My CrAzY thoughts.... ^^V

CNY 2011~

2012-01-22T14:11:00.003Z

Whoa, how much faster can the Earth spin??! Can't believe its Chinese New Year all over again! @.@ granted its in January this year instead of February like previous years, but the last CNY seemed like just awhile ago.. Hmm, or is it because I've been super unproductive in 2011 in terms of blog posts, since I'm digging this post out from my huge pile of drafts from last year.. *groan*

Last year was special for me since it was the first time that we had a reunion dinner with only three people.. I think Im getting used to the idea now :) (Just had our small but cosy reunion dinner just now and it was simply yummy~! Props to Mum!!) It was also the first time that I joined my friends to go about town to 拜年 and collect angpows.. Never got to do that since we moved to JB because we always went back to either Penang or KL for CNY.. Truth be told, it was rather fun to visit the houses of friends that I've known for ages but never got the chance to step into their homes.. :)

Will be starting work on the third day of CNY this year, sobs.. Will miss the extra day's holiday in during my old job.. Just to reminisce, last year, while still working in KL, I got to have Yee Sang i think twice in two days? Can't really remember.. but I know I had it more times than previously..

Our little 'feast' at Esquire Kitchen.. the food wasn't great but the company was.. :):) to my work-lunch gang, friends forever!!

The second time, went with my favourite boss to The Han Room at The Gardens.. After reading the reviews, I was really anticipating the food there.. In the end, I was greatly disappointed, the food was good but the services was so horrible, it put me off going a second time.. We waited more than 2 hours for our food and they still somehow managed to get the orders wrong.. and the waiter didn't even bother to tell me that the fried rice I ordered was meant to be shared by at least 2-3 people when I ordered.. so evil! I think they only serve the richer guests well, since those who ordered the expensive sets didn't face any problems..

Normal chopsticks vs Lou Sang chopsticks~~

With Ed, CLE and TAP.. smiling happily before we realised that we would be starving for another hour or so.. =.=

some of the leng luis in my ex-company.. :)

I was so curious what was in those colourful spoons.. thought they were swan shaped pastries at first @.@

happy angpow collecting gang.. We started with 6 people and ended the day with 10.. haha.. weird how people whom you have not spoken to in ages don't mind visiting your house to collect an angpow..

Oh yeah, and I also got to visit the Dong Zen Temple in Jenjarom with all its beautiful decorations for CNY ~ Like this pic cos my legs look really slim here.. too bad my face does not XD

Wonder what will this year's CNY be like.. Hope I get to go shopping.. really need a pair of new sneakers.. heh!

Merry Belated Christmas!! O.o..

2012-01-08T13:50:00.019Z

In the blink of an eye, I've been working in Singapore for almost 6 months now.. I know I haven't blogged about my new workplace before but day in day out its almost the same as the number of colleagues I have now is so much lesser than before and it seems to me that they are not as spontaneous as my previous colleagues, so there's much less interesting stuff happening.. T___T

Apparently, we will have a Christmas celebration/ dinner every year as my lady boss is a Christian. This year we had to celebrate much earlier to accommodate everyone's leave schedule. Can you believe that we had our Christmas dinner on 12 December?! @.@~ This year, the dinner was held at Latitude Bistro at this private club on Sentosa Island called ONE°15 Marina Club.

Since there are 11 of us and two bosses=2 cars, and one of the listed companies had an announcement that day, I got to go in a taxi with 2 other colleagues after releasing the announcement. The whole way there we were fretting about how we were going to get home, cos Sentosa Cove, where the club is located is a long long long loooong way in from Sentosa Gateway and the initial plan by our bosses was to go for drinks after dinner and we would only be allowed to go home around midnight :S Thank goodness, we managed to finish early in the end and I very luckily caught the last mrt back!

Exterior of the restaurant, some photos are blur as my phone camera doesn't do well in bad lighting.. @.@

Co Sec Department, LoL at how I used to work in a similar department with around 80 people.. Downgraded.. XD

My senior at work, who really is my senior from college since she was in the same course two years earlier than me.. what a coincidence! :)

Dinner was an all you can eat buffet! The spread wasn't large but there were lots of good stuff to pick from and the dessert section which is my favourite part was quite satisfying~ I only had three rounds though, maybe it was because I didn't feel the need to gorge myself silly when I wasn't paying for the meal @.@~

As you can see, there was sashimi, fresh oysters, crab claws and Maine lobster!! I don't recall eating a lobster straight from the shell before, it was really really good! Sweet and springy~ There was an array of sushi too, but I didn't want to have so much rice, so I skipped that part..

