered a bottle of white wine which tasted not bad and 3 pieces of cakes which just didn't satisfy my taste bud at all whereas I ordered a glass of warm water which was never served. Guess what, the bill cost us RM150++! Heard that the Sultan of Perak is a regular there. Maybe I should just give it a second chance to try some other food there to find out what's so special about this restaurant.

Indulgence closes at 11:30pm, which is considered quite early for us, a bunch of night owls. We left for 'Tong Sui Kai' (Dessert Street) near Sam Tet Primary School for second round to satisfy Chai's craving for Ipoh food which he can't find in Japan. Our table was fully occupied by food such as Wantan, Yau Yu Ngung Choy (Octopus with Kangkung), Rojak, 2 plates of friend noodle and Tong Sui (dessert). Chai whacked another bowl of Bubur Cacar after his Fu Chook Yi Mai. Looks like Chai really misses Ipoh food alot after few years in Japan. It was really a nice catch up with loads and loads of food till midnight. Too bad, the guys were swift in whacking the food when it was served, faster than I could take out my camera to snap a shot or two of the food.

10.08.2008 Sunday
Arrhhh... The great weekend had to come to an end and it was time to head back to KL. Dad had gone to Genting with friends to watch concert while mum was not around when I left home. Before I departed, I went in and out of the house to double check if I had left anything home. Usually mum will play role of nagging gently to ensure I don't leave anything at home each time I go back to KL. After checking, off I went to YT's house to carpool with him back to KL.

Had yummy Curry Noodle and nice Iced White Coffee near YT's place for lunch before we headed back to KL. The White Coffee was superb. The very first sip of it was so refreshing that it gave me so much ummpp and pleasure!

I drove for the 1st half of the journey and stopped at Sungai Buluh for a toilet break. While looking for parking, this conversation kind of amused me.

Me: Don't you need to drink water? Not thirsty?

YT: Not really, I am a camel mah. :)

Me: Hahahaha... LOL!

What an interesting answer. I think he really is a camel as he wasn't feeling thirsty and drinking any water through out the journey. Guess he must be doing the same during his extensive travelling.

I went off to the toilet and washed my face. YT took over to drive after the break and headed back to the hotel that he was staying in.

After dropping YT at the hotel, I realised that my glasses were nowhere to be found after searching through the whole car. Geez! I must have left the glasses in the toilet at Sungai Buluh when I took them off to wash my face.

Well, the power of glasses isn't that high. Am having lazy eye in fact with left eye:225, right eye:50 plus some mild astigmatism. I can still see bigger objects quite clearly with my right eye most of the time if the eyesight is not blocked. That probably explained why I didn't even realise that my glassese were taken off though I still had them on moments ago. It was about 5:30pm, the sun hadn't set yet. I could still see and drive my way home without my glasses.

When I reached home in PJ, I discovered something more disasterous than having a pair of missing glasses! I left my Dellnosaur at hometown!!! This is really 'big wok' (trouble), man! My notebook is something that I totally can't work without! How ah? What should I do? I was thinking hard for some alternative though I knew the ultimate solution was to go back to collect it.

Called Sailo who carpooled with Shyang back to KL to see if they had already left Ipoh, hoping that they had not and hence I could explore the option of crying for help from them to bring the notebook back for me.

Me: Over! Over! Where are you guys? Have you guys left Ipoh?

Sailo: What's up?

Me: I have a ' big wok' to deal with, left my notebook at home. Calling to see if you guys have left Ipoh and could help me to bring my notebook back to KL if you guys are still in Ipoh.

Sailo: We are even in 'bigger wok' lah. Shyang's car broke down, and we are now pathetically stranded at road side of the highway, somewhere near Rawang exit.

Me: Gosh! Why everyone seems to be so 'hak jai' (unfortunate) today ah? I also left my glasses at the toilet at Sungai Buluh rest point apart from my notebook at home.

Sailo: Hahaha... Why not you come over to pick us up and then go to Sungai Buluh to check if your glasses are still there. (this jovioul fellow still managed to joke at time like this)

Me: Where are you guys located exactly? I can come to pick you guys up but you have to tell me you guys' exact location and guide me how to get there.

Sailo: At the road side lor! Joking lah, Shyang is calling the tow truck now.

Me: Let me try to call Feilo to see if he's already on his way back. If he hasn't passed Rawang, probably he can come to rescue you guys.

Tried to call and sms Feilo many times but couldn't really reach him. Only got 1 pathetic sms reply from Feilo telling that his battery was running low and would be death at any time. Sigh!

On and off, I called the guys to check on their situation and talked nonsense to entertain them a bit as it was actually bloody 'sien' to get stranded at the highway like this.

Me: Over! Over! Apa macam?

Sailo: On tow now, both the car and us. :)

Me: The wind is chilling, isn't it?

Sailo: Yawor, very cooling and refreshing indeed to be on tow (refering to the wind blowing on them on the tow truck). Hahaha.... Yiii... Very interesting wor, the car is now moving by itself without anyone driving it. LOL!

Shyang: Fuyoh, my unmaneuvered car can even over take other cars somemore! Keng ah! (Yes, they are a bunch of crazy fellows who can really 'talk with their lungs')

Me: Ahahha... LOL! What's actually wrong with your car?

Shyang: The timing belt lor. It's almost time to change already. Thought of changing it during my next car service, who knows it went dead just now.

Me: Ok lah, since you guys are on tow already, am going off to have my dinner now. Enjoy your 'tow ride'. Bye!

Well, I thought I was unfortunate, who knew these guys were even in deeper shit. Sigh.. Decided to make another trip back home the next day to collect my notebook. Arrrhhh.. it's gonna be darn tiring!

11.08.2008 Monday
Took emergency leave, sent my car to workshop for checking especially for the timing belt to ensure it's in good condition (though I just sent my car for service not long ago) before heading to the highway for my way home, alone again. Sien! Sien! Sien! The first thing that I did when I reached home was to grab my notebook and put it at a very noticeable place so that I wouldn't forget to bring it back to KL.

12.08.2008 Tuesday
Woke up damn early in the morning. After having my super early breakfast, from hometown, I headed straight to the office in PJ, a journey of about 210km. The highway seemed lonely with low traffic volume. It was really very boring to maintain the speed at 110km/hr and I started to speed a little bit.

Somewhere near Tapah, the 3 lanes highway had shrunk to become 1 lane. I thought the lanes were closed due to some road works. Bloody hell, there was 1 team of traffic policemen lining up in front to catch everyone for speeding, on the spot and off-guard! Most of the cars were speeding and I guess most would be summoned.

Policeman: Ah Moi, lajunya!

Me: Yalah, nak rush pergi ke office mah.

Policeman: Mana you kerja ni?

Me: KL lah. I pandu terus dari Ipoh ni.

Policeman: Macam mana?

Me: You tulis saman lah.

Policeman: Nak tulis kah ni? (hinting for something you and me and everybody knows)

Me: Tulis lah, tolong cepat sikit, I ada meeting ni.

I paid attention to the radio which was broadcasting some Olympics updates while waiting for the policeman to issue the summon, not even looking at him at all. Well, I wasn't trying to be cocky as some might perceive it to be. I just wanted to leave him alone to quickily write the summon and waste no time.

Sigh! Sigh! Sigh! Due to some human errors (forgetting my notebook and speeding on the highway), everything happended like a chain reaction and I was paying the price for it - adttional cost of petrol & toll, tireness plus a summon!

Have yet to settle the summon till this very moment...

Where Do I Go From Here?

2008-07-21T23:14:00.011+08:00

Have been in KL for about 10 years. I am kind of tired of this city and don't quite feel the sense of belonging here. Like many others from outstation who study in KL, I stay here to work after completing my Degree, as a matter of course. Recently, the thought of getting out of KL has been lingering in my mind. If I were to leave KL one day, some great friends made here and some of the delicious food would definitely be something that I miss the most.

At times, I was considering to go back to Ipoh for good, back to a town that I love and feel home for better quality of life, good food and more tranquility and peace of mind. But what can this town offer me in terms of job opportunity? Going back tantamount to letting go my career and probably have to start all over again by doing something else. Do I really have to wait till retirement?

I thought that I would never bother about politics and could never be bothered. I found that I am wrong when I am utterly digusted and pissed off with the ridiculous and sickening state of the nation the more I realise and feel the impact of what is going on. I bother and it bothers me though that's not my very choice. Prior to this, I had never thought of leaving the country, where I was born and bred. But now, I have this thought and given an opportunity, I will...

Too many thoughts in my mind, in search for a better place with better quality of life and more peace of mind. Depressed, sometimes I feel like hibernating or in need of a free fall which is only subject to the gravity of earth, to temporarily shut down my mind...

Where do I belong to? Where do I go from here? Where can I go? I wonder...

Gluttony In the Name of Birthday

2008-06-26T22:23:00.010+08:00

It was my birthday yesterday. Don't feel like mentioning how old I am this year as this number will keep increasing every year... which is a bit scary as I can't freeze time.

Basically, celebration or to be more exact gluttony in the name of birthday started about 2 weeks before my actual birthday, which was a total surprise for me.

So far, I have had 4 rounds of makan-makan, courtesy of different group of friends, and there's another round to come with the parasites. Was too hungry when having the 2nd round and I had totally forgotten to snap some shots of the yummy food.

Let's take a look at what I have had.

Round 1 - Dinner @ Shabu Shabu, 1-U, New Wing:
Round 2 - Curry Fish Head @ Sec 17, PJ - No pics available, was too hungry till I forgot to take any but the food was heavenly good!

Round 3 - Lunch @ UME TEI, Amcorp Mall, PJ:Round 4 - Dinner @ Chilli's, 1-U, New Wing:

Round 5 - Soon to come, looking forward to it!

From the bottom of my heart, a sincere thank to everyone for all the treats, sms, and wishes! You guys have made my birthday special!

Struck

2008-06-04T23:27:00.000+08:00

In Bowling, a player makes 3 strikes in a row to hit a Turkey. I hit a Turkey too yesterday. No, I didn't make 3 strikes in Bowling but I was struck trice with disappointment. Things weren't going that smoothly and I had a bad day at work.

Strike 1: X
2 appointments got cancelled by candidates at the last minute. Aeroplanes! Sigh, some people tend to change their minds in a split second.

Strike 2: XX
A candidate who is supposed to start work on next Monday with a client called to inform that she's rejecting the offer. She's been offered a position by her ex-boss who has joined a new company. I was driving from KL back to PJ after an appointment at KLCC without having lunch when I received the call. Mood index dropped immediately. So was my appetite.

Strike 3: XXX- Turkey!
Went to Taman Megah to grab something for lunch. When I was back to the office, I got to know that another candidate who is also supposed to commence work with another client on next Monday also rejected client's offer at the last minute. Mood index further dropped drastically. My packed lunch became tasteless. Anyway, I wouldn't torture my stomach and I finished 90% of it.

The rejection of offer by candidate doesn't only mean all the time and effort spent are to no avail. It also means that I am answerable to the clients. Fortunately, clients have been understanding in both cases. Well, this is beyond my control and I put no blame to the candidates.

Was a bit down. Anyway, some friends chatted with me in MSN before my day ended in the office. Some of the conversations did cheer me up and divert my focus on the negative mood. Some bullshitted with me while MC told me that she 'lau sai' 3 times during her recent 42KM SunDown Marathon in Singaore and how she kept farting, held her shit, and ran fast to look for toilet! That's quite funny. MC then helped me to download a song by Sandy Lam, "没有你还是爱你"，which I have been searching for. Besides, she also sent me another song, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Quite a nice song, with light & easy beat & rythm. This song had indeed cheered me up. Thanks to MC and others for cheering me up on a bad day.

It was raining heavily when I was driving home, as if the day was not gloomy enough...

If the 3rd Newton's Law of Motion applies, there must be some good things happening soon as the equal and opposite reactions, I consoled myself.

Well well well, today isn't any better. The annoucement by the government that petrol price will go up by 78 sen at midnight - a 40.6 percent jump from RM1.92 per litre to RM2.70 has caused another strike on me and the impact is so great! Will foresee endless inflation to follow. The nightmare has just begun for the people...

Cockroach Attack!

2008-05-07T22:47:00.008+08:00

How would you react when you see a cockroach? Well, some people will scream out of fear and some can't wait to kill it and make sure it's dead. It actually doesn't really bother me as much as a cat or dog does.

Generally speaking, I am not afraid of cockroach. The closest contact that I have ever had with cockcroach was holding its antenna to see it spin or catching it alive with my bare hand when I was a kid. Didn't really do it often though and of course I washed my hand real clean after that as the cockroach smell really stinks. As I grow older, realising that it's not hygienic, I have stopped having direct contact with cockroach with my hands. Nowadays, I will spray insecticide at it, hit it with an object or layer my hand with material such as paper/cloth/plastic bag/etc if I wanna catch it to get rid of it.

Of late, we have been noticing cockroaches (from small to big size) appearing in both the toilets of our apartment during midnight hours. As our toilets are always kept clean, we have always been wondering where they come from and why only at the toilets.

Last Sunday, BigTV was trying to trace the source of the cockroaches. The ceiling cover of her master bedroom toilet was opened to examine if there were any cockroaches there. To her horror, there were at least 100 to 200 of cockroaches there at the piping area on top of the toilet ceiling! She felt terribly shocked and horrified but still tried to spray insecticide to kill them and clear some of them. She couldn't clear the remaining as some areas were out of her reach. This happened while I was having an afternoon nap.

In the evening, BigTV came back with a strange and troubled look on her face and asked if I have any contact of cleaner and explained her 'discovery' which seriously bothered her. I called a friend who is working with a pest control company but found out unfortunately that they don't provide such service of clearing the dead cockroaches as they only provide treatment services.

BigTV sat there with a long face and her mind trying to figure out a solution to get rid of the remaining of dead cockroaches at the piping area asap, on the night itself! She mumbled and contemplating the idea of buying the cheapest vacum cleaner to clear them off. I suggested to her that I could try to borrow one from my office the following day but she just didn't seem to have the patience to wait till the next day. Her whole mind was occupied by cockroaches, feeling disgusted!

I went for my shower and when I was done, BigTV was nowhere to be seen. After a while, she returned with a vacum cleaner, borrowed from her ex-roommate.

I went in to her room to offer to help her. Sitting on the bed, she was devastasted in tears, feeling pathetic and questioning why she had to live with so many cockroaches in the same room! Initially she said she could do it herself and asked me not to watch her while vacuming as she would cry simultaneously. Knew she would not be able to handle it alone. I tried to pacify her and told her that I could help her to vacum as I am taller and not afraid of cockroach. She asked to be left alone to cry for a while and cool down before starting. Having no choice, I left her alone for some time off to continue sobbing.

I then went back to my room to look for a shower cap to protect my hair (which was just washed) from the dust falling when opening the ceiling cover later. Without leaving her much time to waste on crying, I went into her room again, getting her ass to move to start the vacuming. With a table stacked with a stool on top (as we don't have a ladder), I climbed up the stool, opened the ceiling cover, suffered some dust falling onto my face, snapped some shots of the cockroaches as proof for complaint purpose before doing the dirty job, from the the size of XS to XXL, dead or alive, while BigTV helped to hold and control the power of the vacum cleaner. Done with the vacuming, we sprayed another round of insecticide at the piping area before putting the ceiling cover back.

After we were done with BigTV's toilet, the Cockroach Buster crew headed by me then proceeded to the second toilet which was also under cockroach attack. Damn it! This time around, more dust falling onto my face while opening the ceiling cover! I got to close my eyes in order to avoid any dust from falling into my eyes. There were less cockroaches at the piping area of this second toilet comparatively, estimated at around 50 of them. Majority of them were big big & fat fat and were still crawling actively. Having goose bumps, huh? Haha... We did the same dirty job, vacuming them dead or alive, and sending them to hell! It was darn suffocating when I sprayed the insectiside before putting the ceiling cover back. I was joking with BigTV, 'It seems like I will die faster as a result of suffocation instead of the cockroaches!' Haha :D

Weather was hot, I was sweating like nobody's business after completing this one of its kind Sunday night special enough impromptu plan. Went for another round of shower and washing my hair.

BigTV took care of cleaning the vacum cleaner. Thus, I couldn't answer JK's question on if the cockroaches were ground into pieces in the vacum clearner. I seriously don't know and don't wish to see to know. It would surely be disgusting and nauseating!

Sungai Lembing - Day 2: The Sunrise And The Clouds

2008-04-27T22:36:00.033+08:00

Didn't really sleep well the night before as it was quite cold. Knowing me as someone lacking of adipose tissue, how to resist cold? Haha...

Woke up as early as 5:30pm to get ready by 5:45am. Nothing much to prepare actually. The timing was so out that I didn't feel any urge for some serious business in the toilet. The schedule was to hike the Panorama Hill for sunrise first, then only followed by breakfast. Knowing myself would normally feel hungry quite immediately after waking up, I hastily bit a piece of plain bread (though I don't like plain bread) for some energy.

With a sleepy head, I walked together with the group to the starting point of Bukit Panorama which is located at the back of the morning market.

Staircase oh staircase, never ending and quite steep at certain stretches, all the way up. It reminded me of the Timpohon trail of Mount KK. I am always not in favour of staircase, would prefer natural path which is less taxing to the knee. While we were ascending, some elderly people were already descending, done with their morning exercise, hiking the Panorama Hill. They were definitely the early birds.

Reached the summit after about 45 minutes of hike. There was a such huge crowd there, easily 100 to 200 people including a big group of secondary school students and some other random groups.

Everyone was patiently waiting for the sunrise. While waiting, we heard a very loud snoring noise. Guess what, there was a guy who actually squatted there sleeping and snored as loud as he could. That's the first time I've seen people who could actually snore while sleeping the SQUATTING way despite the very noisy surrounding.

When the sun eventually rose, what else was next? Non-stop photo taking and endless camwhoring began! The sunrise was beautiful and so was the clouds. I took quite a lot of pictures. Not gonna describe much, let the pictures do the talking. For more pics of the trip, check out my facebook.

After Panorama Hill, it was breakfast time at the hawker centre near the morning market. 7 of us sharing the same table ordered 3 different types of noodles, the Cantonese Fried, Ketchup Mee and Spicy Mee. Guess what, it only cost us close to RM3 per person. Nothing fantastic about the noodles but the Taufu was really delicious.

Done with the breakfast, a 'lawatan sambil belajar' to the Sungai Lembing Museum followed. Leisurely, we took a stroll to the museum which is within walking distance from the main street. I made a 'pigeon round' at the museum and was lazy to read any description of the exhibited items. So for me, it was more of a 'lawatan tidak belajar' to the museum. Sungai Lembing...Sungai Lembing... sounds so familiar... Ahuh, this town name appeared in the our secondary school history text book regarding tin mining! That's all I could remember. What to do? Everything studied has been returned to the teacher. Haha... :D

Went for another cup of cold drink after the museum. It was then time to pack and leave the town. Had simple mixed rice before heading for the East West Highway.

The moment I reached home in PJ, I immediately felt the urge to release some old stocks accumulated in my intestine for 2 days. What a relief! Thank God it didn't give me any trouble or feeling of 'kap si' at the wrong time during the trip. Haha... :D

Overall, It was quite a fun trip though I didn't get to see the rainbow. Food was good and dirt cheap. I got to know some new friends, and enjoyed the sceneries. Snakebuster who is usually loud and talkative was totally outshone by Mr. Kanasai by his kanasainess during the trip. Also witnessed how the Ms. Small Wanderer could vanish and pop up the next moment, as well as some endless camwhoring with DSLR.

Joined the trip hoping to recapture some old memories. Well, the place is still the same, but the feeling and the memories are not the same anymore on a revisit. Every single moment, things are changing and it would not be the same the very next moment...

Sungai Lembing Revisited - Day 1: Where Is My Rainbow?

2008-04-26T21:28:00.023+08:00

It was 4-5 years ago when I first visited Sungai Lembing, a tin mining town 42km northwest of Kuantan in Pahang, for the amazing Rainbow Waterfall and the sunrise with beautiful sea of clouds at the summit of Panorama Hill. The captivating sceneries linger in my memory every since and the place would definitely worth a second visit.

On 19 & 20 April, I revisited Sungai Lembing for a weekend getaway, joining a leisure trip organized by KM from OX (Outdoor Explorer). It was leissure in a sense that there would not be any camping in the jungle and we did not need to bring our big backpack up with full gear, unlike previous hiking trips with camping at the summit during the good old days when I was quite active with hiking with another group of outdoor kaki few years back.

