Christmas 2011

A different type of Christmas. Last year we ordered Domino's and some of the chicken wings and then we played some games. This year, we did it in totally different style. After cooking all those good food, I find that the restaurants are seriously charging at cut-throat expensive prices. Thus, I decided to transport my whole kitchen to Judz's balcony. We had a jolly good time cooking on the balcony with the cool nite breeze in the quiet neighbourhood. That's the host~! She's lazy to cook and I'm lazy to cook as well. Tired after marinading all the raw stuff. We had Mandy as our chef. My kids cooked their own meal. I don't know what's with the cooking and the eating straight from the grill but you'll find yourself burping and full to the brink after just a few pieces of everything added up together. No wonder restaurants for 'eat-all-you-can' are mushrooming around town. They know most people can't eat that much after staring at the food on the pan waiting for it to cook. Whoa~! This was the best part. My kids love Judz's freezer. There's an assortment of ice-creams from the traditional aiskrim potong to Neopolitan bar to all the delicious, creamy and rich chocolate King's ice-cream. Rummaging through her freezer is always considered as part of an activity. You'll have to figure out which ice-cream you wanna eat so that you don't overeat. Then you have a second of food therapy mental discussion where you tell yourself it's just once a year or once in a blue moon. In the end, we were busy licking at ice-creams of different flavours one after another. You might have to swallow your whole stick of ice-cream just in case the more favoured ice-creams were grabbed by the others. We did have our own photography session. We have the very serious photoshoot. Why so serious har? Like taking the old family photo. Should capture this in black and white or sepia. We did have our crazy moments but those photos were not meant for the public eyes. It might scare the wits out of you. Well, we went for our second rounds of eating session. Every celebration is about eating, nothing but the food. Fellowship without food feels rather empty. The missing part was Gracie wasn't around because she was dining like a queen with her family. When she came over late at night, we forced her to eat some more. That's the way to treat your bestie~! Thanks for the beautiful sandals, the lovely blouse and the comfortable bedsheet. You can never find a friend who will give you bedsheet as Christmas pressie~! I received my second set of the king size bedsheet... yippee~!!

Introducing Jalan Alor...

This is the best street ever to stay in. I stayed once in Federal Hotel but that was a long time ago when I wasn't the exploring freak. I didn't even leave the hotel that time because I didn't enjoy night life or even walking around aimlessly. But now, I do enjoy walking around, going from one place to another. The whole of Jalan Alor is a street food haven. There was a whole row of coffee shops with various stalls selling all sorts of hawker food. We tried almost every shop but went back to the one we love most. Food was not cheap. One simple plate of Sin Chew Bee Hoon cost RM7 when you can buy more than 3 packets of vermicelli at the price of RM7. Imagine just having a plate of fried vermicelli at that price, double the price of what I can get in Penang. The funny thing was I wasn't complaining about the price, I was actually enjoying the food and I don't mind going back there again. Food, glorious food~! The street on my right consists of Chinese food while on my left, you can find Malay hawker stalls and Thai cuisine. I love Chinese food. It's to die for. Hohoho~! Stay at Seasons View Hotel. Don't bother about all the negative comments given by those who do not know how to place a proper comment to such a good budget hotel. I did read the bad comments but we prayed about it and we get the best service :D I'll share with you about the best service soon. Not now... kinda tired.

Unesco United Buddy Bears...

The best part of Pavilion is not the building itself. Well, it's just another high end shopping mall for the rich and the richer who has no other place to dump their money at. I was jumping up and down like a kid, overexcited when I reached Pavilion. No... not because of more shopping but I love the bears. The huge bears. Bears of different colours. Bears which signify each country around the world. The bears are so cute. If I snap each bear individually, it would have taken me the whole evening to do so. My legs were killing me but I was looking for our Malaysian bear. But before I found our Malaysian big teddy, I came across this cute white bear with an 'X' as the navel and a love to cover its nothingness. There's nothing there. It's just a man-made bear. What's with the eye? Compromised? Did someone punch that bear? And what's with the red eye? Oh, well. I don't know where to search for the answers... but here it is... our Malaysian bear. Yellow coloured bear, symbolises Bersin 2.0? Geez, don't get me wrong. I'm not into politics and never will. There's Malay, Chinese, Indian and Sikh. What a multi-racial country Malaysia is. Then there's the Rafflesia, the one and only in the world, the largest flower which smells like a dead body yet everyone will be exhilarated if you ever chance upon a blooming Rafflesia. I, on the other hand, have never seen one in real life... ahhh... the opportunity will come... soon.... pretty soon I hope. Hhmmm... where's our national flower, the hibiscus? And there's a hornbill to represent Sarawak and Sabah. Hehe... Israel... for God's love is upon His people, the Israelites but the Israelites whom God rescued from Egypt were stiff-necked people so God decided not to go with them one day until Moses pleaded with Him. That's what the boy's would wear during bar mitzvah. Haih... too many bears. I think this is the best way to capture as many bears. Stand in the middle and capture all those bears on both sides. How beautiful the place was.

i-City...