Roast beef (Yums!), Cod fish, samosas and cheese and crackers from the cheese platter~ I remember enjoying the brie cheese but there was one called Reblochon which was incredibly pungent and the taste just stuck to my tongue, definitely not my type of cheese.. I also decided to skip the turkey roast which has a reputation for not being the tenderest type of meat~

Dessert!! warm and gooey bread and butter pudding, assorted cakes, sinfully sweet christmas cookies and pecan pie! I've always wanted to try pecan pie but never knew where to find it,thank goodness it tasted quite good, something like what I'd imagined it would taste like, nutty and not too sweet~

After dinner, we played some games, which were kind of stupid, but rather fun once you immerse yourself into it. First, we played one where two people were assigned to a team and we had to hook our hands together behind our backs so that we would be stuck together back to back, then run around trying to grab the other teams' Christmas hats! Sounds so ridiculous, but it was quite exciting really and great exercise! I think I sweated more that night than I do in one week @.@

Then we switched to the classic pass the parcel game. The losers had to do a forfeit such as: dance like Shakira, walk like a duck or some extreme ones like trying to propose to someone whose parents disapprove of your marriage, lol.. My favourite one was where a chinese colleague, filipino colleague and my boss had to pretend that they were an underwear thief, victim and policeman respectively, and they each had to speak in different languages trying to explain the situation, even without the scenario, it was so funny all of us were laughing like crazy..

Angie trying her hardest to win the hand of her 'lover'.. hahahahaha...

Crazy woman alert!! You'll never guess what I was doing.. :P

after the second game it was time to have the birthday cake~ Since my birthday is only 2 days apart from Angie's, we had a joint celebration and the restaurant had prepared 2 banana cakes for us, lol..

Yippee, I'm 10 years old this year!! :) *Denial much?!*

I wish with all my might~

Blowing out the candle~

Got a birthday card from my colleagues and a birthday kiss from our French client who rents one of the rooms in our office, a very fun person to be with~ All thanks to her, I now know how to say 'How do you do?' and 'I'm very well, thank you' in French.. :D

A very rare evening full of laughter with my co-workers =)

Earlier that week, we had to stay back one Friday evening to set up the christmas tree, which is also a yearly tradition. The tree looked much more impressive than the one at my old office, but it wasn't fun setting it up at all as the centralised air-con was switched off already! *groan*

Group shot~

The tree and a glimpse of my boss who spent ages fussing over the tree, at the same time hindering us from going home

Oh, had a surprise when I went to work yesterday, my boss was giving out photos to everyone from our Christmas celebrations. I'm so glad because I got the one that I liked the most out of the whole lot! Something special since its the first time I have an actual tangible photograph of myself (besides passport sized ones) in ages.. Thanks boss~

I'm still rather undecided as to I'm happy here or not.. sure, working here has its perks i.e. I can afford a car now which I definitely couldn't at my old job but I sure miss my old colleagues and most of all my old boss who has my utmost respect and adoration.. Kind of miss my old job, but I know that the environment is different now since most of the people I had worked with have also left.. le sigh~

What a difference a year makes. Last year's tree at my old job.. smaller tree with less grandeur but you could feel the warmth and love emanating from the office.. This year, we also exchanged gits and set up the tree together but it felt like just another task that we had to finish, with the boss standing there barking orders at us.. I think with the new year, I should try to think of only the good parts and try to hang in there, 1 and a half years more to freedom~!

My favourite photo from 12 Dec 2011:-

Xmas '11

Korean Garden Club Restaurant - The Korean BBQ Experience~

2012-01-06T13:04:00.001Z

Caught in a Korean craze lately.. @.@~

Latest Obsession!! Lee Min Ho as City Hunter~ *swoon*
The rare Korean drama that is perfect! exciting, not draggy at all and with the perfect music score to boot.. Yeah I know, its been out half a year already.. I'm outdated lah, so what :P

What better time to remind myself of some wholesome, yummy Korean food?! I've been wanting to do a post on this Korean restaurant in Johor Bahru since ages ago but its been hard to find excess brain cells to blog properly after finishing a whole day of work.. The first time I went was in July last year for a gathering with my secondary school classmates and the second time was for my birthday dinner with Mum and Bro~

They say that first impressions are most important, so it was lucky that I had a very good first impression of the place as the second experience wasn't that good and if my review was based on the second visit, it would be a very bad review indeed.. more on that later though..