There were a total of 17 of us going in 4 cars. We gathered as early as 4:45am at Kelana Jaya as the meet up point on 19 April. That means I got to force myself to sleep super early on Friday night in order to get adequate sleep and wake up darn early on Saturday morning. Ya, waking up so early in the morning is somewhat torturing but the joy of going places would always offset this feeling.

At the meeting point, I saw some familiar faces including the Snakebuster, Mr. Kanasai who came all the way from Penang, petite CM, whom I got to know them from previous hiking trips as well as Mr Big, someone I met before for work purpose, who seemed could not recognize me. There were also some other totally new faces, which included a Thai sweetie pie who is working in an MNC in PJ on a work transfer, Mr. Hum Sup (wearing a T-shirt that self delares that), Ms. Small Wanderer who disappears and reappears like a 'sip cheng guai', Mr. SK IV (Sammy Cheng only uses SK II, you can imagine how fair he is), and some other more normal beings. Interesting group.

Off we went, heading for the East West Highway. We exited at Gambang and arrived at the Sungai Lembing Town after about 3 & 1/2 hours of journey. The first thing to do was to EAT as we departed with empty stomach. We had breakfast at the happening morning market. Food and drink there were dirt cheap. I ordered a bowl of curry mee with 5 pieces of Yong Tau fu for only RM3.

After breakfast, what's next? 1 hours plus of lorry ride into the jungle awaiting us. I was quite impressed with how the lorry condition has imporved over time. It now comes with cushion seats and strings to hold on to accomodate to the bumpy route in the jungle. It's a big difference compared to the 'pig selling' lorry used for my last visit here, where everyone just squeezed at the back of the lorry with nothing to hold on, exactly like how slaves or animals are transported.

During the lorry ride, there were lots of branches and leaves from left right center corner along the path that posed some treat of hitting us as the lorry drove passed if we were not watchful. Thus people sitting in front were busy alerting passengers at the back rows. Everyone was busy avoiding. I was sitting at right side of the last 2 row, busy covering my face apart from avoiding. Haha, what to do, cannot afford to have my face scratched mah. :) Some parts of the route were really bouncy that you would feel like riding on a mad horse. On a milder extend, you would enjoy an Osim iGallop effect on the cushion seat. There were short stretches of river with shallow water for the lorry to cross too. The journey was quite fun though, filled with chit chatting and laughter by the talkative group.

After 1 hour plus of 'galloping' journey, which we were fortunate enough not to suffer from internal organ dislocation, we finally reached the starting point to hike in to the Rainbow Waterfall. I was excited and couldn't wait to see the rainbow.

There was a river to wade through at the beginning of the hike. River? How come I couldn't remember this river at all? Am I suffering from memory loss or it's a sign of aging?

It was a combination of natural and rocky path and took us around 45 minutes to reach the Rainbow Waterfall. As magnificent and splendid as it always is, something was missing from the waterfall! Where's my rainbow?! Aikss, we missed it! The rainbow would only be seen around 8-10 am something in the morning. We were just a bit too late to have missed it. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping to take some nice pictures of the rainbow with my new camera, my main objective of trip.

Well well, it seemed that I just had to settle with Rainbow Waterfall without rainbow and enjoyed the waterfall alone. The waterfall was gorgeous. The water breeze was so invigorating. It felt good to be close to nature with freshness installed in my mind.

Some jumped into the waterfall to enjoy the cold water, while some other were busy camwhoring. You could easily hear the shooting sound of the 4 to 5 DLSR cameras that the group brought along. It seems like everyone is into DSLR nowadays.

We had sandwich with tuna, sausage, scrambled egg, tomato, cucumber, as well as cup mee, some snacks and fruits for lunch by the waterfall side. It was self-service, you could stuff your bread with whatever you like to make your own sandwich.

After lunch, we hiked back to the place where the lorry waited for us and took a lorry ride back to the town. The sun was burning hot and imagine us having to endure it for 1 hour plus. I covered my face and neck with my jacket to avoid sunburn, which made me looked like an Aminah. Hahaha :D Lazy to apply sunblock thought I brought it with me for the trip. :)

As soon as we got back to the town, I immediately showered at our rest house and searched for icy cold drink to quench the extreme thirst from the hot lorry ride. We took a nap till dinner time.

Had our dinner at a stall at the market, where the dishes were pre-ordered by Mr. Kanasai before we came. A conversation at the dinner was the highlight of the day, which made me completely understand why MC (an outdoor friend who is also from Penang) called Mr. Kanasai, kanasai. Hahaha...

I Was sitting at the same table as Mr. Kanasai. The stall served only Chinese Tea and Herbal Cooling Tea (leong sui)which was 'Luo Hon Kuo' that night. Loh Hon Kuo was on high demand as the weather was very hot. It was not enough to cope our orders. After serving a few cups of Luo Hon Kuo, an auntie came to our table telling us there was not enough of it.

Autie (taking order): What would you like to order?
Mr. Kanasai (in Mandarin): Liang Cha (凉茶)。
Autie: No more Liang Cha, but next stall has. Only left with Chinese Tea.
Mr. Kanasai (Mumbling): Cannot be what, look at that pot of black drink, must be Liang Cha.

Autie walked away to serve drink, leaving Mr. Kanasai to decide on his order.

Me: Today's Liang Cha is Loh Hon Kuo, no more already. Only left with Chinese Tea, can you understand or not?
Mr. Kanasai: Impossible lah. You look at that pot of drink, black black one, if it's not Liang Cha then what is it?
Mr. Big: That is not Liang Cha lah. Auntie already mentioned it's Chinese Tea lah!

Autie came to our table again, serving the drinks.

Mr. Kanasai: Autie, no Liang Cha meh?
Autie: Next stall got. You want or not?
Mr. Kanasai: Don't want. I want 100 Plus.

The rest of us burst into laughter with his surprising final order, at the same time speechless. He's simply... kanasai! MC didn't tell me wrongly that he's kanasai and why every calls him kanasai. Hahaha...

Anyway, credit had to be given to Mr. Kanasai for the dinner that he arranged. We had rice with ginger spring onion wild boar meat, kangkung, Fu Yong Egg, Yellow Wine Chicken, Steamed Tilapia fish, and Yu Wat Soup. The food was good and satisfying, especially the Yellow Wine Chicken and the Steamed fish.

After dinner, we went back to the rest house for some TV and chit chatting before hitting the sack.

Lok Lok Speghetti

2008-04-03T23:59:00.014+08:00

What is this? This is my dinner tonight. What is this dish called? Mmm... Let me name it 'Lok Lok Speghetti'.

Commercial Break: The 2 pictures were taken by my new toy, a Canon Ixus 960IS digital camera(my first ever camera), with 12.1MP, 3.7 Optical zoom, 4G memory plus this and that at RM1499. Hehe...

Ok, enough of advertisement and back to the topic. :) Where to get this (the food, not the camera)? No, you can't get it from anywhere, but you can custom make it. How? Just buy some 'Lok Lok' of your choice from 'Fatty Lok Lok', and mix the 'Lok Lok' & the Satay sauce with the Speghetti and vege that you cook yourself. Simple, isn't it? How does it taste? Of course nice! Love the sauce, love the 'Si Hum', love the 'Yu Pei', love the fishball, love the Taufu, love the vege... Slurp!

PMS

2008-04-02T23:36:00.004+08:00

Of late, I learned that PMS (Premenstrual syndrome) is not the copyright for women only. It's no longer limited to only women menstruating to have PMS. Some men out there too unknowingly embrace some of the symptoms, especially emotionally or behaviorally. If PMS is to be made an adjective, some (SOME ONLY, not all) men can be even more PMS than women, from my observation. For more info about PMS, please check it out here.

Here are some of the symptoms of PMS:

Physical:
- Weight gain
- Fluid retention
- Breast tenderness
- Headaches and body aches
- Acne
- Hot flashes
- Nausea
- Cold sores and herpes outbreaks
- Constipation or diarrhea
- Food cravings
- Insomnia
- Fatigue

Emotional/behavioral:
- Moodiness/irritability
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Panic attacks
- Suicidal thoughts
- Crying fits
- Aggressiveness

So, are you suffering from PMS? Yes? No? If you are, but you are not a woman... then how ah? LOL! :D

A Tale of Mercedes-Benz and Myvi

2008-03-21T21:43:00.013+08:00

Have your car engine even gone dead in front of the traffic light? Well, if it's red light, I guess you will be temporarily safe for that particular short moment. As soon as the the traffic light turns green, I am sure those impatient drivers at the back will definitely honk at you madly and cursing you for causing the jam.

It was totally a different story from an incident that I witnessed this morning on my way to work at Damansara Jaya, PJ.

It was red light, and I was stopping in front of the traffic light at the T junction with GSC on my right. Right in front of the opposite traffic light, a Myvi's engine just went dead. At the back of the Myvi was a Mercedes Benz. In an urgent manner, the Myvi driver quickly got down from his car and went to the Mercedes. I was not entirely sure if the Myvi driver was a Malay or Indian man as I was watching from a distance. The Mercedes driver, a Chinese man in his early 40s, got out of his car, had a short discussion with the Myvi driver and swiftly boarded the Myvi. Before I could figure out what they were up to, the Myvi driver started to push his car with the Chinese man in the Myvi trying to bring the car back to its life.

After about 10 meters, the Myvi started to move chokingly and it was quickily driven and parked at the parking bay at the left side of the road. The Chinese man passed the Myvi back to its owner and he quickly ran back to his Mercedes which was left in the middle of the road with the engine on. I was not sure if there was any passenger in the Merc as I couldn't see clearly from my car.

It was already green light while the 2 men were in their effort of saving the Myvi. Surprisingly, cars at the back blocked by the Mercedes in front patiently switched lane and drove past the Mercedes, without honking at all.

I wasn't sure if the 2 men know each other, but I was deeply moved to see how one helped another. I was also sure that other drivers who witnessed the incident would feel the same too.

Election was just over and the people power has prevailed in the first step of a much desired change. The incident linked me to some thoughts. After 50 years of deliberate division, a god damn sin by those selfish idiots to fulfill their own political agenda personal interest, What I witnessed today was totally priceless and was really really touching! It has demonstrated the maturity of the people and has shown that we Malaysians, regardless of race can actually live in harmony and help each other. For those whose hands are filled with 50 years of sin, you will be irrelevant very soon!

For The First Time

2008-03-11T23:00:00.003+08:00

On 9 March 2008, for the first time in my life, I woke up feeling hope, not for myself, but for the country. What a feeling! I believe that a lot of people are feeling the same too, smiling from within their hearts, and happy with the 12th General Election results.

The people have spoken! The wind of change has created the biggest tsunami in the Malysian politics which has been dominated by BN for the past 50 years. Enough is enough! The 12th General Election has witnessed the opposition denying BN from a 2/3 majority in the parliament as well as capturing 5 states including Penang, Selangor, Perak, Kelantan and Kedah, with Penang as the biggest shock. Am not going to elaborate further on Malaysian politics and the election here as there are so many better sources out there.

Fo people who are pesimistic and doubtful about the change and the ability of opposition, give an opportunity to the people's choice to prove it. Don't forget, WE, the PEOPLE, are the BOSS. We hire and we fire. If the new government doesn't deliver, we can change it in the next election like what we have just done! For those who couldn't be bothered to register or vote, get the facts right, people is the cause of existence of politics. No people, no goverment, and hence no politics. Whether you like it or not, you are part of the country's politics. At times, bad candidates are voted by good voters who do not vote. Every single vote represents a voice and every single vote counts! Please exercise your right!

8 March 2008 would definitely be a date to remember. It marks the beginning of a new era for Malaysia.

Am really looking forward to a better Malaysia for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, and culture! If there is a reason to feel hope, just feel it!

Little Sasha Said

2008-02-23T22:37:00.007+08:00

Went to KY’s place on Chap Goh Meh night to learn how to make vegetarian ‘Siew Ngor’.

The sweet little cutie, Sasha (aged 6?), who is sort of like a PR at KY’s house, came into the kitchen to join the crowd.

When Sasha first saw me, she asked KY in Mandarin.

Sasha: Is this your friend ah?
KY: Yes.
Sasha: So skinny one?
Me: You are also so skinny what.

Hahaaha… LOL! Everyone (KY, KS, and I) in the kitchen burst into laughter. What a ‘Little Skinny’ calling the ‘Big Skinny’ skinny drama. Sasha has such a skinny and tiny body but she doesn’t look that skinny from the pictures that KY took though. She is THIS skinny and I am THAT skinny (for people who know me in person, you know how skinny I am), and she was calling me skinny. That’s funny! Hahaha :D That’s how we started our conversation, with the skinny commonality. We clicked well quite instantly in the kitchen.

While watching us to make the ‘Siew Ngor’, she was talking a lot and asking a lot of questions and I bullshitted with her with some nonsense.

She was drinking a winter melon packet drink.

Me: Since you are drinking winter melon drink, so you are little winter melon lor? You see, you look like the winter melon in the packet too, slim slim and small small.
Sasha: So what are you then?
Me: Human lor!
Sasha: If I am a small winter melon, then you are a BIG winter melon lah!

LOL! She’s so smart! She then continued.

Sasha: Then Ah San jeh jeh is BIG BIG winter melon and KY jeh jeh is BIG BIG BIG winter melon!

LOL! She continued to talk and ask non-stop.

Me: Can you speak Cantonese ah?
Sasha: Can. 'Hou kan yiu wong' (好紧要黄/旺) ah! (That’s the famous phrase from the Digi ad).
Me: Wah, so wong ah?!
KY: Give '4 ge zi’ lah. ('4 ge zi=4个字 in Mandarin, which can mean 4 numbers or 4 words in that context. KY meant 4 numbers)
Sasha: Hou kan yiu wong (好紧要黄/旺)! Hou… Kan… Yiu… Wong… (counting with her fingers), 4 words lor!

LOL! You will never expect what a kid can answer you!

Sasha is such an adorable and humorous little one! She had definitely added a lot of fun to our ‘Siew Ngor Night’. LOL! :D

A Coughing Chinese New Year

2008-02-14T00:29:00.003+08:00

I am back from Chinese New Year holidays!

Had a miserable coughing CNY back in hometown. I headed home for CNY with sorethroat and cough, at the very wrong time. When I was back home, sorethroat had subsided but the cough had worsened exponentially.

Chicken being one of the main dishes almost on a daily basis during CNY, I took a few pieces of them and 1 piece of dried meat made of chicken. Believe it or not? Like a curse, my slowly subsiding cough had worsened dramatically and drastically! I coughed terribly at night till 3-4 am at midnight, waking up my whole family with my disturbing cough. The saying of not to take chicken when one is having cough has been testified and proven to hold some truths! So, touch wood, if you ever get cough next time, never ever take chicken or you'll suffer! Don't play play!

So, no Mandarin Oranges, cookies, cold drink, and hot and spicy food for me this CNY. Lots of food and drink that I couldn't really take though they were right in front of me! Kanasai! It was darn demotivating! I was losing appetite and didn't really each much.

The weather was super hot, like sauna. I was staying at home most of the time, resting, watching TV, playing with my niece and nephews, had mahjung with sisters or went online. Well, while online, people kept sending me different URL with photos of Edison Chen sex scandal, which is one of the hottest news in town now. :) Didn't manage to catch up with many friends, only managed to meet up with Ms. Aeroplane and WL who's back from Sydney for CNY with hubby and little Isaac. Ang Pow? Not to mention. I didn't get much as I didn't visit any relatives or friends except Ms. Aeroplane and WL.

The only delighting moment was when mum, dad and my second sister stroke 4D on the New Year Eve. I was happy for them though I didn't strike any. Since it's CNY, everyone was having the mentality of 'once a year only' to bet or gamble in order to 'fatt choy'(strike fortune). Almost my whole family members were betting on a few streets long of numbers EACH, which was a bit too 'happening', like money isn't money. Anyway, this would ONLY happen during CNY, never during normal days.

It short, it was quite a boring CNY. I have coughed away my CNY and 1kg of hard gained weight! 1kg means a lot to me! For me, gaining 1kg of weight is as hard as some people trying to lose it. Give me back 1kg of weight!!!

Home

2008-02-04T23:03:00.000+08:00

I am home! After driving for 2 hours 15 mins for a journey of 210KM alone on the North-South Highway, I am finally home to start my Chinese New Year holidays.

It's really a relief that the traffic was smooth and there was no jam at all. Glad that I have strategically made the right choice of day to go home to avoid the massive jam.

Sorethroat is slowly subsiding but I am still coughing like no body's business. Damn hate coughing! Turned the air-cond to blow side way to avoid irritating my throat but I still coughed sporadically while driving on my journey home. It was very torturing! It had given me a little excuse to speed a little to reach home faster, as the traffic was damn clear.

Going home for Chinese New Year is supposed to be something happy and exciting... but it seems to have also become a nightmare of massive traffic jam which is really testing patience.

Last year's experience was a total nightmare. I attemped to go home 'twice' on the same day before I actually got home. The jam started right after Damansara Toll in PJ and after about 1 & 1/2 hours, I still hadn't reached Sungai Buloh! If you are a frequent traveler on the North-South Highway, you know what I am talking about. I wanted to pee so much, but the traffic was not moving, and the nearest rest point was nowhere to be seen. If I continued to get stuck like that, my urine bladder was going to burst for sure. When I was near the Gurthrie highway exit to Shah Alam/Klang, I made the decision to exit and detour back to PJ to sleep, of course to settle the urgent business first! I went back again at night. It was still jam but less jam and more tolerable. I was glad for my decision to detour. The massive jam was from Damansara Toll to Jelapang Toll in Ipoh, covering 200 over Kilometers and it was covered in the front page of all the major newspapers! It took 6-8 hours for a journey of 2 hours plus to reach home if I chose to continue the journey in daytime.

Enough of recalling last year's experience. Dog tired of driving and coughing today, but feel peaceful as I am home and not part of the victims of the massive jam this year. Time to hit the sack.

Wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year. For those who are traveling home, safe journey home. For those who can't come home for Chinese New Year for a reason or another, Happy Chinese New Year too and home is where the heart is.

Curry Car

2008-01-22T22:04:00.000+08:00

While other people own a Curry House restaurant, I owned a CURRY CAR last night.

Had a long day running around to client's place at Shah Alam and back in the office. On my way home after work, I turned to Damansara Uptown to pack the yummy Curry Chee Cheong Fen with fried dried shrimp and Yong Tau fu from Yip Hup Kee for dinner.

God knows, the curry sauce spilled and splashed on the window, the door and the safety belt of the passenger seat in front. Not only that, the curry disaster also contaminated both sides of the window as well as on the cushion on the left side of the back seat! Don't ask me how could it happen technically, it just happened! Damn it!

I was dog tired and hungry, and there's no way that I was going to spend time to clean the mess myself. Thus, I sent my car (which was just washed not long ago) for washing at a Shell petrol station on my way home.

At the car wash of petrol station, I was having problem communicating with the 4-5 workers there comprising Bangladeshis (I assumed) and Indonesians. The Bangladeshis were helpful but just couldn't understand what I said when I was telling them to clean off the curry sauce in the car. When I was trying hard to explain to them, 1 of them asked me if it was 'darah' (blood) in the car while I repeatedly mentioned 'Curry'. I almost vomited blood. Their English and Malay proficiency as you and I know, are registered under private limited. On the other hand, the Indonesians workers were showing bad attitudes. There were like deaf and not listening when I spoke to them in Malay. I had to stand there to supervise them (even using sign languages) to get rid of my problem, to wipe off the curry sauce inside my car before they turned stain.

RM10 gone for the car wash. Not much of an issue for the RM10 but the frustration, tireness (as I started to have sorethroat and feel like falling sick) and the hunger...

What a day! #$@#%#^%&%^*^&(&*)*()*()*(!@#!@#!$!

I am done cursing... and I am still breathing.

Moment of Truth

2008-01-06T00:51:00.000+08:00

The weather wasn't good on Sat. It rained in the afternoon and was still drizzling a little in the evening. I had to call off my plan to go for an evening jog in UM campus, where I usually jog. I went to the gym at my apartment instead. Comparatively, I prefer to jog outdoor as I can feel to progression as I jog and enjoy the natural scenery. However, indoor gym would be the alternative due to weather or if I am lazy to drive out.

I jogged for 45 minutes and cycled for about 15 minutes. After an hour of exercise, i had a good sweat. It was around 7:30pm. I went up to my place only to realize that I left the key of the extra padlock (recently added) in my room! 1 house mate has gone to Taiwan while another was out for dinner. I didn't bring my handphone with me too since I was just downstairs, within the apartment compound.