Inky black sky. That was what I had been waiting for. I waited patiently for the sun to go to sleep. I waited until it was pitch darkness out there left with only the LED lights lighting up the whole area. Wasn't that beautiful? There was even a double decker carousel, the one and only in Malaysia if I'm not mistaken and such a pity, I have no desire to even take a ride. I was only thinking about how late were we gonna be because we have spent too much time and we were ten commuter stations away from KL Sentral and we still had to call the very kind cab driver to fetch us to the station and we had to make sure that we didn't make such mistake of missing the train and the monorail and my stomach was really screaming for good food along Jalan Alor, I was even thinking about drunken chicken and Singapore bee hoon at the same time but yet I couldn't let go of my fingers from snapping more and more photos. I wished I could capture everything, keep them in a box and pack them home. Such wonderful memories that will only remain as memories and eventually forgotten until I looked back at my photos. Such beauty the place was, how wonderfully decorated and smartly thought of. I only wish that I own a bungalow with acres and acres of garden, a lake with all sorts of ducks and migratory birds, an orchard of my own and a whole building of filled with sports equipment and games' rooms and a swimming pool to replace the living room. Such wild dreams that I dare to have. Then, all of sudden, I was thinking about how much the electric bill will be with so many LED lights lighting the whole park. It would be a nightmare paying electric bill every month unless I can find a way to generate my own electricity and produce it with a click of my fingers. Do you know how much I love colours? My life is so colourful that all those colours reflect very well on me. The only two colours that I have disliking to are black and dark green. Anyway, I can't share too many photos in my blog post because I didn't get to have the new format even though I'm using Google Chrome. I'm still using the old format where I'm only allow to upload 5 photos at one go, which test my patience when it took too long to upload. i-City will be a town on its own, a new township altogether with its own monorail services, a hub for everything. And no... I don't wish to live in a big city no doubt I like it at times. I still prefer being where I am. My roots are way too deep to be dug out. I love my country, Malaysia and I LOVE PENANG ISLAND~!!

Snowalk...