The Korean Garden Club Restaurant is situated along Lido Beach at one of the old bungalows by the side of the road, its easier to spot now since they put up a red signboard, but it was much harder to locate previously, we had to look out for some wooden huts to find it..

The very understated and hard to spot entrance! This was the only sign telling us that we were at the correct place the first time I went @.@

said huts and part of the main house~

What a pretty house.. I want!!!

We arrived early :)

So there was plenty of time to chit chat and fool around before our gathering began :)

Behind the scenes of Domokun's modelling photoshoot~~
Link to the album here, but it could be locked, hehe

There were 10 of us, so we ordered Set H~ I'm so kind that I'm going to list out what the set consisted for easy reference:

Set H (6-8 pax) RM300
Marinated Pork Meat x 2
Seafood Onion Pancake x 2
Grilled Mackerel Fish
Ginseng Chicken Soup x 2
Chicken Meat x 2
Fresh Pork Belly x 2
Fried Dumpling

Even without the pan chan (which I've defined before previously) it already seemed like a lot.. whats more the tea, pan chan and salad greens are refillable, so you can be satisfied even if you are literally starving before having dinner there..

The mind boggling array of side dishes, ALL REFILLABLE!! *great for stingy people like me who love a good bargain*

Enjoy the sunset and sea breeze while dining :D

This is the grill for the BBQ! Don't worry about consuming too much carbon since they change the lid every time they cook a new dish :):)

Pork Belly before and after.. Yummy!! Highly recommend the pork belly :)

Marinated chicken meat, I remember it tasted a little sweet because of the sauce.. Note to self: I don't like my meat sweet @.@~

This is the grilled mackerel, which tasted slightly burnt because of the skin.. I didn't like this as it tasted a little too fishy for me.. I think this wasn't very popular with the others as well..

Korean Seafood Pancake~

I forgot to take pictures of the Ginseng Chicken Soup and Dumplings, but as you can see, even with such a long table, we still had trouble fitting all the food in... muahahhaha... The thing I love the most about Korean food is that its so healthy, you feel healthier even by looking at the amount of greens on the table *Trying to ignore the fact that I'm eating BBQ-ed meat*

Quite a good turn out, 10 out of 12!! I think we sat there from 6pm (when the restaurant opened) until 11pm, there was just so much catching up to do :)

Anyways, I couldn't wait to go again after that first time.. but the second time was a little disappointing, there were mosquitoes everywhere, we had a hard time getting people to serve us, i.e. for refills (which wasn't the case the first time I was there T_T) and I think we just ordered too much for 3 people, which made the volume of food on the table a bit too overwhelming.. aaaand, the toilet was a huge disappointment, maybe because the house is so old that the accompanying toilet just seems like it can't hold up much longer..

Lesson learned: Do not sit outdoors after it has rained!! (and also hold your bladder until you reach home so you don't have to experience the run-down toilet, hahaha)..

Do not fret though, I would still love to dine there if given the chance and I'd still recommend the restaurant to friends, just be sure you follow the instructions above~ :D

Missha's Princessy Wedding~ ^o^

2011-11-23T14:29:00.015Z

Sunday 20.11.2011

You know you're getting old when you start getting invited to weddings and full moon parties *groan* I'll have to admit, this wasn't my first wedding invitation, but the first that I actually looked forward to attending :) 2 big reasons:

i) The bride was absolutely sincere and had asked us to book the date for her since February, not someone who contacts you out of the blue just to tell you that they are getting married; and

ii) The venue of the wedding was Westin, KL, which is located right next to Starhill Gallery, and a 5* hotel no less! Im your neighbourhood 'jakun' (i.e. country bumpkin) who hasn't stepped foot into any 5* hotel since god knows when, so just had to jump at the chance to do so =)

My outfit.. a rare chance to dress up, but ruined by the huge bruise on my arm T.T

My chauffeur and me~

The backdrop at the stage area. I really loved the shimmering effects created by the strands of lights!