Without handphone, how to contact my house mate for rescue?! So shit! Since I couldn't go in, I went down again, wandering around, trying hard to recall my house mate's mobile no. No matter how hard I tried, I still failed to recall hers and other contact numbers of some friends who have my house mate's number. Those contact numbers that I can remember off hand belong to friends who are too far away to come to my rescue. I was wandering here and there trying to figure out who could I contact and trying hard to remember their numbers. Unfortunately, all my attempts failed thoroughly.

Imagine with my sweaty body after exercising for 1 hour, with chilling wind blowing everywhere that I walked, I felt so cold. I was looking for a place that's less reachable by the chilling wind but there was none! I felt hungry too.

Finally, I decided to go to the guardhouse for shelter. I borrowed the phone and made a call to a friend who is usually quite mobile, and whose number that I could remember. Too bad, he was in Kajang and too far away to come to at least take me out for dinner instead of just waiting endlessly.

Knowing my house mate as a not so outgoing person, I decided to wait for her to come back as she normally won't be back too late. I waited patiently at the guardhouse. The guards actually passed me a locksmith's contact number but I decided to hang on for a while.

Time seemed to pass so slowly. Apart from being uneasy with my sweaty sticky and body, I started to feel tired and hungry. How I wished the time to pass faster or my house mate to return earlier. I had been wandering around and waiting in the guardhouse till 9:30pm. What if my house mate was returning very late or not returning for the night? Finally I decided not to wait any further and called the locksmith considering if I I kept on waiting and if the night got later, I would be dying of hunger and the locksmith might charge me double or sky high.

Within 10 minutes time, the locksmith arrived. He was a tall and fair guy. He brought along all his gears from lightweight to heavyweight. After he looked at and examined the padlock, straight away he told me, that kind of padlock is very hard to open, and suggested to saw the 'ears' of the gate, where the padlock was placed. I told him to try for a while first before using that ultimate solution as it will be troublesome for me to get people to seal it back. I even told him that I would rather pay him even without him opening anything if my house mate came back any time, than sawing the 'ears' of the gate.

Anyway, he kept on trying while I was praying hard that my house mate would return in time. He kept telling me it would be better to use that ultimate solution while I kept buying some time. I asked for the last 5 minutes and he agreed. On the 4th minute, he was already getting ready to saw. I asked him to hang on for another minute as time was not up yet and told him that a lot of things can happen in 1 minute.

Suddenly, I heard a 'ting' sound and saw some people coming out from the lift. I was dissapointed that I couldn't find any sign of my house mate's face from these 4-5 people that walked out from the lift. On a second glance, in that moment of truth, I spotted a familiar face and it was my house mate! Thank God!

'See, I told you!', I said proudly to the locksmith. He smiled at me and said, 'Luckily you insisted till the last minute.' However I still needed to pay the locksmith the minimum charge of RM50. He's a licensed locksmith and he did show me his license and the list of authorized charges. At first, I was trying to negotiate for a lower charge but after that I saved my saliva to bargain with him and paid him RM50. He deserved it as he was willing to come to my rescue (though no actual rescue done ultimately) so promptly and don't forget it was on Sat night. Guess what? I had only RM51 of cash with me, just enough to pay the bill with RM1 left. Haha...

It was around 10:30pm when I actually got in to my place and I hadn't even had my dinner! Was initially planning to cook rice & dishes for dinner if the homeless incident didn't happen but I could only settle with Indomee and tofu, a speedy istant dinner. What a night!

I wasn't angry or anxious in the process of waiting as it wouldn't help. Instead, I was calm to think and waited patiently. The sky wasn't falling down anyway.

Was I lucky or unlucky? Come to think of it, it was my own carelessness that lead to this homeless incident and I would consider myself lucky at making the right decision at the critical moment, though there was a price of RM50 to pay for it.

If there is a piece of white papar with a dark spot on it, I choose to see the white area rather than the dark spot to make myself feel better. Move on, life goes on!

2007 Flashback

2008-01-01T23:32:00.000+08:00

Another year has passed. As we grow older, the more we feel the lost of time as each year passes. There are so much more to be done and yet time is passing without slowing down, whether we like it or not.

Looking back at the year of 2007, these are the few things that flash back in my memory.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Somewhen in January, I went to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for 4 days to attend my ex-company annual conference, gathering 13 offices from Asia. Most of the time, we were attending back to back seminar and training in the hotel ballroom or outdoor team building event. It was more tiring that working! From the conference, it reflected that in the name of commitment, some people have actually traded their life balance and even the importance of family for monetary rewards and to survive the highly demanding and pressured environment. My inner self was wondering ‘do I want to be like them?’

I didn’t really have the chance to visit the city much due to the tight schedule. What I would not forget about the city was the chaotic traffic and mentally torturing non-stop honking noise, fatal road accident every single day (life is so fragile on the road in HCMC) and the most disgusting taste of pork on earth that I’ve ever tasted in my life when I bit on a spring roll! I almost vomited! I wished to have more time to see the city.

Unhappiest Chinese New Year Ever
I am a person who works and plays hard. I can be working very hard through out the year but Chinese New Year is a time for me to rest and be with family and friends. 2007’s was the unhappiest Chinese New Year I’ve ever had. Due to the selfishness of some bitches, I was deprived of spending adequate precious time with family and friends back in hometown. I’ve never encountered this before in my previous years of working life. I started to wonder, where has this person (that I respect as far as work is concerned) positioned the importance of family in her priority of life… Work seems to supersede everything, including her family.

Home
Felt no sense of belonging with my last job, the house of notes, and the city at times... I headed for home very frequently, more frequent than I can expect. Just wanted to get out of town, stay at home, do nothing and enjoy the tranquility and mum’s delicious cooking. When I needed a sip of Ipoh white coffee, Ms. Aeroplane was always there for me, and she still is.

New Beginning
There were a few new changes in 2007. I took big risk and opted myself out of an environment where I don’t belong to. I quitted my last job and I shifted out of the ‘House of Note’ to my current place where I can cook again, and I learned something about ‘Wok Seasoning’ when I bought new wok for cooking. I bought a new anti-static mattress to ease my static dilemma. I am happier now with all these changes that I have chosen. If you are stuck, find your way out.

Blogging
Started my first ever blog in April and my Chinese blog followed in September.

KK Trip
Went to the Land Below the Wind in May. Had a great time with Padas River white water rafting, Mount KK hike, the seafood, coconut pudding, grilled clam… the memorable ‘will you marry me drama’ and every moment of the trip. It’s the most luxurious hiking trip that I’ve ever experienced as compared to my other previous hiking trips.

Good Luck or Bad Luck?
My luck had been on a roller coaster ride. One moment I could be darn lucky and it could be followed by a bad luck incident the next moment. Fell at the staircase and sprained my ankle 1 week before my KK hiking trip. Fortunately, I managed to recover in time and still made it to the summit. Got parking summon from MBPJ for the monthly pass that didn’t stick well on my car’s windscreen and dropped out of sight of the officer. Stroke 4D (with small amount of reward) a few times this year. Hehe... Got an ugly triangle burn scar (which seems no sign of going off… sigh…) on my left hand while cooking in a camping trip. I slipped and fell 3 times in 60 seconds (for unknown reasons…) at the Curve and it was legendary! Till today, it still puzzles me how did it actually happen.

Tioman – The Island of Cat
I went to Tioman Island in August for an escapade with some friends who went diving. We stayed at Salang Bay. Since I am not a diver, I took my own sweet time to relax on the beach. Unfortunately the trip was pretty much spoilt by cats! I was VERY MUCH ANNOYED with the presence of cats all over the island, especially when they surrounded our table each time we dined. I couldn’t really eat or wander around in peace. Don’t ask me why, I just don’t like cats and am afraid of them!

Fireworks, The Aeroplane & the People That I Miss
Went to catch the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition at Putrajaya for 20 minutes of splendour with 2 hours of jam. Saw an aeroplane flew passed the sky filled with the splendid fireworks and it reminded me of people who are apart from me. I actually miss them and I wish them all the best, no matter where they are.

Wonderful People
Met some wonderful new friends including some special ones and I enjoyed the moments spent with them. It takes sincerity, truthfulness, caring, sharing, understanding, and acceptance of differences to reap the most out of friendship.

Damaged Hair
Rebonding is an inaugural event for my yearly calendar for easier maintenance of my hair throughout the year. I have never had any problem with rebonding as my hair stylist has been doing a good job for the past few years. I was lazy to locate where my hair stylist’s salon has shifted to, and I wanted to try a new salon at Taman Megah, PJ. The result was disastrous! Money and time spent, and my healthy hair was severely damaged and it looks like dried grass! I was so pissed off and sad! Lesson learnt, always stick to the hair stylist who understands your hair the best and can always do a good job for your hair.

Many Late Nights
Hit by facebook mania and couldn’t stop watching HK TVB series one episode after another! Spent many late nights on both. My Panda eyes are getting darker and darker. This is not good. 1 of my New Year resolutions is to sleep early!

New Toy - Sony Ericsson K770i
My Nokia 6020 just died all of a sudden till it couldn’t even be fixed or turned on. I was forced to get another new phone. As X’mas was approaching, I got myself a new Sony Ericsson K770I as X’mas present. It’s the most expensive X’mas present ever for myself.

I Wonder
Started to wonder where have all the teachings and values gone for some people, when it comes to pursuing personal happiness and love. Reality hurts…

X’mas
I had a round of gluttony at Datin’s place on Christmas Eve. We, the ladies were being asked by R if we are ‘L’ (Lesbian). Ahahaha… We are definitely 200% not ‘L’ and but we are ‘L’adies.

New Year Eve
I had dinner, spent my New Year eve in church, and had Satay for supper with some friends. I am not a Christian but have no issue attending church on certain occasions. I have been to church a few times prior to this. Enjoyed some of the hymns and gained something from the preaching. Peace is in a person. I think peace is most needed for a friend who is suffering from depression at the moment. I wish her to find peace in herself. From the dinner and the Satay session, I learned that Prince of Sweet & Sour Pork is a hardcore fan of anything sweet & sour other than pork and he actually drinks (instead of eating) Satay sauce, and Mr. Ice Bandung can actually have 2 more cups of Ice Bandung during supper after having 1 cup during dinner. The spirit is really hardcore, man! Ahahaha… Well, there is nothing wrong with it as they are just being faithful to the choice of food or drink that they love.

There might be some memories in 2007 that have slipped my mind but it doesn't really matter. Life goes on and there's a wonderful year ahead, I hope.

Wishing everyone a happy and a better new year in 2008!

Random Facts

2007-12-10T22:19:00.000+08:00

Got tagged by KY.

1. A movie that made you laugh.
She's The Man. It was hilarious!

2. A book that made you cry.
Hardly read books nowadays. Read blogs, magazines and newspaper more. Can't really recall a book that made me cry. But there are 2 books that caused me many late nights - 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Angels & Demon', both by Dan Brown.

3. A best friend.
I am grateful to have some good friends around. They walked into my life at different stages of time. Some are old friends with friendship that has lasted for ages till now and some are new friends. Each and everyone of them holds a special place in my heart that is irreplaceable by anyone. Kind of hard to just pick one as the best. They are equally important to me and I appreciate them all. For those who are apart, I miss them and am always wishing them all the best.

4. A favourite childhood memory
Whacking durian, the squatting way! My whole family loves Durian. Whenever dad bought back some Kampung Durians (in those days, there were not many sophisticated choices like nowadays), we would squat in a circle in the kitchen area. Dad would open the Durian, and the rest of us would be waiting in excitement and filled with expectation on each Durian. Needless to say, when a Durian was opened, everyone was so swift in grabbing and whacking the Durian. It was always a clean sweep!

5. Your favourite animal.
I am more of a plant person. I dislike and am fear of any animal with fur or feather, with cats & dogs topping the list, and penguin an exception. Anyway, I would just stay away from them and won't harm them. But when they approach me...die, man! I would scream out of fear if I don't manage to shoo them away. If I seriously need to pick one, I think I would pick fish, no fur or feather mah! Ahahaha :D

6. Your favourite food.
I love Butter Cheese Crab. I am a food lover and have a variety of favourite food. It's hard to just pick one. Apart from crab, I also love anything hot and spicy, Asam Laksa, Prawn Mee, Tomyam, Sambal Belacan, Curry Noodle, Fried Kuey Teow, Popiah, Pan Mee, Ipoh Hor Fun, Seafood, Dim Sum, Prawn Cracker (Cucuk Udang, Chinese version, with prawns on top), Rojak, Lok Lok and a lot more! Damn, salivary gland is hyperactive now!

7. An item of clothing you can’t do without.
Baggy T-Shirt. I am most comfortable in T-shirt and short pants/jeans plus slippers.

8. Something you collect.
Corks from wine bottles. So the next time you drink wine, please keep the cork for me. I also collect some nice liquor and perfume bottles.

9. Your favourite store to shop in.
Ikea. Feel like home and so comfortable when shopping there.

10. Your favourite flower.
White Calla Lily.

No one in mind to tag. Please feel free to tag yourself and let me know. :)

How Come?!

2007-11-30T21:43:00.000+08:00

Flying
It was a strange encounter. Time had brought me back to the food stalls at my hometown, before the place was renovated to a more organized hawker centre, I guess more than 15 years ago. It was at a stall near the drainage, where an uncle used to (he is still selling but now at the renovated hawker centre) sell my favourite fried wantan mee, I saw some familiar faces. I definitely know them but just couldn't recall their names. What were they up to, gathering there? I didn't know why I was there. I was just standing there observing these people.

OMG! They were putting up flying machine, which has a pair of wings (like an angel's) attached to each machine individually. One by one, off they flew up the sky, to start their journeys of adventure to somewhere. I noticed one of them wasn't maneuvering the flying machine well, flying a bit clumsily. I shouted, 'Hey, spread your wings, flip them! Fly like a bird!'

I was standing there, like an idiot, seeing one after another of them flying like a bird in the sky. Some thoughts suddenly stroke me. What the hell was going on? Were they imitating the Wright brothers? I believe I can fly? Don't we have aeroplane? Why were they flying? How come I wasn't flying with them? How come? How come?

Off I went. I didn't know how did I get to walk pass a corner near the staircase of an old shop house. KM and a friend were sitting there at a round table, having some books with them. 'Yii...? How come you guys are not flying with them?', I asked. 'We are not so much into the sky, more keen on the sea. We are planning to get open water certification to get our diving license.', replied KM's friend.

I was very confused with my encouter, with different people from different time put together for all these strange things that I had witnessed.

The Happening Gathering And The Black Guy
Within a flash of time, I was already at KY's place. AJ, JK, Gas Stove, KS (KY's sister), KY, and I were watching TV, munching junk food, bullshiting, and laughing loudly and happily in the living room. KY's mum, Sasha, Lok Lok and some of KY's other family members were also there, having a good time at the mini party. It was so damn happening and the atmosphere was filled with happiness and PEACE. Yes, it was peaceful, no blood shed, no war, no fighting between Gas Stove and JK. Both of them didn't stab at each other AT ALL! Hahaha... :D

I was sitting with my back facing the staircase. Sensing someone walking in, I spontaneously turned my head to check it out. I saw a black guy, dressed in a Taliban way, with his face covered with a piece of cloth, only leaving his eyes to be seen. I basically couldn't differentiate whether he was an Indian or a Negro as his skin complexion was so dark and he was nicely wrapped from face to toes. I stared right into his eyes and just felt uncomfortable with him. He was going upstairs without even saying a single word to anybody in the living room, treating everyone as transparent. I immediately asked KY, 'Eh, you know him ah?' KY replied that he's her uncle. Since when KY has a strange black guy as uncle? I was confused. How come? How come?

Back To The School
The noisy us, comprising JK, AJ, Gas Stove, KS, KY & I went to school together. Huh? Back to the school? I thought I have graduated from university and have been working for few years already? Since when I attended the same school with this combination of people? Anyway, JK, being the tallest and biggest in size and almost the eldest in age, acted as the gang leader (大鬼头). We were like a gang of mischievous students but far from gangsters, ok. Hahaha... We were late for classes, making a lot of noise during classes, and having fun in school. Was that real or just an illusion? I don't recall such memory in my life. Had I travelled to another continuum of time via the time machine? How come? How come?

The Kuih Sellers and The Exam
On a beautiful morning, KY was driving me to school to attend an exam. While walking to collect her car, I saw Gas Stove and KS, selling 'chai kuih' (flour skin stuffed with sengkuang slice [沙葛], kuchai [韭菜], and dried shrimp) at a stall at the road side. The 'chai kuih' were made by KY's mum. They were sitting there leisurely, chit-chatting while waiting for customers. Didn't they have to go to school? How come? How come?

KY drove me to the school with her Kenari. We headed to the exam hall and got sitted. Wah, happening wor! YY was also there. I was sitting behind YY and KY was sitting at my back. Ahahaha...The noisy trio in the same column! We were sitting in the center of the exam hall while the boys were sitting quite far away from us, at the right side.

The examiners started to distribute the exam papers. When I got my copy, I was so surprized to find that the exam papers were being recycled from the earlier exam session. There were some scribble and answer marks on my copy. The questions were in objective and there were 100 of them. It's been ages since I last took any exam. My mind suddenly turned blunt. I was scratching my head and find it a bit difficult to get the correct answer in a speedy manner, like in my heyday.

After answering a few questions, I spotted something wrong. How come my set of exam questions had suddenly increased to 200? How come another 100 questions had suddenly and magically been added on top of the original set of questions? Shit! Was I shading the correct answers on the right answer sheet?

KY whispered to me.
KY: Eh, put your answer sheet sideway a bit ya. We all share share the answers.
Me: Ok ok, no problem!

I continued scratching my head with the objective questions.

Moments later, KY whispered to me again, like Columbus had discovered new found land.

KY: Fuyoh! My paper was used by a very smart student earlier on. I know him. He is very smart one! I've got answers for all the questions. There are answer marks left by him on the exam question paper. His answers are sure correct one!
Me: Wah! Then we don't need to scratch our heads liao!

Gosh! We were cheating!!! How come? How come?

'Dwi dwit dwi dwit dwi dwit...' My alarm clock rang. I woke up, laughing, and all my 'how comes' had been automatically answered. It was merely a series of strange and funny dreams. Ahahahaha... :D

20 Cents of Mercy

2007-11-19T22:32:00.000+08:00

It's Monday night. As usual, I went to the pasar malam at SS2 (within walking distance from my office) to do my marketing for some fresh vegetable, fish and some cooking ingredients.

It's normally getting more and more crowded as the night gets later, and the human traffic flow would be super slow, which is something that I am quite impatient with. I would normally go early, sometimes as early as around 5pm, dash to certain stalls to do my purchase and dash my way out before it's too crowded.

I was a bit late today as I had some work to complete in the office. Walked there around 7pm. I Sped to certain stalls to grab some fresh vege, fish, some shallots, my favorite chicken wing (almost a weekly affair, haha), and fried loh bak ko for dinner.

Bought a piece of kurau fish from a lady fishmonger, who is nice enough to sell me 1 piece (yes 1 piece) of the fish out of a plate of 4 pieces that are normally grouped together for selling as an UNIT. I overpaid the lady fishmonger by 20 cents and she returned the money to me. With the 20 cent coin in my left hand, in terms of movement, I was having a little bit of difficulty to put it back to my purse which was in my handbag as my right hand's fingers were fully loaded with bags containing choy sum, lady's fingers, tomato, fried lo bak ko, and chicken wing respectively.

When I was attempting to unzip my handbag, all of a sudden, a tupperware-like plastic container conveniently appeared right in front of me, in the perfect position to 'fetch' my 20 cents coin. It happened so suddenly that it took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening. The plastic container was handed by an old lady who was begging for money. From the physical appearance, the old lady begger is in her 60-70s, probably. She is just a normal old lady in 1 fine piece, without any physical disablement. Out of convenince plus some mercy, I gave the 20 cents coin to her without much thought to save me the trouble of putting it back into my purse. After getting the money, off she went and I continued my way.

Yes, I do give money to beggers sometimes, but only selectively and to those who deserve my sympathy. There are too many of beggers out there. How much can you give? How are you going to differenciate which are the 'real' ones and which are from syndicates?

After a while, I bumped into her again after 1-2 minutes and guess what? She handed the container right in front of me AGAIN, 'asking' for money. I was a little bit annoyed and I told her, 'Ah poh, I had just given you money a while ago!' and I walked off with a mixed feeling.

Was that greed? Did she seriously not remember that I had given her money a moment ago or was she too old to remember the too many faces that she had begged money from at the pasar malam? I didn't want to furhter ask myself too many questions on her or guess there might be saddening reasaons behind her begging, as I don't have the actual answers. After all, she's old already and I wasn't really that angry with her.