Snowalk. Walking in snow. Walking in man-made snow. Walking around dry ice blown by the gigantic fans. Walking in chilly cold. Walking until my feet went numb. Walking until I can't feel my own fingers. Walking in such frosty cold, it made me think whether I should go to other countries during winter time. Walking around until finally I had to rush out before I die in the -5 degree Celsius coldness. The coldest I have felt was 6 degree Celsius when I was sitting like a numb skull waiting for the penguins to wobble home at Phillip Island. The coldest at home that I can switch my air-conditioning system was only 16 degree Celsius. It was quite a small place actually. We were then for 7 freaking hours after the morning tour at the High5 Bread Town Museum in Shah Alam. i-City is also situated in Shah Alam and you don't expect me to travel back to the hotel then head to Shah Alam again. So the only thing we could do was spent all our time at Snowalk. There were signs with camera not allowed pasted on the entrance into the gigantic freezer. No camera allowed? My foot~! If I pay for it, then I can snap as many photos a as I want~! Anyway, nobody said anything about cameras and everybody else was in a snapping frenzy. Again, monkey see, monkey do :D In a more serious note, the door was exactly like the door to the freezer. It was like keeping humans inside and making the whole place looked like a park. A park with dry ice everywhere, slippery as the surface was melting away. I was quite disappointed that there wasn't any snow blowing from the ceiling. That would be marvellous as I've seen it done at the Snow House in Singapore. Ahh... look at those beautifully lit up dry ice blocks that were turned into igloo. Even the tables and chairs were slippery. Whenever I was stepping on slipper surfaces, I always have a cartoon imagination where I slipped and fell in such style that all bones will break. It creates a sense of phobia in me towards treading on slippery surfaces. Aaahh.... looking at something which has nothing to do with Snowalk... I like my own face... muahahahha... purely narcissistic... If ever I go anywhere during the winter, this is what I will want to do second... not first. Firstly, I would like to feel the snow, touch it without wearing any gloves, feel how flaky the snow is. Then, that's what I will do next. That was quite nice actually with the thick jacket so that I would not wet my own clothes. The third thing I would like to do is licking an ice-cream while it is snowing... double chill? Exciting~! Then I would like to toboggan, skiing and holler out loud until I create an avalanche... nah, just kidding. Do you think we really spent 7 freaking hours in Snowalk? That was what we did for hours and hours on end. It was our sixth day and we never found a day to recharge our inner batteries properly. Wherever we were, the moment we landed out butts on something solid, off we went to dreamland and it was one dreamless sleep, nothing could shake us awake. Among all five of them, I was the heaviest sleeper but I was the one with the least sleep. And I have such skill that I was able to sleep while standing and sleep with my eyes open, not responding to anything because I was sleeping but it seemed like I was wide awake. Ahhh... such skill... profound :D We woke up and went back in to make full use of the RM20 entrance fee. Sliding on tubes, not bad at all just that the distance was too short. I have a need for speed and great excitement. And the part that I hated most was to carry the tube back to the place where we started. Lazy... Gosh... remind me of lunch. I would rather fast than eat that. That was what we've been eating for lunch for five days in a row. Bread and more bread and tuna and tuna, spicy tuna, mild spicy tuna, mayonnaise tuna... and I stopped buying tuna since we got back. I just started eating bread again just now for dinner. I have phobia looking tuna together with bread. Such combination give me the creeps. There was no decent food around and I don't wanna spend money having a meal in Old Town. Whee~!! That ride was one noisy ride. It sounded like an ice block being crushed into smaller pieces in the ice-breaker machine at coffee shops. So loud and it was one bumpy ride, banging against the sides, clinking and clonking along. Again, if the distance was longer, I would love it except for the butt ache after that. Ice sculpture with imported artists from China~! I think such expertise couldn't be found in a country without ice. Yeah... yeah.. he's from China because of his trademark slang. I wonder why do they have such heavy accent that hurts the tongue while twisting away all the words. All in all, a place is just a place, how much fun you want the place to be depends on you.

Blogging with Samsung Galaxy Tab..

It's almost the same as using the desktop. The obvious difference is the size. The tab is only 7inch plus while my desktop screen is 15 inch if I'm not mistaken. Instead of using coloured fonts, I've actually chosen the colour by somehow or other it came out with this black normal colour. Furthermore i'm using two finger to type instead of all ten fingers. Anyway it's better than using iPhone. In conclusion I still prefer the mammoth size desktop computer and I still don't fancy all the electronic gadgets I live in the dinosaur age. I still haven't fall on love with all the smart phones available in the market. Sorry for all the typos the fimgers are too fat and kept pressing at the wrong letters. Finallyo can say that I've tried using all the new gadgets for texting n nlogging but I still prefer the old gadgets. I don't even like playing and fidgeting with phones. What's wrong with me? I can't imagine flippng the story book pages on a screen. I prefer the printed papers... forget about saving the earth and going green printing one book less will not help this world. Okay I guess that's all for now.

Who Rob Me of My Time?

It's already Thursday. The weekend is just around the corner. The only thing that I've been doing is waking up, having a class, head to the gym to have a quickie work out, rush back to cook lunch, rush to chop and blend and stir and fry, rush to school to pick my kids from school, rush back for more classes, drive like a mad person in order not to be late and by the time I'm done with everything, I reach home around 11p.m. and there's nothing that I want to do except to sleep so that I can have my 8 hours of sleep. Anything less than 8 hours, I'll be walking like a zombie by 2 p.m. the next day. I can't even find time to do anything properly. See... I only have 5 minutes to blog, uploading the picture took me 2 minutes as I have to search for the picture. Left with no time already... toodles~!!

High5 Bread Town Museum...