A closer look at the gorgeous cake.. I seriously thought cakes like this only appeared in dramas =)

my beloved fellow ex-Tricorians..

Wedding favours were chocolates from Westin KL and wedding photo bookmarks~

and the very crowded table settings.. I really didn't dare move much in case I knocked anything over and despite me trying to move as little as possible, i still had quite a few near misses with the wine glasses *groan*

Everybody went to get their hair set and looked so glamourous except me T.T

The menu was full of stuff that I'd never tried before and the dessert was completely unpronounceable -- fine dining~ :)

We were all pretty hungry already by the time the first dish appeared at 8pm++ This is The Westin Combination Platter. Clockwise from top: Spinach Mushroom Parfait~Calamansi Chilli Marinated Taiwanese Shell Abalone~Star Anise Ginger Marinated Salmon~Spicy Prawn Tartlet~ My favourite was the slightly smoked salmon followed by the pastry of the prawn tartlet, hahaha.. The abalone with the greenish coloured seaweed just tasted too fishy for me and the parfait was interesting without being especially yummy @.@~

Braised Shark's Fin. Dry Scallop, Shredded Seafood with Twin Melon Broth (which did nothing much to satiate our hunger, the waiter didn't even fill our bowls properly, as you can see, my bowl was only 2/3 full)

Steamed Red Grouper Hong Kong Style This was quite good, but I wished the portion could be a little bit bigger, I think I would need supper after having a dinner fine-dining style =.=

Esmei! I miss you immensely!!

Honey Mustard Glazed Spring Chicken with Braised Black Plum and Rosemary Juice. Quite nice, especially the plum which I had thought that I wouldn't fancy since its all mushy..

Braised Abalone with Hong Kong Kai Lan and Premium Abalone Sauce. I loved this, but strangely enough, not because of the abalone, but because of the kai lan, which I love =)

Roast Duck and Garlic Rice Cake with 5 Spice Duck Gravy. This I found rather weird,. Would have preferred the duck to be served alone, I couldn't finish the rice as glutinous rice has a way of sinking in your stomach and making you feel very full, especially when we were so far into the meal. I think I would have enjoyed this dish more if it was served earlier..

Gateau au Chocolat Chaud, Creme Glacee au Yaourt
Hot Chocolate Cake and Yoghurt Ice-cream. The completely unpronounceable dessert, hehehe..basically nice and warm moist chocolate cake and youghurt ice-cream, hehe..

The beautiful bride finally came round to take a group picture with us.. I don't know why but it felt like I was in the room with a super star... =) So proud of her... Congrats Mish!!!

This pic damn cute! ^^ I failed to get a picture of her in her first dress, which was even nicer than the green one.. but very hard to capture her while she was walking down the red carpet and with so many other tables in front of us.. T.T wasted..

The newlyweds cutting the cake~

A very fun night marred a little by the service at The Westin, I'd expected better service at such a high-end place.. The waiter had to be told repeatedly to refill your glasses, until we were quite fed up at the end.. and they made us wait for quite long intervals between dishes, which made the dinner drag on for more than 4 hours.. argh... We only finished at around 12.30am... Furthermore, the servings that he dished out to us were so obviously different that we couldn't help complaining amongst ourselves.. i.e. some of us got a plate full of fish and some got a plateful of bones @.@~

Anyways, can't complain too much else it would seem like I was there more for the food than the celebration, which wasn't the case.. We still managed to have quite a nice little gathering :):)

Aww.. I'm so glad that I got to know you guys...

Lunch @ Assumption Pathway School

2011-09-21T15:21:00.007+01:00

Came home at 10pm today after an almost 3 hour governors' meeting at St Gabriel's :S

I'm dreading having to write the minutes, but all in all, i enjoyed attending the meeting as the topics discussed were very interesting and the governors are all very accomplished, eloquent and humorous people :D

The scrumptious dinner served and some wine appeased me a little as well.. We even had wine and birthday cake to celebrate one of the governor's birthday! I always say i love free stuff, not to mention free meals~ stayed for abt 2 hours after the meeting ended listening to the governors chatting and caught a ride home with the chairman of Monfort schools no less, lol.. I think i gained a lot of general knowledge tonight, whee..