While driving my way back, I gazed at the sky while waiting for traffic to move. The sky linked my thought to the GREAT act of our dearest country of wasting millions of RM of the tax payers' money to send a so-called 'astronaut' (some called it space flight participant) to the space with the second 'astronaut' on the way soon. It really really pissed me off! There are so many social problems out there not taken care off and millions of money is being thrown into the space! Kanasai! Ok, let's not talk about this sickening topic. Really 'HORSE HEAD PIG BRAIN'!

Coffee & The Shit... And The Kidnap!

2007-11-12T21:45:00.000+08:00

Due to some unexpected incidents, I ended up having a round of bowling, lunch, and movie at 1-U on Deepavali day with some friends instead of going back to hometown on the night before. Basically, different people (including some new faces) turned up at different session. It didn't really matter and I had a great time.

After the movie, off I went, heading for the North-South Highway for my way home. There was supposedly another round of yum cha awaiting me in Ipoh when I reached there. Who knew, Ms. Aeroplane called to pospone it to Friday night. Well, I headed home straight away to enjoy some left over homecook food for a late dinner.

It's been a common event recently to meet up with Ms. Aeroplane(a pretty and mighty dragon which resides in Ipoh), whenever YY & I happen to go back to Ipoh together. Our meet up station has always been Old Town Cafe at Greentown. Literally, Ms. Aeroplane got this name from me as she's good at FFK, and has FFK for numerous times over the years. Well, surprizingly, she's shown great initiative and her turn up rate at meet up and yum cha is superb recently.

This time around, we decided to go to Cheong Kong (长江) Kopitiam at Jalan Pasir Putih for some nice Coffee. I was waiting at YY's place for Ms. Aeroplane to pick us up. While waiting, I called up Mr. Pig Head who happened to be in Ipoh with Mrs Pig Head, if he wanted to join us to 'blow blow water'. Mr. Pig Head was fine to join us but he told me that he wanted to shit first before going. He was telling YY the same thing before meeting up with her to yum cha the night before. What a shitty pig ass!

The Aeroplane and the Pig Head had never met each other before. Due to all these shitty excuses, the Pig Head had got a shitty new name from the Aeroplane, SHIT KING! Ahahaha... :D

When we were at Cheong Kong, we couldn't find parking. We detoured to our old place, the Old Town Cafe in Greentown. Called the Pig Head a few times to inform him about the change of plan. Who knew the newly crowned SHIT KING didn't pick up the many CALLS that I attempted. I was puzzling if the SHIT KING was really shitting that long. Finally he called back, after his shitty business, I supposed.

Ms. Aeroplane, YY & I were nicely enjoying our drinks and chatting at Old Town Cafe. Mr. & Mrs. Pig Head turned up almost an hour later.

(All conversations were in Cantonese)

Me: Eh, finished shitting already ah?
Mr. Pig Head: No lah, didn't shit wor. I used that as an excuse to come late only mah. Hehehe...

What a shitty pig ass!

With their arrival, we ordered a few variety of toast. We were bullshitting after whacking all the toast. 4 young long-hair nerds (长毛怪，named by Ms. Aeroplane, haha) walked in and sat at a table near us. Suddenly, Ms. Aeroplane asked if anyone had smelt any strange smell. I spontaneously answered no. Moments later, one by one, we smelled a nauseating shitty smell except Mrs. Pig Head who was lucky enough to have a blocked nose at that moment. The smell spread at light speed and contaminated the whole surrounding. People around started to cover their nose and were talking about the shitty smell.

To break the silence of the shitty atmosphere:

Me towards Mr. Pig Head: You didn't clean your ass after shitting ah? So smelly one!
Mr. Pig Head: I didn't shit lah!

Having sharp observation, Ms. Aeroplane confirmed (instead of suspected) that the shitty smell was from the table of the 4 long-hair nerds. 1 of the nerds stood up and walked to the toilet. He was being suspected as the culprit who stepped on and brought the shit in. The remaining 3 were being observed, I guessed not only by us. The guy came back to his seat moments later. Noticing that people were talking about the smell and staring at them, feeling embarrased, they left before even making any order.

Story didn't just end there. Ms. Aeroplane and Mr. Pig Head who were sitting at a better angle to 'examine' the stools, had spotted one with shit stain and concluded unanimously who the real culprit was! It was a guy sitting next to the one who went to the toilet. They even pointed out the color of the shit! Yuck!

YY: It seems that the shit is quite fresh.
Mr. Pig Head (towards Ms. Aeroplane): Wah, you smell shit better than anyone else!

After the 4 guys left, problem wasn't resolved yet, the smell still remained. Ms. Aeroplane (who is a regular at the Cafe) waved at a waiter to come over.

Ms. Aeroplane (smiling): You must have smelt something very smelly leh? Do you wish to know why?

The waiter didn't know what to react on her sudden question and just nodded with a smile. Ms. Aeroplane pointed at that chair with shit stain and told the waiter it's the source of the smell. The waiter smiled and immediately took away the chair for washing. Anohter waiter came to mop the floor. Finally the smell was gone! Fortunately the shitty smell stroke after we had finishsed our food, or else you can imagine how nauseating it was!

After a while, we decided to go to Cheong Kong for some bean sprouts.

Mr. Pig Head (with his cheeky expression): Bean sprouts chicken? Oh, ordering chicken (叫鸡 in Cantonese) is very nice. Ahahahaha...
Me: Come, we'll bring you to order chicken, and we'll order the bean sprouts. Not ordering also take a look, not taking a look must also touch...

Mrs. Pig head's hand was already pulling Mr' Pig Head's ear! Ahahaha...

Mr. Pig Head: Wah, you ah, really pig dog friend(猪朋狗友)。 Bachelor night, I must include you.

FYI, Mr & Mrs Pig Head are going for ROM very soon.

Conversation (all in Cantonese) started to run wild from shit to chicken. Ahahaha...

Finally, we moved our butts and headed for Cheong Kong. We ordered some bean sprouts without chicken and I ordered another cup of Ipoh white coffee after a cup in Old Town Cafe prior to this. Just love it! Leisurely, we enjoyed the short, fat and juicy Ipoh bean sprouts as well as our coffee and some newspaper as if we were having dim sum and enjoying the tea in the morning.

The Cheong Kong's owner's daughter, who is also a friend of Ms. Aeroplane's, joined us for some crazy chat.

We left only when the shop was about to close.

Really enjoyed the coffee and the night. I drove my way home and hit the sack.

Yiiii..., how come that woman who bowled alone next to our lane at 1-U suddenly appeared??? She was driving a brown color Proton Saga. What was she trying to do? Oh no, she was kidnapping Ms. Aeroplane! She drove her car into the room that I was sleeping in. What the heck were all these riduculous things? Ms. Aeroplane disappeared! Confused and terrified, I screamed the loudest I could, "Ahhhhhh....!!!Where is ah Ho?!..." Ah Ho is how we usually call Ms. Aeroplane.

My mum shouted my name loudly to find out what happened and tried to pacify me.

Shit! I was dreaming and screaming! I woke everyone in the house up by my horrifying scream! I got up to go to the toilet. Cast my 1/2 closed eyes over the antique clock on the wall. It was 4am in the morning...

I seriously hate dreaming, especailly bad dream! I was terrified, tired and a bit reluctant to get back to sleep. I laid on the bed, praying hard that I wouldn't get another bad dream when I continued sleeping.

What a way to conclude my day. How could that woman at the bowling alley come into my dream to kidnap Ms. Aeroplane? I have really no idea...

Facebook Mania!

2007-10-17T23:16:00.000+08:00

I have been seriously hit by the Facebook mania recently! "Are you on Facebook?" is the hot question asked lately.

When I first heard about Facebook from JL, saying it's the IN thing nowadays, I just took it lightly as another friendster, Hi5 or multiply kind of site, without much interest in signing up. The second time I heard people mentioning Facebook was when JT asked me the same hot question of "Are you on facebook?". I didn't give it a damn as well. Later on, I started to receive facebook invitations that kept flooding my mailbox. Out of curiousity, I decided to sign up.

Wow, damn! It's such an interesting whole new world out there on the Facebook. Initially, I was still a little bit confused and clumsy when using its features. After a while of exploration, I have started to get the hang of it. There's so much fun and discovery. There are so many things that you can do and cool applications that you can play around with in Facebook. Till this very moment, there are still a lot more for me to explore.

The best part of it, people who have lost in space or evaporated ages ago all emerge on the Facebook like a submarine resurfacing. I have found quite some long lost friends there and am in touch with them again. How wonderful! I have even made a kinda outcasted dear friend from the Internet, Ms. Aeroplane Ho to sign up in Facebook to be in touch with the rest of our old friends. What a reunion. Facebook is really connecting and reconnecting people.

With the borderless platform provided by Facebook, I suddenly feel closer to people in my friend list, no matter how close or how far apart they are from me.

The downside of it, Facebook can be quite addictive! I have been having quite a number of late nights, exploring or playing around with Facebook. I have been playing scrabulous with KY and and EL, eerrr.... don't ask me at what time, OK? Ahahahaha... :D

If you still have no idea what Facebook is all about, check it out at www.facebook.com. Watch out, you can be hit by the Facebook mania! Opps, free promo for Facebook! :)

Static Dilemma

2007-10-07T22:08:00.000+08:00

Have you ever got sparks or mild shocks when you touch things or even other people?This phenomenon is a result of electrostatic discahrge (ESD). I have been having this problem on and off for some years and it has recently reached the next level.

Prior to that, static electricity (electrostatics) to me, was merely a physics lesson learnt during secondary school. The memory of it remained at some simple experiments such as rubbing a plastic ruler with a wool cloth and attracting small pieces of paper to stick on it as well as rubbing the plastic comb and causing flyaway hair. But today, it has become a nuisance that bothers my daily life.

What the hell is static electricity (electrostatics)? Static electricity is electric charge at rest, generally produced by friction or electrostatic induction. It is an imbalance in the amounts of positive and negative charges found within the surface of an object. Whenever two different insulating surfaces touch together, opposite charges within the two surfaces become separated. Simply walking across certain rugs or plastic flooring will cause your shoe soles to touch the dissimilar material of the rug. This is enough to separate the negatives from the positives and create imbalanced electric charges on the bottoms of your shoes.

Static electicity appears whenever the normal quantities of positive and negative electricity in a substance are not perfectly equal. Remember that everything is made of atoms, and atoms in turn are made of positive and negative electric charges. In other words, your body is just a collection of positive and negative electrical particles. Normally the positives cancel out the negatives, and everything behaves electrically "neutral." No mysterious sparking. But if you ever end up with more negative than positive, or with more positive than negative, then you have a charge-imbalance on your body. You will get zapped the next time you touch a large metal object.

Static electricity can be irritating in daily life. Clothes cling together, sparks fly and you get shocks. All sorts of things happen.

Take a look at my shocking incidents/records with sparks and pain in recent years:

Shock x 3 times from a trip from my seat at the office to pantry
I was working at an office which almost occupied the whole floor, separated by a corridor. I was sitted at the other office and the main office was where the pantry was located at. In order to go to pantry, I got to pass my office door, and the main office back door. I got shocked by these 2 doorknobs, and the door frame at the pantry. 3 shocks with sparks in a short trip of less than 20m! It was freaking painful! A lot of people got shocked, till my office doorknob was actually wrapped with a cloth. Guess what? I still got shocked, almost as a daily affair!

Rising hair with crackling sound
My hair can easily get frizzy and the volume increases substantially in air-conditioned office with low humidity. In the same mentioned office, whenever I combed my hair with a plastic comb, can you imagine what happened? The hair rose with a series of crackling sound, like firecracker burning!

Office cubicle and human touch shocks
At my own cubible at the above mentioned office, I often got shocked by the cubicle edge and I forgot what material it was made of. Sometimes, when colleagues touched me on my clothes, I got shocked too and it was me who always felt the pain. Why me?! At times, I could even touched certain people and shock them AT WILL, but ended up feeling the pain myself. Haha!

Shopping complex shock
Got shocked in 1-U once when I accidentally touched a friend's hand.

Car door shock
I was a frequent victim of car door shock but fortunately I am getting less in lately.If you ever have me as your passenger and observant enough, you will notice that I will normally close the car door by pushing my knuckle on the window, to minimize the pain if shock ever happens.

Petrol station counter shock!
There was once, when I walked to the petrol station counter after getting out of my car, can you imagine that I got shocked when my hand touched the counter with a spark?! It was bloody painful. Thus, whenever I bump petrol, I will normally use the key to open the metal lid of the petrol tank, instead of my bare hand.

Potato shock!
This was the most riduculous and amazing shock that I've ever experienced! When I was trying to touch a potato at TMC Supermarket at Bangsar, I experienced this crazy potato shock, totally out of my expexctation! It was so damn painful!

Trolley shock
My fingers (again, my right hand) got shocked a few times when pushing a shopping trolley at Carrefour 2 months ago.

Mouse/notebook touch pad shock
This is the most unwanted type of shock and it has become a serious problem for me in recent days though it doesn't really shock me with sparks. Whenever my bare hands are in touch with mouse or the notebook touch pad, I feel a lightweight current flowing through my hand, causing an uncomfortable feeling, some light pain at times, and sometimes reflexation at certain parts of the body. The reflexation will cease immediately after I remove my hand from the mouse. Guess what, I've tried covering my mouse with tissue paper or cloth, but it doesn't really help much. I can still feel something flowing and it's seriously uneasy. I have just bought another mouse today, but still feel the lightweight current flowing. I have to use the notebook daily to do my work. Can anyone out there suggest me a solution to get rid of this nightmare? HELP!

This 'shocking' problem is no 'syok' at all, and has been causing every inch of my muscles to tense up all the time and I usually don't sleep well.

Guess what? I have bought a new queen size anti-static mattress and a pair of anti-static pillows of Getha brand recently. This is a solution to discharge the static electricity probably accumulated all over my body, especially my right hand which is using mouse and and gets charged on a per usage basis.

My new queen size anti-static mattress

Anti-static feature

Anti-static pillows, buy 1 free 1

Getha Brand

Anti-static protection feature on the pillow

I got the mattress for a promotional price of RM950, which is selling at about RM2K at normal price, and the pillows at RM239, buy 1 free 1. Yes, these items have really caused a big hole in my pocket but it's worth it. Whenever I sleep on it, I can immdiately feel something flowing through my hands (which are normally charged by using computer, especially my right hand), being discharged. I sleep better nowadays and wake up the next day more refreshed and with hair less volumed.

I still have another problem of 'mouse shock' problem to get rid of. Anyone out there has got any remedy to share?

Last Weekend Revisited

2007-10-01T01:07:00.001+08:00

Time really flies. Another weekend has come to an end. Nothing interesting about this weekend and I am sitting here, blogging about last weekend, though a bit outdated. Haha... no choice, weekdays are normally occupied by work and tireness after work. Time is always not enough.

21/09, Friday - Happy Birthday!
Let me begin with last Friday. Went to Ed's place for Dan's birthday celebration. It was another round of gluttony after Yung's birthday party not long ago at Ed's place. This round, I bought some Chinese kuih-muih comprising cucuk udang, angku, kuih talam, kuih sengkuang and a lovely piggy pastry (猪仔饼, made of ingredients similar to mooncake's, but yokeless) with a cute yellow ribbon on its piggy head. KY bought a walnut cake. Ian bought some Teow Chew pastries. Yung bought ham yuk choong. Henry bought Ice Cream. The great host, Ed cooked prawn mee and Dan, the birthday boy brought himself.

While waiting for others to arrive, the hungry quad - Ed, Yung, KY & me whacked partially of the kuih muih and ham yuk choong, destroyed the evidence, be back to our positions, and continued waiting for the rest, as if nothing had ever happened. Haha :D

While the rest had finally arrived, Ed cooked delicious vegetarian prawn mee for everyone. It was then followed by makan-makan of the various food that we bought. Before the pig cutting ceremony, we were betting if the piggy pastry contained any filling (馅) inside or was just a plain pastry. The losers got to wash the dishes. There were 2 votes of from Ed & Ian vs 5 votes from the rest. Guess what, the answer was YES, piggy had got fillng, u know. Haha... Ed & Ian lost!

Apart from the gluttony, it was a happy Friday night filled with laughter. Really love this bunch of people, they rock!

Got home at 12 something mid night. I got to continue with another task, packing for my Berkelah Waterfall trip on Sat morning. When I finished packing and showering, it was close to 3am on Sat morning! Gosh! I was left with 2 1/2 hours to sleep before waking up again at 5:30am.

22/09 & 23 /09 Sat & Sun - Hutan Lipur Berkelah

The alarm clock rang at 5:30am. I woke up with a sleepy head, got ready and headed for Johny Bravo's place to gather.

This was my 3rd trip to Berkelah Waterfall. There were 5 guys & 5 gals going for the trip this time. Except Johny Bravo (1 of my old time outdoor kaki), I knew non of the rest. My car was 1 of the 3 event cars. Johny Bravo and I took turn to drive, with his friend as the passenger in my car.

The Karak Highway was a boring route. Lots of lorries and cars that drove at snail speed and suddenly slowed down, turned left or right without showing signal earlier. It was kinda torturing as I had to stay very focus on driving, with only 2 & 1/2 hours of sleep the night before.

Lost count of how many hours that we had driven till we reached 46KM before Kuantan. From here, we took a lorry ride of about 10 to 15 minutes to reach the starting point to hike up to the waterfall.

It was a 2+ hours of hike with slippery rocky paths. The weather was god damn hot and the sun was burning. When we reached the wider and flatter camp site, it was already occupied by a group of people. We proceeded to set up our tents and kitchen nearer to the waterfall. After the set up, it was about 3pm. After biting some bread with tuna and some junk food as so called lunch, I wanted to take a nap but it was just too freaking hot to do so.

Some had already jumped into the waterfall and cooled themselves down. I can't really swim, thus I was just wandering around to kill time, kept asking why was the sun not setting yet. It was god damn bloody freaking hot!!! Finally I couldn't take it anymore and went to soak myself into the waterfall at the shallow edge, with legs still able to touch the ground. The water was damn cooling. After a while, I came up and proceeded to the kitchen to help out Johny Bravo for our mega meals for dinner.

I thought my role was merely the assistant cook as I promised him earlier. Who knew, he asked if I could cook the dinner. Well, since I had never cooked during any hiking trip before (I only cook in the kitchen), I took up the responsibility as the chief cook. It was actually quite fun and challenging though as there were only a pot and a spoon instead of wok and spatula. I had assitants helping to cut and wash the ingredients, passing me this and that, holding the cooking pot and rinsing the pot. Ahahaha... I felt like a queen, as I could just focus on cooking, the most enjoyable part from the entire process of cooking, skipping the preparation and the washing parts.

Guess what? I had no idea what Johny Bravo had bought and what to cook. Thus, like movie making, he acted as the director and gave instructions on what dishes to be cooked. At times, he even forgot what was supposed to be cooked with what. Ahahaha... Well, that was not really an issue. With my experience, that was easily solved by cooking the ingredients in the right combination. :)

I spent 3 hours sitting on the rock, cooking 7 dishes altogether! It was tiring till I stood up at intervals to exercise my knees and buttocks that were getting numb. While I was busy cooking, an unanticipated accident happened. while I was trying to reach and grab something infront, my left hand accidentally touched and got burnt by the gas canister, with fire just off! It formed a wound of cooked skin near the curve between my thumb and the second finger, with a dimension of 2.5cm x 2.3cm x 1cm. Damn it! I just fell 3 times within 60 seconds and injured my left wrist, with the bruises still on my butt a weekend before and here came another injury 1 week later.

OK, back to the dinner cooking. It was getting dark. I passed the baton to the assistants to complete the last dish as I needed to shower at the waterfall before it got too dark. You know, I can't really swim.

It was dinner time. Let me present to you our mega dinner comprising the following dishes:
1. Scrambled eggs with tomato, union and fried garlic
2. Japanese tofu with minced chicken
3. Potato with minced chicken
4. something with minced chicken (Aiikkss! Can't recall what this dish was, cooked too many dishes till confused. I remembered dividing the minced chicken into 3 portions.)
5. Oyster sauce mushroom
6. Mixed Vege
7. Sardin, sausage and chilly in 1 pot

Don't play play, probably more luxrious than you normal dinner at home. Haha...

The moon was so bright and we were having real moonlight dinner by the waterfall. Romantic, huh? hehe... Too bad, there were not many stars seen.

After dinner, they rest played game while I, who almost K.O out of exhaustion went back to the tent to get some rest. Initially thinking of getting some sleep and then got up for yuba barley dessert (fu chook yi mai tong sui), cooked by Johny Bravo. I was just too exhausted that I decided to let go the dessert.