Prior to the KL trip, I had been browsing for places to visit for almost two weeks. I was adamant not to waste even a single minute and tried covering as many places as I could. I don't know how to take a relaxing trip. I prefer moving about and I'll go crazy if I'm asked to rest in the hotel for the whole day. Sitting around and doing nothing drive me mad. So, I happen to stumble upon a tiny URL with the word High5 Bread Town which was located in Shah Alam. Getting to the train station wasn't a big deal but from the train station to Silver Bird factory was a big problem as the station there was so 'dead' with only a few taxis to pick passengers up. All the taxis wouldn't want to take so mainly because of our number. The maximum number of passengers per cab was only 4 and there were 5 of us. There wasn't any other alternatives, not even a public bus to be seen. The only weapon we have was prayer. We started praying out loud by the road side, praying for God to send us a big cab that could take all of us and lo' and behold, we couldn't believe our own eyes... we were just half way praying and the big blue cab turned into the train station. Unfinished prayer... AMEN~! And I ran to the entrance, waited until the cab made a big turn and stopped right in front of me. The cab was on the way to the airport, which was so far away and he just made a turn into the station for no reason at all. Well, he has a reason actually... that was to pick us up~!! See how great the Lord is... He knows before we even managed to finish our prayer... He just wanted us to include Him in everything that we do. There... there... finally in the air-conditioned building instead of standing outside and being charred by the fierce burning sun. There was a large number of people in the tour. A group of children, a family of four from Singapore, a whole big group of UiTM students and lecturers. The tour was so fast and we were reminded numerous times not to snap any photos. I was seriously very disappointed to hear that. Why can't we take any photos? If there's gonna be other brand copying then they can easily send spies to join the tour and take in as much as what their eyes can see. The tour moved so fast, I couldn't even catch a glimpse of everything and I left a big gap in between. I totally have no skills to follow a tour group and such a large one at that. In the end I became the last person and I was in a photo snapping frenzy behind. I didn't start it. Monkey see, monkey do. The UiTM students were snapping away and I heard the whirring sound of the camera, turned around and saw them snapping. Before long, I was snapping away as well. Sorry, no photos in the blog... exclusive viewing for those in my Fb list. Bread and buns and Silver Bird cakes were manufactured in this factory and then sent out throughout the whole Peninsular Malaysia. Each of us was given a goodie bag filled with a loaf of bread and all sorts of buns and muffins... bearing in mind I have had a large loaf of Massimo for lunch and I just bought it before we left for this place. If only I've known I wouldn't have bought the loaf of Massimo. By the way, I'm sorry to tell you this High5, I'm still a loyal customer to Gardenia mainly because I grew up chewing on the soft bread and I have bad memories with High5's first batches of solid hard bread. You see, I survive on bread and can go without rice or noodles and I'm very particular with the softness of bread and of course, the taste. Massimo is next in my list... PS. Gardenia, thank you for sending so many burger buns to Tesco Penang. Now I can happily make burgers without worrying whether I can get enough supply of burger buns or not...

No Time...

Funnily, I envy those who can shout out loud, "Thank God It's Friday". Looking forward to Saturdays and Sundays. I don't know what to say for myself. I'm working on both Saturdays and Sundays. I have no days where I don't work. I crave for holidays more than anything else. I wish money will rain down from heaven... just a wild wish. Wishing against wish like hoping against hope. I wanted to sit back and relax. Can't even finish a movie coz I would doze off within 15 minutes the movie started. Can't read a book as I would be reading non-stop. Can't do any cross-stitch as that would be unstoppable as well. Can't write lengthy blog post, not enough time. Can't upload photos in Facebook... shutting down now... Yes, growing like the rapid stream Donk~! PS. I'm not lazy but neither am I as hardworking as I used to be. Life is not just about working round the clock. There's more to it than working. I'm a paranoid checking and flipping through the calendars as if it's gonna make the time move any faster. Doing countdowns for all sorts of public holidays and school holidays. It's just one week into the year and I don't know how am I gonna survive the whole year through.

Petronas Twin Towers..

This is the main reason why I was at KLCC. I wanted so much to get a nice shot of the Twin Towers. As we were spending the whole day at KLCC, visiting the Petrosains and Aquaria, we walked back towards Suria KLCC, did some shopping. I really like shopping in Isetan. Should have spend more time there. Then we went all the way up to Kinokuniya. I have a craze for bookstores too but at that point of time, we only wanted to sit down to rest our tired legs and I got a full wide view of the splashing water at the Symphony Lake. I was thinking that there would be colourful lights shining out from the pond as well so we waited until the water pump was switched on and waited until the sun finally went to sleep. Darkness fall but the lake was just as dark except for the rhythmic splashes of fountains. I was truly satisfied, with the good weather, the inky black sky as the backdrop and a dream fulfilled.