After dessert, it was bed time. Some went to sleep in the tents while some decided to sleep outside to enjoy the gentle breeze by the waterfall.

Not knowing what time it was, it started to rain, HEAVILY! Those who were sleeping outside started to stampede back to the tents. Johny Bravo who was already wet decided to sleep outside in order not to contaminate the tent. I was 1/2 awake, hearing him walking here and there, making sure everyone was OK.

It wasn't over yet. Some tents got flooded a bit, including my tent but with the lightest extend. Some mentioned that they were like sleeping on the water bed. Haha... I was sleeping at the side, could felt the wind blowing and some rain got splashed into the tent. My backpack got wet and I found my hair got wet a bit the next morning I woke up. I wonder how Johny Bravo slept outside alone and stood the cold.

The morning had broken, and it was Sunday morning. The waterfall was so misty as a result of the heavy rain the night before. I could even feel the water breeze blowing towards out camp site.

Guess what we had for breakfast? We had pan mee soup, luncheon meat and fried anchovy. We had coffee and tea too, courtesy of Serene, the 'tea lady'.

By 10am, we finished packing and got ready to descend. The sun wasn't that hot as compared to the journey up. Due to the heavy rain the night before, the paths were getting more slippery. A guy actually slipped and fell a few times, fortunately with no injury.

We kept going and going and finally we reached the starting point. Lorry was already there awaiting us.

Guess what? On the lorry ride back, when we were a few meters from the destination of where we parked our car over night, a branch fell from the tree and knocked right on my head! It was more accurate than hitting jackpot! No worries, no injury as I was wearing a cap.

Sometimes I really wonder why the hell are all these unfortunate incidents happening to me, in a roll. My luck has been on roller coaster. I can strike a small fortune of 4D (not much but enough to give friend a not bad treat, hehe...) 2 weeks in a roll and can also 'pok kai' (luckily minor) and got my hand burnt and branch hitting my head the week after. Sometimes, it's too much for me to take it. Can anyone tell me how to control luck and get luckier?

We headed back to KL using the East-West Highway, with much better condition than the Karak Highway.

Sorry, no pictures to share at the moment. Will update it here later if I manage to get some pics from others who brought cameras and snapped some shots of the trip.

That was all about my last weekend.

PK x 3 in 60 seconds!

2007-09-16T22:03:00.000+08:00

Went bowling with KY & AJ at The Curve this morning. It was very early, we started playing at 10 something in the morning and the whole bowling alley was occupied by only the 3 of us. Had a good session though losing 2 cups of coffee to AJ.

After the session, KY & AJ suggested me to put the bowling ball back to my car first before proceeding to lunch and they would wait for me at the Hakka restaurant that we were supposed to have our lunch.

Off I went, carrying the bolwing ball with me, walking towards the escalator. I supposed the floor had just been mopped. Few meters after I walked away from KY & AJ, I slipped and fell! Damn it! KY saw me fell and came to help me up. It was nothing serious and I stood up and continued to walk. The floor was damn slippery. Out of my expectation, after a few steps, I slipped and fell again! Super shit! No one noticed this round. I just stood up, cursing in my heart, what the hell was going on??!!! I continued to walk, and after few steps, I slipped and fell again!!! This is super duber bloody shit!!! I was in a state of shock and dumbfounded. This time around, it was an 'Oh My God' case. I twisted my left wrist. It was extremely painful till I couldn't even move my hand and stood up. A lady came to me to show her concern, trying to help. I was totally not ok. All I was feeling was the pain! I asked a fovour of the lady to inform KY & AJ who were still around a sticker stall, not far away from where I fell. They came to my rescue, probably in astonishment of 'what???!!! again???' Hahaha...I sat there for quite a while before I could feel my wrist, move my hand a bit and stand up.

KY & AJ escorted me to the car park. I felt so cacat. On the way, I didn't know where AJ got this can of cold Isotonic drink and passed to me to place it on my wrist. It actually helped to reduce the pain a bit. I was still puzzling how could the falling x 3 happen. Probably my shoes were slippery too that contributed to the falling but I've been wearing this pair of shoes quite often in the shopping mall and didn't really feel they are that slippery. What did the people at The Curve use to mop the floor? The floor was bloody slippery but it didn't really look that wet though. What was on the floor? Could it be...eerr..??? More and more questions occupied my mind. I was totally clueless. To avoid any more falling incident, I changed to the pair of sport shoes kept in my car.

We then proceeded to the flea market at The Curve to make some 'pigeon rounds' before proceeded to have our lunch at the Hakka restaurant.

This was totally strange and unbelievable!!! It was totally out of control. Never expeceted this to happen. Never in my life that I fell like this before, 3 times within 6o seconds, from 1 end to another end of an escalator, probably within 10 to 20 meters of distance!!! I am quite an outdoor person, hiking through some challenging paths also never made me fell in such an awful way!

What a 'pook kai' day at The Curve! It's really a day of history for me.

Anyway, thanks KY & AJ for your helps and the can of cold isotonic drink. Also thanks to the lady who was trying to help. AJ, about your Coffee, hutang dulu. Will definitely honour my words to treat your Coffee the next time I see you or I'll try to beat you to offset the coffee. :D

Mangoes of Sympathy

2007-09-14T23:29:00.000+08:00

September 11, is a date that the world would never forget if you recall how a huge wound was created in the history of America in 2001. September 11, 2006, Isaac, WL's son was born in Sydney. September 11, 2007, Tuesday, Isaac, the little cutie turned 1 and it was also the 1st day of the 8th month of the Chinese calender. CH & I decided to go for vegetarian lunch at Giant Bowl (the bowls are really gigantic there) at SS2, PJ.

While waiting for our food to be served, we saw a hunchback old lady, dressed in a broke way, walking in to the shop with a few bags of mangoes. She approached the customers from table to table, showing a cardboard and trying to sell the mangoes. When she reached our table, she showed the cardboard which was written in Chinese "Golden Dragon Mango (金龙芒), 1kg RM6", trying to pursuade us to buy the mangoes. She couldn't talk, only managed to sound 'iii... iii... aaa... aaa...' She's dumb. From a closer look, She looked like in her 60s or probably younger or older, I couldn't tell for sure. What I could tell for sure was she has a difficult and tough life from her hunchback, inability to speak, the clothes she wore, her wrinkes and the fact that she still needed to make a living in such a manner at her old age. Though we felt pity for her, as we didn't really have the urge to buy the mangoes, we politely turned her down.

She proceeded from table to table again. My eyesight followed her movement. Some customers didn't even look at her or respond to her, pretending that she didn't exist, showing no basic respect to her. The more I followed the more I felt sympathetic and sad for her. I was suggesting that we gave her some money without taking the mangoes. CH reckoned that she might not take it.

Finally, CH waved at her, signalling her to come over to our table. We bought 1 kg of mangoes from her, 4 in a plastic bag, just nice for each of us to take home 2. The mangoes weren't ripe yet. CH was thinking to use them to make mango kerapu whereas I just planned to keep them till they are ripe and whack them, with no expectation on the taste.

After getting cold responses from majority of the customers, she walked out from the shop to get her trolley which was loaded with some fruit paper boxes. She only managed to sell 1 bag of mangoes to us. I wasn't sure if the few bags of mangoes that she carried in to the shop were the last few left of the day or there were still other fruits left in the boxes.

Could her hunchback be caused by wrong posture and long hours of working, the hard way? She must be very poor and having a very difficult life. She is so old already and still has to work. Does she have family? Well, I respect her as she is making a living the proper and ethical way, with dignity. Unlike those who make a living the unlawful ways and those USELESS MUD who just sit there and do nothing except waiting for the TAKBOLEHHAND to cling them on the wall, she is a much much much better and more respectable person.

I just couldn't take my eyes off her with sympathy and some questions and thoughts in mind, till she disappeared from my view.

To conclude September 11, 2007, I bought 2 mangoes of symphathy.

20 Minutes Of Splendor, 2+ Hours Of Traffic Jam

2007-08-27T22:08:00.000+08:00

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

2007-08-27T00:06:00.000+08:00

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

2007-08-17T23:13:00.000+08:00

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?

5 Things

2007-07-13T00:47:00.000+08:00

I have been ‘tagged’ by KY. My mind was rather foggy initially, wondering what this tag thingy is all about. After some observations, I’ve finally figured it out. Asked KY a silly question to seek confirmation on it. :) KY, forgive me for my ignorance on this, as I am still a new kid on the blog. Hehe…

5 things found in your bag
I have definitely more than 5 things in my bag. While guys can always do without a bag, they may wonder why women always carry handbag wherever they go . First of all, men’s apparels come with POCKETS that allow them to conveniently keep their stuff such as wallets, mobile phones, and keys. Can you imagine how would it look like if women’s clothing is to come with lots of pockets and each pocket is filled with the woman stuff ? Christmas tree or Mr. Beggar Soo (苏乞丐), perhaps?

Here are 5 main items found in my bag apart from some other stuff:
1. Definitely my purse - The moment you go out, it means spending money.
2. Mobile phone – I can’t live without my mobile phone. Feel insecure if I go out without bringing it along.
3. Keys - my car keys and house keys, in a single big bunch.
4. Lip care – a Nivea essential care lip balm, and a Red Earth lip stick. I use the lip balm more often.
5. Wooden Comb – to avoid the sparkling sound (of the discharge of electrostatic) that I'll get from combing my hair with a plastic comb. Ya, I am physically easily charged with electrostatic, which is something annoying, and not that I wish to have. Once upon a time, I was easily shocked by electrostatic when I touched the door knob, car door, cubicle edge (plastic material) in the office or even at the counter of the petrol station, and most fantastically, by human or potato touch! One extreme experience was I even got shocked when I touched a potato at the supermarket! I hate it, because it's painful and I am always the one feeling the pain if the shock is by human touch. The shock occurance has reduced over time. Anyway, of late, I became the victim again of such shock, by human touch. As usual, I was the one who felt the pain, while the other person felt nothing at all.

5 favorite things in your room
I have lots of stuff in my room, accumulated over 10 years of staying in KL. Some are even in boxes, nicely put under my bed, yet to be unpacked from the last round of shifting. Talking about things in my room, I will need to do a round of mass housekeeping, downsizing, and throwing or giving away for things that I don't need anymore. Ya, I'll be moving soon. Moving is never a fun thing to do. Well, there are reasons why people don't stay where they are.

1. Long mirror - which I stand in front of it daily, applying my skin care or the extremely light make-up (I am not a make-up fan, only apply it when I have appointment at work, skin deserves to breathe some fresh air), ensuring that I look OK each time before going out, and the combing my hair before hitting the sack.
2. Sony CD player - which plays me nice songs.
3. CDs - ya, majority are from the pasar malam with only 2 are original. :)
4. DELLnosaur - my 15.4 inches, 2.81kg gigantic dell notebook which allows me to do my work and go online.
5. Fresh Cell Mask - This is my favourite facial mask. It's a gel base mask containing salmon roe DNA that has a refreshing and regenerating effect with intensive hydrating effect. It's a mask that I can even use as moisturizer.

5 things you have always wanted to do
1. Pack my backpack and fly far far away to see the world.
2. Learn piano - an unfulfilled childhood dream.
3. Photography - to capture the world from different angles. Pathetically, I don't even have a camera. Hahaha...
4. Buy 2 houses - 1 in Ipoh & 1 in KL/PJ. Need money money money!
5. Sleep earlier - Panda eyes are getting darker, and it's not good. Trying to sleep by 1am or 12:30am or even better by 12am especially during weekdays. But once I start sleeping late, I tend to stay late subsequently and form the habit unconsiously.

Again, I have more than 5 for this. I also want to start a blog in Chinese soon. Have not been seriously writing in Chinese for so long... I guess my last piece of proper chinese writing was probably an essay assignment/test durng form 5.

There is another thing that I am seriously considering doing and might be doing it very soon. You'll see. Will need some post-implementation moral support as I will go through an 'ugly' period for at least 2 years. Anyway, life goes on. As I age, I find that I am more inclined to taking more bold steps and decisions without much hesitation. If I have 80 years of age to live, I have already gone through 38.75% of it. Time is getting more precious, and I learn to realize more things about my life and to appreciate more. Not looking back, I wanna leave the rest of my life to the fullest with no regret.

And many many more...

5 things you’re currently into
1. Getting over a recruitment project. Suffering a little bit of withdrawer symptom after involving in it for about 2 months, a bit too long. Praying hard that all our hardwork and efforts will be fruitful.
2. Blogging - it's a whole new world out there in the blogging world with lots of fun, learnings and discoveries. Might not be as productive as those active bloggers, will try to write more whenever I have the time.
3. Collecting and discovering nice music. Have been buying CDs (from pasar malam of course) with nice songs or to discover if other songs in the CD are nice. Have been trying to find out the title and the singer of some nice songs that I come across. Thanks to E who helped me to download the mp3s of 'Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt and 'The Rose' by Bette Midler. Am listening to these 2 nice songs when my mind needs some calming and soothing.
4. Ugly Betty - really love the show. It's shown on 8TV at 9:30pm every Tuesday. Check it out.
5. Getting ready to move. Got to throw a lot of stuff, start packing and looking for helper.

5 people you want to tag
I don't have many active blogger friends that I can think of tagging. Think I'll have to pass this.

Phew! I have finally completed this piece of tag.

Land Below The Wind - Part 2

2007-07-10T01:23:00.003+08:00

Yes, finally, here comes my KK trip part 2, after 1 & 1/2 months. Though it's not freshly brewed, I have tried hard to retain the memories before they fade out. :)

13 May (Sunday) - Mesilau, here we began

Couldn't really sleep well (as always) the night before. I was having the worry of oversleeping and whether I could dispose some accumulated old stocks in my digestion system first thing in the morning before getting ready to climb. Having constipation during traveling is really a pain in the ass! The feeling of 'stuck' and not being able to 'dispose' is really mind bothering...

Forced myself out of the bed as early as 5am in order to have sufficient time to have 'enough' food and hot drink to stimulate my intestine movement to achieve a very important goal - to defecate! I had biscuit, cake, & bread one after another and a cup of hot cereal. After a while I finally felt the urge to poo. Yes, the moment of truth had come! I rushed into the toilet for this important mission. Err...it was explosive like the eruption of the volcano, and it's a lot... but please don't ask me how it smelt, ok? Hahaha... What a relief!

Ying Goh picked us up at 6:30am. We were targeted to reach the starting point at the Mesilau Nature Resort and started climbing at 8:00am. On the way to our destination, we stopped by at a dairy farm. The scenery was captivatingly beautiful. With Mount KK as the background, coupled with the fresh air, the big green farm, the clear blue sky, and the herds of cows wandering leisurely on a Sunday morning, it formed a very invigorating scene, giving us some New Zealand feel. We were told by Ying Goh that 1 of the dairy product TV ads were actually shot here. Everyone was happily posing for their best shots. Before reaching the starting point, we stopped at the National Park headquarter near the Timpohon gate to place our big backpacks, bringing only 1 small backpack with us for the climb. We reached the departing point at the Mesilau on time, and most of us bought a walking stick worth RM3 each, which YY called it as the best investment of the year! Haha...

We started climbing at 8am. YY who had decided not to go for the climb had to find her own programme while waiting for us to complete the climbing task.

There are actually 2 routes that one can take to climb the Mount KK, 1 being the Timpohon Gate, and the other is Mesilau. Both Timpohon track and Melilau track will join at Layang-Layang Staff Quater after 4KM and 6KM respectively. From Layang-Layang, there is another 2 KM of journey to reach the Laban Rata Guest House, where people stay 1 night for the first day of climb.

The 6KM Mesilau trail before Layang-Layang comprises a mix of ascending and descending tracks, which makes it more interesting. The walking stick had been in great support for me as it reduced the intensive use of the knee. As we ascended, it was getting colder and colder till my fingers were slightly numbed and painful, and I couldn't really feel them properly. 100 plus had been our useful drink for energy restoration. It was so revitalizing for every single sip of it, feeling the immediate replenishment of energy. We paced constantly and made a few pit stops when necessary for short breaks to have some bites of food and drink for energy. For each stop, we couldn't afford to stop for long as it would be very cold. At certain points, wind was blowing quite strongly. Thus we just kept going and going, enjoying the nice scenery along the trail.

The trail is really luxurious comparatively. There is a rest point for every 1 km, with water point and clean toilet with flushing system. The toilets are cleaner than most of the public toilets in KL. The water refilling speed after flushing is super fast!

When it was just a few hundred meters away from Laban Rata, it started to rain. Isshh...We quickly put on our raincoats. Too bad, most of our shoes got wet. After about 6 hours, Thong, GW, Pocket, BK & sister, Xena & I completed the 8KM climb to reach Laban Rata around 2pm.

It was cold at Laban Rata. We quickly went to take bath before the heater went off in the evening. An hour plus later, pig head and LC arrived, with LC looking a little pale. We had our expensive lunch at the cafe, at least RM15 for a plate of noodle or rice. Well, come to think of it, looking at how the porters transport the gas, food, and other supplies up the mountain with their physical strength, the prices are well justified with a valid reason. After lunch, we quickly went to bed to get some good rest in our dormitory with 4 double-deckers, squeezing the 9 of us.

Again, we had our expensive dinner at the 1 & only cafe. GW ordered 1 Tomyam soup & 1 plate of fried rice. After tasting the Tomyam soup, I decided to order Tomyam Meehoon. Who knew it didn't taste like Tomyam at all, more like Bandung. Aiks! No Umh at all! RM15 leh! Pig head ordered another bowl of Tomyam. Guess what? His tasted in between mine and GW's. Wah, how come there was no QC at all?!! It's really a tale of 3 Tomyam.

Guess what, while we were chit chatting after finishing our dinners, the group of Malaysian guys working in Singapore arrived. They went for the same rafting trip, trying to act superior, simultaneously instilled in some hostility in most of us against them. Anyway, according to BK, there's 1 of them who was friendly and having better attitude. I forgot what time it was, I guess around 8pm. My goodness, that means, the ‘elite’ group took around 11-12 hours assuming they started around 9am??? BK deliberately went and said hi to them and showed off a bit, the same time trying to gather some 8 news about them. We were really amazed by BK's bravery and curiosity. We couldn't stop laughing. Haha...

We found out that there' was shoe and clothe drying services available. Thank goodness, without hesitating much, we decided to go for it at a price of RM10 per pair after negotiation. Or else, we would be in our uncomfortable wet shoe the next day. Some opted to dry their clothes too at RM4 per piece.

After that, we went to bed super early as we needed to start climbing again at 2:30am to conquer the peak the next morning. For me, it meant insufficient sleep again.

14 May (Monday) - Conquered the summit & a night to remember

With a sleepy head, I woke up around 1:45am. After getting ready, we went down to the 1 & only cafe for our expensive breakfast. Most of us chose the buffet breakfast. I usually can't eat much in the morning, especially at this kind of odd hour. Well, I tried to eat more as I would need lots of energy for the journey to conquer the summit. Anyway, I didn't dare to eat too much as my 'daily affair' was not settled yet at this kind of unusual hour.

We gathered at 2:30am for a short briefing. The temperature was 9.4'C, and it was dark and freaking cold. Everyone was nicely wrapped from top to toe, and looked like a member of the special task force (飞虎队). We started climbing around 2:45am with our torch lights and small backpacks.

It was all uphill tasks, which covered a 2.5KM journey from Laban Rata to the summit of Low's Peak. I was half awake & half sleepy. As I ascended, the more I felt the gravity. Energy was consumed faster than the food could be transformed to glucose. I started to gasp a little as the air was getting thinner as the altitude increased. While stopping and waiting for people in front to proceed, I looked up at the sky which was filled millions of shinning stars. It was stunningly beautiful. I wished I could pause a little longer to admire the beautiful starry sky, but I couldn't. We just got to keep going as it was cold. Mucus just couldn't stop exuding from my nose as if I was having running nose.

At certain points, the chilling wind was howling frantically like nobody's business, as if it was giving us a warm welcome. Again, my fingers were freezing and painful. We made some short stops to have some chocolate bar & 100 plus and moved our butts to keep going right after we were done.

The air got thinner and thinner as we approached the summit. Slowly and steadily we marched forward, fighting the chilling wind and the coldness simultaneously. I was gasping with mucus exuding non-stop from my nose. I kept asking the guide " jauh lagi kah? ... sampai ah?" a few times, couldn't wait to reach the peak to have a rest.

Finally, Thong, GW, Pocket, Xena and conquered the summit, Low's Peak at 5:30am! It’s 4095m above sea level. The sun was just setting. The sunset was breathtaking, not only because it was beautiful but it really took us a lot of breath to reach the summit, and view the same sun that sets at the east every single morning. Haha... :) There were already quite a crowd of people there at the peak, occupying the nice spots to enjoy the magnificent view of the summit.

Xena & I were sitting fixedly and emotionlessly, enduring the cold while the rest were busy snapping shots. According to the guide, it was about 3'C at the peak. BK & BH reached a little later, as BH was suffering from altitude sickness and BK needed to take good care of her. Pig head & LC appeared and joint us at the peak at last. The rest were so busy taking photos that Xena & I had decided to descend a little bit from the peak and hided under a big rock pathetically while waiting for them to finish their photo taking sessions.

Guess what, when the rest finally settled with the photo taking, the guys challenged each other to take off their clothes at the peak and they did! It was freaking cold up there! They had really gone crazy! Anyway, they were not totally naked though, with pants still on. :)

After all the craziness, we proceeded to descend. While descending, I had already felt my knee aching.

We got back to Laban Rata, had some food and drink, rested a while and started to descend again. This time around, we took the Timpohon track, which was a 6km journey from Laban Rata. For me, Timpohon was a relatively boring trail. It was completely downhill, and was filled with so many staircases! The staircases were killing my knees!

After about slightly more than 4 hours, the 5 of us reached the Timpohon gate, while BK & BH, Pig Head & LC joint us later. We then headed for the National Park Head Quarter to claim our big backpacks that we deposited there earlier on and proceeded to Nepenthes Villa where we would be staying for the night. YY was already there waiting for us.

We occupied 2 units, 5 of us each. The design of the unit resembles a townhouse, 2 rooms on the top, and there's a big and cosy living room, a balcony, a kitchen and a fire place downstairs. Oh no, staircase! I was already walking like penguin, having enough of staircase from the climb! It was a nice and cosy place but the water was not so efficient. If it is used, the other person has to wait for 15 minutes before it functions again. It was cold, and we didn’t want to die freezing bathing with the cold water.

After cleaning ourselves, we went out to a town 20km away for our dinner. Everyone was tired except YY as she had ample of relaxation while we were climbing. Haha... After dinner, we headed back to the Nepenthes Villa to prepare for a big event.

Yes, it was Pig Head proposing to LC! AT the living room of guys’ unit, we had got a proposal banner which wrote “Li Charng, you are the princess of my life. Will you marry me?" hanged on the fire place and a don’t-how-many-carat diamond ring surrounded by burning candles which formed a heart shape, awaiting LC. Never know that Pig Head could be this romantic. When everything was ready, we called Pig Head to bring LC over.

As a result of lacking of rehearsal and coordination, some unstipulated circumstances occurred!

We turned off the light. Pocket being the 'flash man' who would flash the torch light at the banner when signal was given, got into position at 1 corner while GW, the camera man, hided at another corner. The rest of us hid at the corner by the staircase and some in the kitchen.

Suddenly, someone shouted "Fire! Fire! ” It was the tray holding the candles that was on fire and the fire almost reached the ring box in the middle! Spontaneously, I blew hard at the candles to put out this small fire. Everyone was laughing at this unexpected fire at the crucial moment. No more romantic heart shape candle light. How ah? The show had to go on. BK was trying to lock the door to buy some time due to this unstipulated incident. The moment BK reached the knob, Pig Head and LC had already arrived.

BK: I am going to sleep liao.
LC: Why are you sleeping so early?
BK: I am suddenly not feeling well. U guys go ahead to help yourself.
LC: Why sleep so early? Don't bluff lah.
Pig Head: Come, I have something for you. (Leading LC to the staircase to go down to the living room)

LC: Why so dark one? Why off the light? Why are there some heads? Why are there people hiding there? Aren't them human? Want to scare me is it? Crazy... (Puzzling hard with many why)
Pig Head: Look at that. (Leading her to go down the staircase, pointing at the banner)
LC: See what? I can't see.
Pig Head: There, look at there.
LC: I can't see. I didn't wear my spectacles!

Duongiao! We were already 'silently' broken into laughter but holding it hard, Ahahaha... Pig head slowly lead LC to the sofa, which was a better position to view the banner. Pig Head signalled pocket to flash the banner and pocket did.

Pig Head: You see.
LC: I can't see! I didn’t wear my spectacles.
Pig Head: Will your marry me? (Kneeing down, with the diamond ring on his hand)

There was a moment of total silent. LC was so surprised, covering her face out of shyness.

We all popped up, laughing non-stop. How ah? LC didn’t say yes or no. We decided to evacuate ourselves out of the unit, leaving the 2 of them with the final negotiation.

We were wandering outside and it was so damn cold in the night. Someone wanted to pee and LC locked the gals' unit and took the key with her! Alamak! Why was the negotiation so long? We were wondering how would the answer be and guessing all kinds of possibilities, with lots of 'what if'. Finally we decided to go into the guys' unit again, of course silently to station ourselves in the room upstairs rather than dying frozen outside. Someone tried to open the door gently, with the lightest touch. Thank God Pig Head shouted, "Successful liao!" Yeah, what a relief! We celebrated the occasion with some junk food and drink.

What a night to remember! I believe that both Pig Head and LC would have the sweetest dream that night. I slept the best that night, out of exhaustion...

15 May (Tuesday) – Time to go home

Having sufficient of sleep, I woke up refreshed. Went out to the balcony enjoy the fresh air and warm sun light of the beautiful morning.

It was a leisure morning. We had ample time to have out breakfast, relaxing, chit chatting at the living room before packing our stuff.
We checked out by noon and had our lunch at a restaurant nearby. The food there was not bad. We then stopped by at the souvenir shop again, where YY missed the chance to shop due to her unfit condition. YY regained the shopping queen title whereas Xena’s performance wasn’t bad either.

We then headed to KK town. Before KK town, we went to have coconut pudding and whack the lokan bakar again. There were fresh crabs there too! Too bad, if it wasn’t because of time constraint due to we had a flight to catch, we would have nicely taken our sweet time to try the ketam bakar. With the craving for the crab staying on our minds, we suggested to have Seremban ketam bakar for BK’s & Xena’s up-coming birthdays. FYI, we ended up having butter cheese crab and salted egg crab at Dataran Prima, PJ.

After satisfying our stomach, we headed straight to KK Airport. While nearing airport, YY wanted to pee so badly. There was a slight jam and Ying Goh was racing with time to send us to the airport, thus he couldn’t afford to stop or we might risk being late. He asked YY to hang on for a short while, and some guys took the opportunity to tease and make YY laughed at this critical moment. Well, YY, holding hard, still managed to stay cool and respond steadily. Hahaha…

The very moment that we reached airport, YY shot to the toilet, RUNNING! Guys in the car commented “Wah, knowing YY this long, I couldn’t recall seeing her run before. This is the first time I see her run!” Laughter filled the whole atmosphere in the car. Come to think of it, having known YY for 16 years, I have never seen her run before too.

Little Tiger came to deliver the dried meat. We had the last group photo at the KK airport together with Little Tiger.

Sayonaro KK. It was time to go back. We boarded Air Asia’s AK5113 at 1820 and reached KL at 2050.

It's always nice to have a getaway from busy life...

I Am Missing Her

2007-07-02T22:29:00.000+08:00

I had my last bite of the yummy Siem Meehoon for breakfast last Friday and I will have to wait for another 2 months before I have the chance to taste it again.

Almost every morning, I will buy breakfast from a Thai lady at a stall in front of a cyber cafe at SS2. It is facing the morning market at Wai Sik Kai, and located at the same row as McDonald. Customers normally address the Thai lady as aunty.

There are nasi lemak, Thai fried rice, toasted bread, fried egg, drinks (Coffee, tea, yin yong, etc...), different variety of fried noodles which include Siem Meehoon, Mee, Kue Teow, 'Lou Shu Fen', glass noodle and sometimes a type of noodle which looks like Taiwanese noodle, and a special type of Thai otak-otak sold at the stall. Sometimes, there are some kuih too. The prices of the food are very reasonable. Due to limitted space, there are only a few tables available for customers to sit down and enjoy the food.

Out of all food, though I have not tried all, I enjoy the Siem Meehoon with the crunchy ikan bilis (bought from Thailand) and a special Thai sambal the most. I am a big fan of fried ikan bilis and her ikan bilis is the most delicious one that I've ever tasted. It's so thin (full fish body but you can't find the fish bone) and crunchy. The ikan bilis is mixed with kacang in a nescafe container. I don't fancy kacang that much, thus I will perseverely put in some effort to pick the ikan bilis out of the kacang mix. Yes, at this stall, customers can help themselves to pick their food and add the ikan bilis & sambal. Of course, being a sambal person, the Thai sambal is a must for me to spice up the Siem Meehoon. The sambal tastes so yummy and enticing that I just can't stop imagining its taste in my mind even before I cross the road to reach aunty's stall. haha... :D I like the Thai otak-otak too but the portion is a bit too big. Unlike the normal otak-otak in slim rectangular shape, aunty's otak-otak is made of tenggiri fish with cabbage as the base layer and is filled in a square mould made of banana leaf. You can taste the freshness and the elasticity of the tenggiri flesh when you bite on it. 1 piece of otak-otak is selling at RM2. For me who can't eat much in the morning, 1 piece can make me full for the whole morning.

Aunty is a very nice and friendly lady. From her physical appearance, I guess she is in her late 40s. Well, look can be very deceiving in age revelation nowdays, especially when women are concerned. :) She can speak a little Malay, a little English and a litlle Cantonese. Customers normally speak to her in English, and so do I. There is a middle age Chinese man helping aunty at the stall. Comparatively, he is not as friendly as aunty. It seems he is neither her husband nor brother. Anyway, I never bother to know what is their relationship as it's not none of my business. :) From a conversation with a customer, aunty said 'RM3.50' in Cantonese. I asked if she can understand/speak Cantonese. She replied in an adorable and loving manner, "Yes, Papa is Chinese.". So Cute!

Every morning, aunty will great every single of her customer good morning with a very pleasant smile. My engine is normally slow and needs longer time to warm up in the morning. Ya, don't talk to me the moment I just wake up, I won't have the mood to respond for this reason. Her warm greeting, pleasant smile and the yummy breakfast definitely serve as the best catalyst to wake me up and turn my engine turbo.

Recently, aunty has gone back to Thailand for 2 months. It's kinda hard for her customers to see her go because everybody loves aunty! Aunty has brought joy and happiness to people around. In this city where everyone is so busy minding their own business, where neighbours hardly know or greet each other, where most of the people are wearing a mask, how nice if there are more people like aunty around, to break the ice, and warm everyone's heart.

I think everyone misses aunty and I miss her too. If we use a flower to symbolize aunty, sunflower will be the best representation. When you see her, you'll see joy, hope and happiness.

Seems that I have to wait for 2 months before seeing her and enjoying her breakfast again. Guess what, I have asked aunty to buy some ikan bilis back from Thailand for me! Hehe... And I wanna try aunty's coffee when she's back.

Aunty, I miss you!

"WISH TO DO" vs "SHOULD DO"

2007-06-18T23:16:00.000+08:00

Yes, life has been very busy with tonnes of work ever since I am back from KK trip and I am drowning in a pool of paperwork. I have been back from KK trip for 1 month and have not been blogging for quite some time. In fact, pathetically, I only managed to finish writing the part 1 of my KK trip and Part 2's status remains "TO BE CONTINUED..." for long. It was really a good trip with loads of fun and good memories. Thus I just don't want to simply write something for completion sake.

Have been feeling time is always not enough recently. There are always so many things to do and yet so little time available. Very often, I am caught in between doing thing that I WISH TO do and I SHOULD do where there is only 1 spectrum of time available to be occupied by either one thing. In fact, I know very well that doing things that I WISH TO do or like to do will give me short term pleasure while not doing things that I SHOULD do, which always associates with some level of unwillingness, consequences will follow. Well, what to do? Reality is always cruel.

There are many things that I wanna write about but I just don't have time for it as there is just too much work for me to complete. Yes, the work is something that I SHOULD do or else I will suffer the consequences.

Blogging has been my new interest found and I find it a fun and good learning process. In order to keep the ball rolling and to generate the momentum to keep going, here tonight, I have chosen to blog over some work that I should do. Well, I will have to work double hard later to complete what I SHOULD do for this short term pleasure. :)

Sometimes it's really challenging to decide what to do when caught in the the struggle to choose between "WISH TO DO" and "SHOULD DO". Pleasure or Consequences? It takes wisdom and discipline to prioritize firmly.

My New Discovery

2007-06-11T01:37:00.000+08:00

Isn't this cool? A new discovery for me to make slide show and incorporate it into my blog. This is the masterpiece of my first experiment, by simply picking some sample photos from my notebook. It's easy and cool.

Ya, this may be nothing new for those who have already known of this stuff for ages, but for me, it's a new dicovery, being a new kid on the blog. With this tool, I can make a nice slide show of my KK trip later, without uploading the photos and maintaining them somewhere else. Things are just made easy with this cool tool. Check it out at www.slide.com.

Land Below The Wind - Part 1

2007-06-05T01:03:00.000+08:00

Yes, I am back from KK after 6 days, in 1 complete piece！ Hehe… 2 weeks before the trip, I was still worrying about my sprained ankle (I fell at the staircase), and 1 day before departure, I was down with sore throat and flu. With all these hiccups prior to the trip, I still managed to enjoy the white water rafting on the Padas River and conquer the summit of Mount Kota Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia. Not bad though. It seems that determination prevails.

Brought back loads of fun memories. At the same time, loads of work awaiting me too, after I am back. Life has restored its busy nature, and I have not been blogging for quite some time. Think I have to break the 6 days trip into 2 parts because I don't really have the time to complete writing about the whole trip in 1 shot.

Trip Participants:
1. TBK – our organizer
2. TBH – TBK’s pretty sister
3. KYY – our co-organizer, 1 of the key persons of the trip
4. Spring Pocket – The humorous and acting talent
5 CCW – Pig Head
6. TLC – Mrs Pig Head
7. NGW – Mr. Kuan’s replacement when he’s drinking or hot
8. LML – me
9. Xena – The female warrior
10. Thong – Xena’s friend

10 May (Thursday) – Lepak-lepak
Flight delay seems to be an unspoken tradition of Air Asia. The flight that we took was having 1+ hours of delay. Instead of 1415, 10 of us departed at 1520 with AK5108 and landed at KK airport at around 1810. We then took 2 cabs to Hamin Lodge, a quite new budget guest house that would be our accommodation for the first 2 nights of our 6 days trip. It’s opposite Ruby Hotel, and next to ‘Seong Tin’ (双天) Restaurant, 1 of the hot spots for seafood in KK town. It is located at the first floor of a corner shop lot and it is quite clean and not too bad for its reasonable charges.

After dumping our luggage into the rooms, we went downstairs to wait for Mr. Little Tiger, YY’s friend from KK, to join us for dinner. He took us to a night market near the Le Meridien hotel for dinner. We had some hot food: grilled fish grilled ‘carbon’ chicken wings (too much honey I guess, burnt in black color), fried mee & fried rice under the hot weather. The weather was freaking hot till ice kacang also couldn’t save the day. After dinner, some went back to the lodge for shower, while some of us went for some fresh coconut juice at a stall at the road side near the night market, to quench our thirst. Suddenly, there was a loud sound of fireworks. We stood up from our tools, trying to check it out but just couldn’t get any sight of it but the sound. After that, Little Tiger aka the ‘Mini Bus Driver’ drove YY, GW, Xena & me to wander around KK town in his MyVi. He took YY to buy dried meat (the local production), made a pit stop at Sutera Harbor, 1 of the luxurious hotels there for a luxurious toilet break. We also toured round the area where the rich locals reside, and some corners of the town, and made a pit stop at Sunny Supermarket (YY’s favorite there) for some shopping and ice-cream before heading back to the lodge. Everywhere Mr. Little Tiger drove passed, he would labeled it as red light district (鸡窦) if he couldn’t tell more about the place, what a funny KK tiger. Hahaha…

11 May (Friday) – White Water Rafting at Padas River & Luxurious seafood dinner

The excitement started today. Bus from Riverbug picked us up at 7:30am in the morning to head for White Water Rafting at Padas River, the highlight of the day. Apart from the 10 of us, there were also ‘Ms. Big Earring plus Hair Band’ & bf from Macau, and 3 other Malaysian guys in the same bus.

Padas River is situated at the interior of southern part of Kota Kinabalu that is only accessible by train (used since the late 19th century in Borneo). Basically, this trip will give you an excursion of class III-IV river, and a ride in an antique train in this new millennium.

The bus journey took us 1 & ½ hours overland through the countryside to Beaufort town. We took our breakfast there before boarding the train. From there upon, adventure began with 1 & ½ hours train rides tracks along the Padas River that gave glimpses of the thrills and excitement to come. This train ride was really one of its kinds. There was a big crowd of passengers, including local Malaysians and foreigners, heading for the Padas River rafting as it’s the peak season. The antique train (shorter than a Putra train) is not air-conditioned and there are not many seats. It was so crowded that one was lucky to get a seat. We didn’t manage to get a seat and stood all the way till the destination. It was packed like sardine and very stuffy in the train. Putra, Star and Commuter in KL have become luxurious when it comes to comparison with this antique train. We got to hold on to whatever supporting material that we could grab hold of as it was very shaky as the train moved. I was almost suffering from internal organs dislocation with 1 & ½ hours of shaking. Haha…

We made a pit stop at Rayoh Village, the ending point, which is also the Riverbug base Camp to place our bags before proceeding to Pangi Village, the starting point. Upon arriving at the starting point, we were given safety briefing before going down the river. Before the briefing started, there was this unanticipated scene, starred by Mr. Spring Pocket, conveniently hitting someone's life jacket, at the chest level saying, ”Very tight what (referring to the wearing and tightening of the life jacket)”. Some of us, who witnessed the incident, were laughing our heads off as we never expected that Pocket would conveniently/unintentionally/spontaneously acted in such a way. Ahahaha…

After the briefing the real fun and excitement started when we went down to the river for the real battle. BK, GW, BH, YY & I were in 1 boat with 2 guides while Pocket, Xena, Pig Head, LC & Thong were in another boat. Apart from us, there were easily more than 5 other boats heading for the same raft.

The adrenaline rush excursion covered a distance of 9km of this rather muddy 200 km river that holds 7 exciting and tough rapids! These rapids carry amusing names such as Merry-Go-Round Rapid, Break Point Rapid, Scooby Doo Rapid, Cobra Rapid, Curve Rapid, Lambada Rapid and Head Hunter Rapid. Each rapid gave us the feel of the motion as what the name means. It was exhilarating when we paddled past each rapid. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride on the water. At each rapid, being skinny and underweight, I felt like almost being thrown out of the boat. I got to really hang on and tried to lean my body towards the centre of the boat to stabilize myself, or else I would be thrown out without our boat being capsized. There a few cameramen shooting video along the whole journey of the rafting. The video was clear and I really salute them for shooting so professionally and managed to capture those crucial moments as the boats paddling through the rapids or capsized.

When it was near the ending point, the rest all jumped happily into the river to enjoy the body rafting. I am not a water person, can swim a little bit but not so good at reacting in the water, decided to stay on the boat with the guide till the boat embarked. Who knew the guide said, “Ah, kalau you tak turun, you tunggu lah.” Alamak, the rest were already far ahead. Spotting Xena around, I quickly jumped into the water and rafted till the ending point with her as my body guard. It was so rocky down in the water that I had to always keep my legs pointing forward or else I would be knocked by those rocks and hurt my legs.

We had buffet lunch at Rayoh Village, the ending point. While having our lunch, the video shot during the raft was shown. In such a short time, they had already edited the movie, added it with background music and put it on show with a big TV. Of course, it’s for sale, with a ‘not cheap’ price. Photo shots were already developed and displayed for sale. Wow, Riverbug’s people were really efficient! Wanted to buy a T-shirt, but too bad, it was selling at a cut-throat price at RM50 per piece. Thus I got to forget about it.

After lunch, we changed and boarded the crowded antique train, stood and swayed all the way back to Beaufort town. We were tired but just couldn’t really sleep a little in standing and swaying motion, almost looking like Orang Utan, for those hanging on to the bar at the ceiling of the train.

After 1& ½ hour, we reached the Beaufort train station. The weather was hot and we were thirsty. We had ice cream in swift action as the bus was already outside waiting for us. We jumped into the bus and headed back to KK. For the challenge at Padas River that we had gone through, we were given a certificate of achievement that was distributed in the bus. Everyone started to doze off after a while of chit chatting, with a tired body.