Aquaria..

Woohoo~! I love aquatic animals... those with shells and uncountable legs, those that can be eaten, those with claws, those four-legged furry unfriendly mammals, those with fins and scales and not touchable fish, those weird looking prawns, those with horrible jagged teeth that can slice through your flesh in less than a minute and and and and... I don't know how to say it... but I can stay around Aquaria for hours and hours. Piranha~! Remember that movie? There were so many piranha in Aquaria. I thought we were gonna missed the feeding time but God is so good that the time to feed the piranha would only start at 4 p.m. We were there an hour earlier. The whole tank was filled with the ferocious carnivorous fresh water fish. They dropped two large fish as food and in less than 2 minutes the bones were even missing. It's said that they could only feed the fish twice a day as not to turn it into a really fierce fish. Aww... he looks so cuddly. Pity him.. he was scratching all over the whole time I was looking at him. I wanted to cuddle him like a teddy bear but I think he's not the type to be cuddled what not with the long and sharp fingernails. How long have they not bathe him? He must be infested with ticks? That looked like a plastic shark but it's actually real. I don't tend to jump into the pool to find out how ferocious it can get. It was really nice walking in the tunnel with the large turtle hovering around and the majestic stingray with the full flaps flapping away like it was flying but it was actually swimming. And it has a grinning face. I found this most entertaining. The ghost shark with soft bones for its head. I was hoping to snap its photos if it would just stay still. Lo' and behold, it stopped swimming completely right above my head. We had the chance to take turn snapping away with that ghost shark as our background, our main attraction actually. We became the foreground of the photos. That looked pretty cute.

Petrosains...

Petroleum Science? Nah... I think it's Petronas' Science Discovery Centre. Proud of Malaysia, aren't you? We have our own local petroleum... and that's Petronas~! The last time I went to Petrosains, I was only 16. I couldn't remember whether the place has changed or it just remained the same. I remain neutral throughout the whole expedition as I've said before, Science to me is something that makes me feel like a walking zombie. There were some parts that were quite attractive. For example, the section with mirrors and lots of mirrors. Mirrors that can play tricks as the mirrors were placed in such angles that I have no idea how they did it. I just realized that I have no sense of direction when I stood in front of the mirror thus, I don't look into a mirror when I'm back at home. Aahhh... nice~! I took quite a lot of pics and as long as my camera can keep me well entertained, it was not such a bad place to visit after all. Moreover, the entrance fee was quite cheap. There was a part when we went through the simulation of being in an aircraft. The screen showed us the simulation of being in a roller coaster which was EXACTLY the same as what we watched at the XD-Theatre in KL Tower. The only difference was the background in the screen. Instead of depicting the Canyon ride, it was showing the outer space animated scene. Thus, I did not find it exhilarating. I was quite bored with the whole place after less than an hour. Then, I entertained myself again by playing with my own shadow. Trying to gather as much coloured pebbles dripping from above. I think I stood there for 30 minutes in different poses. Other children looking must have thought I was out of my mind. The ultraviolet walkway was one that I've never seen before. Hohoho~! This is to show that you can never fake our identification card. Just need to run it through the ultraviolet ray then you will know whether you're holding a fake one or the genuine one with the ghost image.

And please think twice before you start making counterfeit MYR to scam others. Very beautifully and uniquely done. Stop looking down at Malaysia. We do have our own flaws but we also have our authentic trademark and it's really really immoral and wrong to tarnish the good image of Malaysia.

Closing A Chapter, Opening A New One...

As we usher in the new year, 2012 will be a year of great harvest. All in all, I would like to thank God for giving me good health, a perfect family and really good friends. To wrap year 2011 in a bundle, it's gonna be such a huge bundle that no words can describe how good it has been. Of course there were some bad times, but nowadays I tend to put those bad stuff behind and move forward. For the first two days of 2012, I was busy cleaning my wardrobe removing some clothes, folding the t-shirts up so that it won't take up too much space but I still have a problem keeping the new clothes. Looks like I'm not gonna shop for new clothes for some time... Oh, well... I said that once too often. I vacuumed the room for the first time. And as for my New Year Resolution, I still keep to my previous one, that is not to make a resolution at all. I know I can't keep it and having one will become a burden, makes me feel guilty about not keeping up to my own tempo so forget about it. This post is kinda short and it has been kept in the draft for two days. I need my beauty sleep but I still have lots of things to do with so little time.