I woke up after more than ½ hour, feeling the slight urge to pee. Oh shit, there was no toilet on the road before nearing KK town as the route was quite outskirt. I closed my eyes again, hoping that I could sleep and hang on till reaching KK town. The bus continued moving and the urge to pee gradually increased! I could just acted like a Ninja, holding on… 忍忍忍忍忍！Finally, we reached KK town, but too bad there was slight traffic jam as it was after office hour and it wasn’t convenient for the bus to stop for a toilet break. So shit, I could even feel a slight pain in my bladder as a result of holding the urine which was about to come out for too long! Finally, the bus stopped at Berjaya Hotel to drop the 3 guys. I rushed into the toilet, couldn’t even walk straight! What a relief after settling the business. No joke, man! It was my worst experience, ‘detaining’ my urine.

Finally, we got back to our lovely Hamin Lodge, took our refreshing shower, getting ready for an interesting seafood dinner, courtesy of Pig Head’s kind sponsor. J We headed for Port View (不夜天) seafood restaurant. We had green lobster sashimi, lobster head soup, scallop shark fin soup, ‘seven star grouper’ (七星斑), chilly crab, and vegetable with rice. Yummy yummy! Guess what, the bill came up to RM600++! Hahaha… Was sure pig head felt the pinch though he’s earning SGD. Anyway, we were not that cruel to let him bear the full cost, we paid him back about ½ of the cost later.

After dinner, Pocket wanted so badly to have some beer to reduce his fire caused by the freaking hot weather. We proceed to 1 of the pubs, with sea view. We had some Qin Dao (青岛) beer. It was quite smooth and soothing. Again, Little Tiger was joining us for the beer session. He turned up close to 11pm as he was supposed to appear at 10:30pm. I asked Little Tiger what the name is of the place that we were having beer (with pubs and café, with sea view). Again, he irrelevantly answered “Oh, this place ah, is red light district (鸡窦)”. Everyone burst into laughter and I was speechless…What a tiger!

We were tired, and headed back to Hamin Lodge to call it a day while Little Tiger, YY & Pig Head continued their second round at other place.

12 May (Saturday) – Tour De KK town and Kundasang Leisure Stay

It wasn’t a good day for YY for she was down with food poisoning, probably due to the Teh-Si she had the night before. She was having diarrhea and vomiting.

Mr. Ying our agent came to pick us up with a van around 9 something in the morning. His surname is actually Toh, and his last name is Shu Ying in Mandarin, thus we gave him a new name in Cantonese, Ying Goh for easier addressing. He is a PHD student of UMS and has been residing in KK for almost 10 years, 1 of the pioneer badge of students when UMS first started. He is a Fu Chow, thus calculus & making business must be his areas of expertise I suppose. Thus, he takes up part time agent/tour guide job on & off. He took us to tour round University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) campus which has a very nice sea view (无敌海景). Weather was freaking hot, we stopped at a few spots, mechanically snapped some pictures and jumped back into the van for shelter from the hot sun. After the campus tour, we headed for Tuaran for Tuaran Mee for lunch. What a unique town name of Tuaran. What if people mistakenly pronounce it as ‘Tualan’? What would it sound in Hokkien? “Tualan Mee”? Hahaha… Anyway, I found the Tuaran Mee nothing great, just a plate of super dried mee with few pieces of ‘char siew’ (colored till super red), fish cake, and veggie.

After our lunch, we headed for Kundasang, a Cameron Highland like town for our 3rd day of stay. On the way, we stopped at the road side (which looked like an abandoned desert) for coconut pudding highly recommended by Ying Goh. The coconut pudding comes in 2 forms, in cup (RM2) and in a complete coconut (RM4). It was cooling, the texture was fine and it just tasted superbly great, in the hot weather. We also ordered some fresh coconut juice and lokan (a type of clam) bakar, eaten with lime juice and the super powerful chilly sauce. The lokan bakar tasted delicious, we just dared not take the risk of having diarrhea by having too much of lokan bakar as we were having our climb to Mount KK the next day. Poor YY could only stare at us having the lokan bakar, while she could only have some coconut juice.

After satisfying our stomach with the makan-makan, we headed to Kundasang, about 1 & ½ hours of journey.

As we moved, we were going up hill and the route got more winding, temperature was dropping, and it was getting colder. The journey was long, YY was sick and silent and most of us dozed off.

When we were near our destination, we made a pit stop for some grilled chicken wings, at a place similar to Kea Farm in Cameron Highland, with stalls selling fresh veggie and flowers. We then made another pit stop for souvenir, where Xena was the champion, taking over YY’s reign as the Shopping Queen.

Finally, we reached the Kinabalu Pine Resort. It was really a nice place, with cold weather, and nice pine view, just nice enough to do nothing and relax.

We had steamboat dinner in the cozy weather and it seemed that YY had regained her power and was recovering. Anyway, she had decided not to proceed with the Climb the next day for safety reason.

We had an early sleep as we got to wake up very early in the morning to start the climb.

Land below the Wind: Part 2 - To be continued…

13/05 (Sunday) – Started Climbing from Mesilau Track

14/05 (Monday) – Conquered the Summit & Funny Proposal Story

15/05 (Tuesday) – Shopping, Coconut Pudding & Lokan Bakar again, and urine detention story

The Mouth Opening Story

2007-05-09T00:22:00.000+08:00

The weather is sickening hot. As a result, I am down with sorethroat. I just sprained my ankle 2 weeks ago when I fell at the staircase. Oh no, it's really one wave after another before it subsides. While my ankle is recovering quite speedily, I have this new situation to worry about as my KK trip is just one day away. Immediately, I went to see doctor. Found the Indian lady doctor a bit funny.

At the consultation room:

Me: "Morning, doctor."

Doctor: "Morning, what's the problem?"

Me: "I am having sorethroat, since last night."

Doctor: "Come, lie down on the bed and let me check."

I was puzzling, was this neccessary? I am just having sorethroat.

Doctor: "Take a deep breath. Breathe... Breathe... Breathe..."
(she was placing her testoscope on my chest and the back to check here and there)

After completing the check on the bed, we were back to our respective seats and she checked my blood pressure.

Doctor: "Open your mouth and say "ah"."

I followed her instruction.

Doctor: "Why ah? You can't open your mouth big ah? Just open your mouth big and say "ah"."

I was trying to do what she asked. She found it hard to see the condition of my throat or place the thermometer underneath my tongue to meassure the temperature.

Doctor: "Don't move your tongue. No, no, don't move your tongue. Ok, look at me. Just open your mouth like this."

She opened her mouth widely. I looked at it and felt like staring at a big black shark jaw. Ahahaha...

I tried hard to coorporate to fulfill her instruction but I just couldn't open my mouth wide enough and control my tongue which moved unknowingly and caused her difficulty to place the thermometer.

Me: "I can't. It's painful on my right jaw joint."

Doctor: "I notice that you have a problem opening your mouth big."

Me: "Sometimes, when I chew hard food, there's sound at the joint of my right jaw and I feel uncomfortable and slight pain as if it's not properly joint."

Doctor: "Can you put a lot of food in your mouth, like other people eating a big burger?"

Me: "I've never tried that. I just eat with the normal portion of food in my mouth."

What's the definition of normal portion when it comes to this case? I wonder...

Doctor: "Ok, place your fingers at both the joints near your ears. You see ah, when you open your mouth, you can feel the gaps deepening as you open it. Can you feel it?"

Me: "No, I can't. it's painful on my right jaw joint."

Doctor: "No, no, no. Look at me."

She demonstrated how she opened her mouth big and asked me to place my fingers on her jaw joints to feel the gaps deepening as she opened her mouth. I did as asked.

Doctor: "Now, do it again. Can you feel the gap?"

Me: "Yes, I do. On the left joint but not the right joint."

She held her fists, simulating how the upper jaw (maxilla) and the lower jaw (mandible) meet to form the emporomandibular joint (TMJ) and the correct movement when we open our mouth. She also demonstrated creatively how the lower jaw and upper jaw move when they are not properly joint. Hahaha...

Doctor: "Well, there's nothing we can do about this problem."

She then moved her jaw vertically and horizontally continuosly to show me how I should 'exercise' my jaw. Hahaha... like a robot, damn funny.

Doctor: "Do this, ee.. oh..ah... ee...oh.. ah...but don't over do it lah. Maybe you try to practice opening your mouth wide, say 10 times a day."

Me: "Doctor, I am going to KK on Thursday. Can you give me something strong to cure faster? "

Doctor: "I will give you antibiotic for 2 days. Should I give it for 2 days or 5 days? Ok lah, 5 days lah."

I was in the consultation room for about 1/2 hour, with majority of the time spent on having the mouth opening lesson. Tuoi ngiao....

At the dispensary:

Nurse: "Lew Man Lee. This is for sorethroat. This is the antibiotic. This is for fever and this is for cough."

Me: "Huh? I don't have fever and cough, why are you giving me the medicine?"

Nurse went to check with doctor and came back to her "window".

Nurse: "Doctor said, the fever and cough will come soon."

Me:".... what? So, I don't need to take the medicine if I am not having fever or cough, right?"

Nurse: " So you wait lah, take the medicine when you have fever and cough."

Wah, like this also can???

I left the clinic speechless after paying the bill. Yiii.... Where is the lozenges for sorethroat? I went back to the clinic and asked the nurse.

Me: "Why isn't there any lozenges for sorethroat?"

Nurse: "Sorry, we don't have lozenges. You have to go to the pharmacy to buy it yourself."

Tuoi ngiao.... Speechless....

Hell, I was sneezing non-stop after I took my bath at night. There's symptom of having blocked nose soon. Issshhhh.....

Keeping my fingers crossed and pray hard that I have a speedy recovery and will be fit to proceed with my KK trip . I just don't want to miss the white water rafting and mount KK. God bless me.

Hot Weekend

2007-05-07T00:10:00.000+08:00

It's a very hot weekend! Drop dead terribly bloody hot! The sun was burning and it was extremely hot! It's so damn hot that I couldn't concentrate to do any work or sleep. It's 1:07am now and I'm still awake because I can't sleep due to the hot weather. So how and what to do? Decided to go online and and write something.

Didn't go anywhere except attending DL's house warming on Sat.

Sat - DL's House Warming
DL was having open house for his new condo on Sat. I attended the occasion and met with some of ex & existing JSP people whom I have not seen for about a year. There were some new updates & discoveries after catching up with them.

Discovery 1: Potato Salad
Never know that CL can make very good potato salad! The potato salad consisted of smashed potato mixed with mayonese, egg, and ham. Of all food served, the potato salad got the most compliment from the guests.

Discovery 2: Detetrioration
Got to know that our pretty boy, VL & pretty princess, NW have turned single again respectively. Didn't wanna ask much about the details on the change of their status.

Case 1: VL
VL's face is getting rounder and rounder, with double chin emerging. When he was lying on the bed in DL's second room(where some of us were gathering there chit chatting and catching up), I had a closer look, and discovered that it is wasn't double chin, but triple chin instead! He has gained a 'tummy' too. He's not the fat type, and luckily the other parts of his body did not deteriorate much except the rounder face and the bigger tummy. He's in his late 20s and is this a sign of aging? He jokingly said that after turning single again, he is very free and has got nothing much to do, thus eating more. So could it be a side effect? I wonder... :)

Case 2: NW
This pretty princess is originally skinny, having a few kgs more weight than I do but taller than me. Gosh! She is getting skinnier and skinnier! After leaving JSP, she went back to advertising line. The stress, the long hours & late nights working, uncertain eating hours, plus smoking might have caused her to 'slim' down undesirably. If she continues such lifestyle, her health is going to be deeply impacted in the long run. Hope she takes good care of herself.

DL - The Big Winner
We gambled after having some food for dinner. The game was called Siam Black Jack, which only people from the Northern part would know how to play. The rules are totally different from the normal Black Jack and only DL who played the banker, and his Indian friend who is originated from Penang too know the rules well. While the game was on, the EPL matches were also on too in Astro, where some of them were betting on some of the matches. After 2 hours of battle, it ended up DL emerged as the sole winner, sweeping away all our money! I didn't lose much, a few RM, I guess.

Left DL's place around 12am something, together with W & C. The rest stayed. Not sure whether they continued with some other activities, probably drinking being one of them.

SUN - Hot Hot Hot!!!
It's all about one word, HOT!!! Swallowing gallons of water and taking many rounds of bath didn't seem to solve the problem. There's a Chinese saying that goes "It'll be cooling if your heart is calm". Anyway it didn't work on this super duper hot Sunday. My room is not air-conditioned, and I am still awake now at this very moment (1:37am), battling the hot weather helplessly...

It Doesn't Just Happen Once

2007-04-25T00:20:00.000+08:00

Unfortunate incident does not just happen once. It happens one after another very often.

I got a MBPJ parking monthly pass recently. Right on the second day after getting the pass, I got summoned! Wondering why? The sticker(which comes in 2 separate pieces, 1 in paper form and another in transparent form)didn't stick well, and just dropped in my car to a spot that the officer who issued the summon could get no sight of it. Can't it be a little bit more intelligence in the design of the pass? Why can't it be a single piece of sticker which can easily stick well on the windscreen instead of 2 separate pieces in different materials which cause some trouble to stick? Damn it, I got the monthly pass and I still got summoned!

I went to PJ State to settle this brand new undesired summon plus another old summon together yesterday. It's a helly place to find a parking. I rounded for 1/2 hour then only managed to secure a parking. I proceeded to pay my summons, and of course I appealled for discount before paying. Or else the 2 summons were gonna cost me RM200! As a result of the appeal, I paid RM50 in total.

After settling my summons, I went for the kinda famous seafood porridge for my lunch. It's nothing great, with few pieces of fish head meat, 3 prawns and some lala. Guess what, it cost me RM14 for a single serving! Isshhh... It's really not worth the money! The weather was bloody hot, the porridge was hot, and I was hot too!!! What a hot lunch!

When I wanted to leave PJ State, my car was blocked by a jam for no reason for about 10-15 minutes. The queue of cars just couldn't move. Didn't know what was happening in front. I showed my signal trying to turn out, but I was just stuck. After I successfully got away from PJ State, I realized that my car signal was not working! Wholly shit! It's so dangerous to drive without signal. In any case if my car got hit for my turning left or right without showing signal, it would definitely be my fault. Having this red alert, I straight away sent my car for fixing. Waited at the workshop for more than 2 hours, hot, thirsty and having headache. When my car finally got fixed, I was having insufficient cash to pay the bill for the credit machine was just running out of order. Fortunately, I managed to call ST to my rescue. Thanks ST for your help!

On the other hand, I am very upset and pissed off with a short change incident which I least expected. Will fight for my entitlement!!!

This evening, While CH and I were walking down the staircase to go down for a drink, I slipped and fell at the staircase! I sat there, fixed on the floor for quite some moments, before I could actually stand up, with the help of CH & K. Thanks to my pair of slippery shoes. Fortunitely, I wasn't rolling down like a snow ball, or else, can't imagine the impact. As a result, I have a swollen and painful left ankle, and bruises on my left knee now. Luckily I can still walk. Am going for Chinese medication tomorrow. My KK trip is just 2 weeks away. Praying hard that my ankle and knee can recover speedily by the trip.

Sigh.... Why me???!!!

New Chapter, New Beginning

2007-04-21T02:14:00.000+08:00

I started my freelance venture on 16 April 2007. It signifies a new chapter and new beginning of my life. Feel like reborn and I am myself again with new motivation. I am currently enjoying the the 3 minutes - 2km journey from my place to the office, and the flexibility too.

My New Buddy - The "DELLNOSAUR"
I have got a new buddy now - 'DELLnosaur', a bulky DELL Inspirion 1501 notebook, weighted 28.1kg with 15.4 inches of wide screen, accompanying me to complete my daily work. I got DELLNOSAUR a new notebook backpack as it's so heavy to carry it with normal notebook casing.I bought a cooling pad too to cool my buddy down when using it at home without air-cond. I have another Dinosaur at home, an ancient desktop PC which is still running on Win98 in slow motion and restarts by itself occasionally, and without any USB port as well. Don't laugh, I know it's obsolete. My DELLNOSAUR is running Windows Vista Home Basic version, which is giving me a little bit of problem adapting to it. The transition isn't as smooth as compared to XP, which is so user friendly. Icons and features are reorganized/renamed in Windows Vista which is giving me a little hard time locating them. Anyway, I am grateful that I am provided a notebook which enables me to work at anytime, and anywhere. Thanks CH, really appreciate what you have offered me.

Some People May Wonder Why
Some people may wonder why I left my ex-company, which is 1 of the top executive search firms in town. Yes, it offers a great career path and good commision scheme. But in order to be there to achieve it, I'm trading my happiness and life balance till sometimes I felt like loosing myself. Is this what I want? The answer is definitely NO. Freelancing with CH has offered me something money can't buy - flexibility. Different people value different things in life. Very often, other people tend to evaluate things from their own stand points, with their own need as the core basis. They will wonder why you make this and that decisions and try commenting. Anyway, I know what I want. After all, I don't owe anyone any explaination. Do I? No, I don't. As simple as that.

I Found it!
It was a Monday on 16 April, SS2 was having pasar malam. Ever since I moved to Pantai Hillpark in year 2000, I seldom go anymore. And now, my office is just within walking distance to the pasar malam, I revisited the pasar malam after so many years. Walked passed a CD stall and saw something that I have been searching for. Yes, I found it! I found Corrine Bailey Rae's CD which I have been searching for at different pasar malam but to no avail. Her songs are really nice! I just love the CD! Bought a lot of yummy food for dinner too. Saw an aunty selling fish ball ikan parang, I asked, "Aunty, have you been selling fish ball here for many years?" "Yes, more than 10 years." Haha, confirmed, this is the tasty fried fishball that I used to buy from her during those days when I was still studying in UM, with SS2 pasar malam being 1 of the usual hanging out spots. There's another fat guy selling yummy tau fu fa, but I just couldn't locate his stall. What a SS2 Pasar Malam (Monday) revisited, after so many years, around 6 years I guess. Now that I have moved back to PJ and with office at SS2, there will be lots of chances for me to visit the pasar malam again.

The Embarressments
I have 2 neighbours in the office, J- the landlord, and K who is running his own business. During the first week, I would see J daily but seldom bumped into K. One evening, there were only K & me left in the office, of course in our own rooms respectively. So shit, my left shoe's string was broken! Wanted to go to toilet, but saw K making a drink at the pantry. Decided not to go because I didn't want to walk past him with my left foot bare as it's very weird and embarassing. I packed my stuff, getting ready to go home. Who knows he knocked my door, saying "Hi, I am K. Nice to meet you. I am leaving soon. Are you leaving too? Is your colleague coming back?" With the door 1/2 opened, trying to hide my naked left foot "Yes, I am leaving very soon. She is not coming back." He went back to his room (next to my room) but left his door wide opened. Yes, it's chance to cabut! Oh great, he was on the phone! I swiftly speeded passed his room, waiving Bye Bye to let him know that I was going off so that he knew that he was to lock the doors. I speeded off with my kaki ayam, without turning my head back. I wasn't sure if he saw that. I think he did. That was so embarrassing! Guess what, the second time that I interacted with K face to face was when I fell at the staircase the other day. Luckily, CH was around. Was that a coincidence? Each time he appeared and talked to me, I was in an embarrassed condition. I hope no more 3rd time.

Drastical Twist

2007-04-21T00:09:00.000+08:00

2 weeks have passed ever since I bid adieu to Jalan Sultan Ismail. Life has been very busy recently. So much to write but so little time available. Before the memories slip through or faded, think I better capture the bits and pieces of them that still remain in my mind.

There has been a drastical twist in my life recently.

30 March 2007, Monday - A Talk Had Taken Place
It was a replacement holiday for Awal Muharam. I met up with CH for a talk and the result was fruitful. Yes, I'm going on freelance with her.

4 April 2007, Wednesday - Exhausted
Planned to tender my resignation, but held it due to the urgency of an assignment and my sense of responsibility. Worked late and reached home at 10pm. Drop dead tired...

5 April 2007, Thursday - Resignation
Officially tendered my resignation. Had lunch with KC at Kim Gary, Avenue K for a catch up. Bumped into Virus whom I have not seen for a long time. He is still the same with his labels: sense of humour, loads of F words, and smoking. Had a talk(exit interview) with my ex-Boss in the afternoon, shared with her my reasons of leaving and my feelancing plan. Expected early release as the industry practice.

6 April 2007, Friday - Oh yeah, last day!
Received an official notification as this day as my last day. Expected early release but not this fast. Anyway, it's good for I could bid adieu to Jalan Sultan Ismail earlier and have a good rest before I start my freelancing on 16 April. At night, I packed my stuff getting ready for a Cameron relaxing trip for the weekend with OX fellows.

7 to 8, April 2007, Sat to Sun - Chilled out at Cameron Highland
On Sat morning, Xena rang me up at around 6:35am telling that she would be arriving at my place in 5-10 minutes time for the pick up. Awaken by the call, I checked the time. Shit! I overslept because I forgot to set the alarm clock! Quickily gave pig head a call, he's supposed to gather at my place by 6:45am but had not shown up yet. There were still a few items which I had not packed. Hastily dumped those items into my bag, grabbed my tower and my handphone, and speeded down to downstair for my shower. Yes, I brought my handphone along to the bathroom because pig head would arrive at anytime and call me. :) Half way through my bath, pig head had arrived and called. What I could do was to answer the call and asked him to wait for a while. Wow, I broke my own record, and managed to get myself ready just before Xena arrived!

We headed towards our destination in a total of 4 cars, 19 of us, with 1 car coming from Penang to meet at Simpang Pulai Toll.

Here are some of the highlights:

Robbed
We gathered at Sungai Buluh Toll for our breakfast. Jesus Christ! The plate of Meehoon Mee with a fried egg and some sambal sauce that I ordered cost me RM4! I felt like being robbed alive! It's so expensive and totally not worth the money. If I ever drop by Sungai Buluh Toll again for food, this Malay stall will definitely be banned! Too bad that I couldn't remember the its name but I remember it's location.

Drifting
I was sitting at the middle at the back of Xena's Rexton 4WD. It was spacious at the back. Anyway, being light in weight, I was sort of like drifting when the Rexton drifted along the winding route up to Cameron. I positioned my legs a bit wide, separated by the divider to gain some stability, stuck my fingers on the 'ceiling' of the car, like a spiderman most of the time, swaying left and right. While I was busy swaying, the pig head sitting on my left was already snoring, fallen asleep.

Hot
The weather in Cameron Highland was hot in the afternoon. Felt the sunlight burning when it shone directly on my hair and skin. Apparently, this is a result of global warming. Cameron Highland is no longer cold in day time.

RQ - The House Fly Killer
As usual, we went for tea at the Boh Tea plantation. It's the house fly season and our tables were surrounded by house flies. They were getting on RQ's nerve. Guess what, she folded the newspaper that 1 of us brought along and started the house fly genocide operation. Piak! A house fly died on the spot after just 1 shot! This really stunt us on RQ's speed and accuracy. Piak! Piak! Piak! More and more died. Later, she changed weapon, took out a piece of paper from her bag, folded it and continue the killing. The most amazing part was, when a fly was struggling to its last breathe, RQ stepped on it to ensure it was confirmed dead! Ahahaha.... Of course, TBK was making use of this to tease her on her cruel act. This house fly killing operation brought me back to the memory of house fly capturing when I was small. It's not easy to hit a house fly with any form of hard material as the weapon, it will fly off before your weapon is even near. Thus, I normally used a small plastic bag (hold the middle part of it, causing the opening of the bag to form a cover) to capture house fly. That worked perfectly fine for me. Seeing how easily RQ was hitting the pathetic insect, I was wondering whether house flies in Cameron were slower and more stupid or RQ was super fast. Hahaha...

The Wantan Story
We had steamboat for dinner. Forgetting that Julita (our Malay outdoor friend) was along and that we are not supposed to use the cooking utensils at kitchen of the MNS challets to cook non-Halal food, Xena, our chief cook did bring along some meat paste for making wantan and some meat balls. It's gonna be a waste if we just threw them away. Thus some of us getting set for dinner at the dining hall, feeling hungry while waiting for those who had just got back from a hike at Gunung Brinchang and taking their shower, we decided to proceed with the wantan production using the disposable chopstics and other utensils that we brought along, and had a wantan steamboat with the electrical steamboat pot that Xena brought along. There were about 60 over giagantic wantans and meat balls altogether. At first we were worried if we could finished them. In just a few minutes time, we managed to sweep clean all of them! Unbelievable! After our wantan operation was over, the rest started turning up. We pretended nothing had ever happened and continue eating the normal steamboat that we had prepared. Ahahaha... Amazingly, we still had space for the steamboat and we enjoyed our dinner.

TBK + Orang Utan Vs The House Fly Killer = WAR!!!
Whenever TBK and RQ meet, they will try to shoot each other and as usual, TBK will be the looser. Now with this Orang Utan from the North (a really hairy and dark one), another rival of RQ, TBK was like found an alliance, and the war had become a triangle one. Haha... Wondering whether TBK's and Orang Utan's birth dates and times were in conflict with RQ's. It was damn funny, listening to the conversations of them shooting RQ - the House Fly Killer, 2 against 1. Fire on the hole! Well, it's friendly fire, they just love to tease each others for fun, no real rivalry.

Morning Gunung Cantik Stroll
Had a nice cosy sleep on Sat night as it was cold. Woke up fresh on Sun morning. I had dried wantan mee (without any wantan, all were disposed into our stomach discretely on Sat night. hehe...) with fried egg, vegetable and fried sausage with sambal belacan. Had a cup of hot Milo too. After having breakfast, we went for a stroll at the tea plantation, enroute the Gunung Cantik trail. As the name sounds, Gunung Cantik really has very cantik scenery along the route. The air was fresh, the weather was nice and cosy, the scenery was beautiful and I was just feeling good.

Tea At Cameron Valley
On our way back, we dropped by Cameron Valley to sip tea. This is a yum cha spot that I always like in Cameron for its nice scenery though there's nothing great about the tea. Had a little bit of chit chatting and we moved our butts for lunch before heading back to KL.

Endurance Test
We headed back to KL using the old route via Tapah. The roads were more winding. As our Rexton drifted along, I felt the revolution of my stomach, sending signals to look for toilet for some serious business. I did accomplish my big bisiness in the morning. Probably eating too much sambal belancan during breakfast, my stomach got a little bit upset as the side effect and was striking. Isshhhh..... There wasn't any toilet till we reached the Tapah Toll! The only thing I could do was just to endure it. I kept swaying in the car as there were endless sharp and winding corners. Ahh.... It was torturing! I just prayed hard that I could safely reach the Tapah Toll toilet without any undesired 'outbreak'. I was trying to think of something else to shift my focus away from this emergency. This was really an endurance test for me. Yan yan yan yan yan... Finally, after about close to an hour, we reached the Tapah Toll. I rushed to the toilet and completed my business. Phew, What a relief!

10 April 2007, Monday
I went for a massage at Jessie's saloon. Oh no, it was pouring heavily when I competed my massage. Couldn't go off, did another eye treatment to help reduce my dark eye circle. Couldn't really remember what else did I do on that day, I guess basically, I was just resting.

11 April 2007, Tuesday - Business Registration
As I am going on Services Agreement mode for my freelancing with CH, I went to The Mall building in KL to do my business registration under sole proprietorship. Spent about 8 hours there to complete the whole process, more tired than working, for the queueing up and waiting. Felt a little bit proud, I am sort of like having my own business! Am actually taking a bold step. Anyway, no risk, no gain.

12 to 15 April, Wednesday - Home Sweet Home
Went home to have a good rest. Had ample of good food (my mum's cooking), TV, newspaper, and rest. I went for a jog too in 1 of the evenings. Life was simple, tranquil and relaxing back home.

Bye Bye Jalan Sultan Ismail!

2007-04-11T01:17:00.000+08:00

Last Friday was my last day with my ex-company located at Jalan Sultan Ismail, in the heart of KL town. That was a day that I was longing for as I could officially bid adieu to Jalan Sultan Ismail, which I never like ever since I started working there for almost a year.

Those were the frustrating memories with Jalan Sultan Ismail:

***
Due to the location, I chose to take LRT instead of driving to work from PJ because I can’t stand the frustration of being stuck in the TRAFFIC JAM DAILY! I would get MAD in the car! Life would actually be indirectly made shorter due to the long hours spent on the traffic.

As a routine, I would park my car at the Kelana Jaya LRT Station, walked about 8-10 minutes to the platform, and took the train to Dang Wangi. From Dang Wangi, I would then need to walk 10 minutes to the office. Due to quite some distance of walking, my legs and toes had actually suffered cramp at the initial stage as a result of wearing high (or not so high) heel office shoes walking too much. I purposely bought a few pairs of flat heel shoes just to accommodate the need of the situation, but they were either not comfortable for walking and hurt my feet or broken very fast. Finally I decided to wear slipper to take the LRT, and change to proper shoes that I placed in the office. Imagine me dressed up nicely but in slipper every morning and after work. Pathetic and weird! But I chose comfort over cramp.

The moment I boarded the train, I would immediately get into my routine position, close my eyes, like a soulless zombie, and wait to get out of the train at my destination ASAP, If I was lucky, I would probably get a seat, and most of the time I was standing in the train. Inside the train, it’s an extremely lifeless and stressful atmosphere as everyone is so emotionless and is no difference from a walking skeleton. All they wait for is to get out of the congested and suffocating train at their destinations. There are all sorts of smell in the train and it’s very common that you will need to stick to the wall or inevitably having highly undesired body contact with other passengers during peak hours. There was once, my cardigan got wet, and it wasn’t my sweat! Disgusting!

Very often, our LRT system would encounter technical problems, wreaking havoc during peak hours. Aren’t some people always proudly shouting Malaysia Boleh? What the heck is this frequent failure of our public transport system?

When it rained in the evening, Jalan Sultan Ismail, like any other places in KL would turn into a nightmare – massive jam! The honking, the flood, the frustration… It’s super duper annoying! I could either choose to stay late in the office, wait for the rain to stop or risk myself getting wet or being splashed with water by cars passing by while crossing the road, though with an umbrella. Worse still, when I got back to PJ, I still needed to get stuck in the jam to reach home. It could easily cause me 1.5 to 2 hours to get home combining the time taking LRT & driving home. I used to drive trice to work, and unfortunately each time took me more than 2 hours to reach home in PJ. Life’s short! Why should I waste such precious time on traffic jam? Damn it!
***

Phew! I am relieved and happy now for those days in Jalan Sultan Ismail are gone. No more zombie days with LRT, no more slipper to work, no more “what to eat for lunch?”, and no more kanasai faces…

The only thing that I will probably miss would be the fresh fruit juice sold at the back lane, by a friendly aunty who will address her customers as either boy or gal, regardless of age.

The sun is bright, the sky is blue, the air is fresh and my mood is good. Bye Bye Jalan Sultan Ismail! I won’t miss you!

Who Has Invaded Whose Territory?

2007-04-05T23:43:00.000+08:00

As usual, I would cross the busy Jalan Sultan Ismail right in front of my office and walk to take LRT at Dang Wangi Station after work. As the routine went, I crossed half of the road, stood on the divider in the middle of the road and waited for the chance to finish crossing the other half of the road, While I was waiting expressionlessly on the divider, I saw a creature which was also crossing the busy Jalan Sultan Ismail. What???!!! How could it be? I blinked my eyes to verify if I would be seeing the same thing what my eyesight processed to be true just a moment ago. And yes, confirmed! It’s a monkey! What the hell was the monkey doing at Jalan Sultan Ismail at this kind of peak hour???

The monkey seemed very unsettled when crossing the road, demonstrating fear and reluctance in its steps. It stepped back and forth in the middle of the road indecisively. A car almost hit the monkey but fortunately managed to stop right in front of the creature. Phew! Or else, you can imagine what’s next. Cars at the back would kiss each other asses and trigger traffic jam!

There were many unanswered questions in my mind. What the hell was the monkey doing on the road? Where was it from? Was it lost? Was it out for an evening stroll? Why was it there? It lead to another question too: Who has actually invaded whose territory, between human being and monkey? Comprehensively, development will be able to provide a good answer for this.

As Skinny As Me

2007-04-02T02:46:00.000+08:00

I went to pasar malam at Taman Megah tonight. While walking in the crowd, I saw a girl who is skinnier than me! I was like hitting a jackpot and laughed out loud. Ahahaha… Of course I didn’t laughed openly, but in my heart.

Yes, whenever I see someone, especially girl who is skinnier than me, I will laugh out loud evilly if my friends are around and if the girl is quite a distance from me. If I am alone, I will keep the laughter to myself. Wondering why? Hehe…. I was born to be skinny, inheriting the gene from my family. Among my siblings, I used to be the skinniest but this position has been taken over by my 3rd sis in recent years. Being too skinny isn’t really a good thing. Thus whenever I see someone skinnier than me, I would feel blessed a little as God is not too bad to me and I am not the ‘worst case’. Ahhaahhaahaha…

No matter how much I eat, and sleep, I won’t gain weight or flesh easily. Indeed I can loose weight easily, just within a few days. Marvelous huh? I can still recall that during those long school holiday breaks, I could just eat, sleep, relax, and basically do nothing for 2-3 months without putting on some weight. Whereas if I don’t take breakfast properly or fall sick, I can easily loose some precious weight within few days. Is this pathetic or a blessing?

I wonder if my habits of eating contribute to my skininess to certain extend. I don't like to eat bread and chocolate, and seldom eat junk food. I only eat the 3 main meals (portion not small) and whenever I am hungry. Of course, I do eat and yum cha when hanging out with friends though I am not hungry. :)

A lot of people would say to me, good for you, can eat as much as you can without the worry of getting fat. Well, they only see the good side about this skinny ‘phenomenon’, but never really understand my agony of being too skinny. Looking too skinny isn’t really attractive physically. I also have the problem when it comes to buying clothes. They are either too loose or too big for me. Getting a nice and fitting 1-piece skirt or dinner wear is a luxury for me. Normally this kind of outfit will look disastrous on me. The problem definitely lies on my body, not the skirt. Sigh… very often, though having the money, I can only appreciate those nice skirts by just having a look at them rather than buying them. Well, put it this way, this saves me a lot of money though. Hahhahaha…

There was once, I was at Subang Jaya and the wind was blowing furiously. My hair was blown till I looked like a mad woman. The worst part was I felt a little unstable and couldn’t really stand firmly on the ground as if the gravity was going to fail to work on me. A little exaggerated though, but I really felt i was a litlte unstable and maybe the wind could actually blow me away if it’s stronger. Ahahaha….

Thus, people always crown me with 2 honours, which I can only smile at them:
1. Soak you in the oil you also won’t get oily (referring to fat, which has the same pronunciation as oily in Cantonese).
2. The wind can easily blow you away.

Recent years, leading a sedentary working life, I have gained some weight and my hips get bigger, enabling me to wear those skirts or pants which will normally drop straight when I put them on. The heyday of weight is 48kg. That was after heavy eating continuously for a few days during my Pinnacle hiking trip in last May. The rest of time, it fluctuates between 45-47kg. I wish it could reach 50kg one fine day.

If there ever invented such technology that can mix and balance the weight/flesh of someone skinny and someone who wants to shed some, wouldn’t you think it would be a savior for a lot of people?

But if every is so perfect, the meaning of imperfection, which is to teach us to be more humble will be lost. Right?

I wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

2007-04-01T13:38:00.000+08:00

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say ‘em loud say ‘em clear
For the whole wide world to hear

I wish I could shareAll the love that’s in my heart
Remove all the bars that keep us apart
And I wish you could know how it feels to be me
Then you’d see and agree that every man should be free

I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be if I found I could fly
Well I’ll soar to the sun and look down at the sea
And I’d sing ‘cos I know how it feels to be free

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
And I wish I could say all the things that I wanna say
Say ‘em loud say ‘em clear
For the whole wide world to hear
Say ‘em loud say ‘em clear
For the whole wide world to hear
Say ‘em loud say ‘em clear
For the whole wide world to hear

One love one blood
One life you’ve got to do what you should
One life with each other
Sisters, brothers

One love but we’re not the same
We got to carry each other
Carry each other
One One One One One

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free

It’s a song by Lighthouse Family. Subconsciously, this song plays naturally in my mind again. Is it a sign of protest by the free soul of mine? Is it suffocated? Yes,it is. I am choked, I can’t breathe, and I need some fresh air or free air indeed. Probably it’s time to make an exit to set myself free. I need to bait myself out of the shit with a risk. Well, there might be people commenting but I don’t give it a shit. Don’t ask me why. Personal decision is not made for others.

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free…

I Forgot Where I Parked My Car

2007-04-01T13:28:00.000+08:00

On Thursday, 29 March, 2007:

I forgot where I parked my car!

I take LRT to work daily ever since i started working at a shitty location, Jalan Sultan Ismail, which has now become my nightmare. I park my car at the Kelana Jaya LRT Station to catch a train daily. The parking at Zone A at Kelana Jaya LRT Station is normally full after 7:30am. I am not an early bird, thus I normally park at zone B, which is further away from the platform.

I reached the station drop dead early that morning as I was rushing for the 8am training. Hence I parked at Zone A which is nearer to the platform.After a tiring day at work, I took LRT back to Kelana Jaya. After disembarking from the train, I walked to zone B parking (where I normally park my car) like a zombie as usual to collect my car. After some minutes of walking and reaching zone B then only I realized that I forgot that I parked my car at Zone A. Shit! I got to walk some minutes back to Zone A which is quite a distance from Zone B. I felt like an idiot, walking back and forth at the LRT station with a tiring body and wasting my time, just because I forgot where I parked my car!

The last time that I forgot where I parked my car was neither a good experience. It was in April 2006. After meeting a friend at Ipoh Parade at night, I walked like an idiot back and forth a few rounds at the open space car park in front of Ipoh Parade searching for my car which I had forgotten where I had parked it. As a result, 2 stupid idiot riding a bike spotted me and snatched my handbag from the side. I screamed as a result of instinct reaction. It happened so suddenly that I was in a state of shock, not knowing how to react 'logically'. I couldn't even see the faces of the 2 idiots or recognize their body size or race, not to mention the motobike's plat number. I lost Rm700++ of cash, my home key, my purse with all my cards plus other stuff in the handbag. What followed was the trouble of running here to reapply my IC, driving license, ATM card and credit cards. Luckily I wasn't injured. What I could only do was to curse the 2 discusting garbage idiots to have many bad returns.

Lesson learnt: Never forget where you park your car again as you'll never know what will be the consequences.

A Little Luck, A Little Fortune, A Little Happiness

2007-04-01T13:20:00.000+08:00

Finally, my voyage of blogging has begun, at this very moment, to record the moments of life. Thanks to pig head and kaiyih for their encouragements.What should I begin with? BL suggested mahjung but I think there is something happier to kick start with. OK, let me begin with this little fortune that I stroke recently on dad’s birthday.

It was my dad’s 66th birthday on 25 March 2007, a Sunday. I went back for that weekend and had a simple enough so called birthday celebration for him with mum. It wasn’t really a celebration, with no birthday cake, no restaurant food, but my mum’s delicious abalone scallop chicken soup, steam Kurau fish with fried gallic and onion leaves toppings, and another dish of vegetable. Yummy yummy...The food was damn good! Oh yeah, I love my mum’s cooking, especially soup. For those who know me well, you know my expectation on food. My siblings didn’t come back, but they did call home to wish him. I had no big present for him but an insignificant amount of cash.

Before I headed back to KL with YY on that Sunday evening, I bet on 3243. 243 = birthday, added prefix 3 as it’s March. Don't ask me why I know the representative 3 digits for birthday. All I can tell you is my mum is a walking dictionary in this area, a damn good consultant if you need to know what number represents what. I grew up observing her betting on 4D. Naturally, i pick up the knowledge. Anyway, I seldom bet on 4D, only occasionally or once in a while, not a constant supporter like my mum. Hahaha... She will never know that I am writing this about her in my blog.

After dropping YY at Bukit OUG, I headed back to PJ. While driving, I got a call from home. Well well, there were only 2 possibilities, it’s either I left something at home or I strike 4D. When I picked up the call, unbelievable! Mum said that I stroke 4D, the last 3 digits of the 1st prize, 6243! Wow Wow wow, was it real?! It was! My bet wasn’t big, only 2 chickens (RM2) split into ‘4 flavors’, thus getting a prize of RM460. You know what I am talking about if you have the experience in betting in 4D. :P Dad and mum also stroke for the same amount of prize of RM460. Yeah! Triple happiness… Wahahahahaha…… I have a reason to laugh out loud. I was damn happy and felt so good for I seldom have this kind of luck. The effect lasts till today though there have been few days passed.

Have not been such lucky for a long long time…Thanks lady luck for shining on me, and bestowing this little fortune and happiness on me, at time filled with stress and unhappiness. It has a turn around effect, changing the entire emotion from negative to positive, and instilling in me with new hope and power. Lady Luck, hope you can shine on me more. :)

In the complicated world today, we have too many reasons to feel unhappy, and only a few reasons to feel happy. Sometimes we tend to forget, that simplicity is happiness.