My souvenir from today's meeting held at Boys' Town (testing my new phone's camera *big broad grin* but more on that later)

**************************************************************

Anyways, after getting to know about this foundation, i realised that kids who are not academically inclined in Sg are rather pitiful as they have no where to go, unlike at home in Malaysia where they can opt to go to a vocational school. The foundation is trying to help such kids by setting up a vocational school (one of only a limited few in Sg) to equip such kids with skills that will help them to find jobs later on in life.

I had a chance to try out the products of their culinary classes one afternoon when we had our company lunch at The ART aka The Assumption Restaurant for Training. Its something like the little restaurant at TAR College where they train the students studying hospitality but in this case, the trainees are all in their early teens!

The set lunch menu, the choices are limited but maybe they might improve the menu in future

Yummy bread with butter before the main course :)

mushroom soup with croutons which was so warm and creamy that brought so much comfort to my tummy on the rainy afternoon that we were there :)

Cheese Quesadillas, one of the mains

My Seafood Marinara Pasta, loved the big juicy prawns and squid~

Dessert that i didnt really like, maybe cos im not a big fan of the red bean filling. We were supposed to have brownies but we were there late and it was out of stock T.T

The food was quite good, better than what I had expected and proceeds from the restaurant go to improving the school itself. Its only S$12 per person and its for a worthy cause, so hopefully more people will trek all the way up the hill at St Gabriel's to try it out.

The view from the patio is quite nice if you sit outside, green fields just below the hill :) However, please do not expect impeccable service since you will be served by young students after all. I think they were all rather nervous, I even saw one girl walk into the glass door while on her way to set a table =.=

Nevertheless, please give these kids a chance, I hope in time society will find that everyone has their own place in this world and its not the end of the world if you cannot get good grades in school~

Address: 30 Cashew Road, Singapore 679697
Operating hours: 12pm to 2pm
Contact: (+65) 6892 6187 or (+65) 6879 3900 at least 2 days before your reservation

Its just unbelievable..

2011-09-14T15:35:00.004+01:00

14.09.2009

Its just unbelievable that.. I woke up in the morning to a view like this!

Its just unbelievable that.. Water in a drain can be as clean as this!

Its just unbelievable that.. a bridge can look as picturesque as this! *click to zoom*

Its just unbelievable.. that a road can be as wide as this! 8 lanes! and its a roundabout!

Its just unbelievable.. that a street can look as grand as this! Arc de Triomphe!

Its just unbelievable.. that an LV store needs to be as huge as this!
The flagship store in Paris~

Its just unbelievable that.. The streets can be as messy as this!
Where are the lines that are supposed to be on the road??!

Its just unbelievable that.. A building can be as grand as this! Is that gold I see? @.@~

Its just unbelievable that.. I have seen this with my own eyes! *so touched.. sobs..*

Its just unbelievable that.. I was here in front of this, just 2 years ago on this exact same day!

Its just unbelievable that.. It looks even prettier in the night time! :):):)

Ok, I think you are starting to get annoyed by the monotony of this post by now :S How time flies, I seriously can't fathom how 2 years has passed by so fast, can you??!!!

That was from Day 11 of my Europe Trip Chamonix Mont Blanc -- Paris, spent many hours travelling in the bus that day, hence the many blurry and oddly cropped pics.. but it was all worth it to see that monument in its lighted up glory.. hehehe...

I don't know why I just felt like doing a special post today, its been a long time since I changed the format of my blog posts, but reading my old old posts, I just think that maybe I was a lot more creative and fun then, and I'd like to find that part of me again~ :)

He Came, He Saw, He Conquered. (the food)

2011-09-06T15:36:00.006+01:00

Me wiping the dust off my blog just proves how much I miss him T.T~ Yup, the boy came to visit me last week during the raya holidays cos he got 1 week off from work, while I got a measly 1 day holiday!!! Where is the justice in this world?!! In the end, I sacrificed my weekend and public holiday chance to rest to bring him sightseeing..

Just had to put this up cos for the first time in ages, my skin looks nice, my hair looks shiny, my head looks small and my eyes look big!! WoW, 100% miracle..

The lighting was sooo good, I just couldnt resist.. pardon the luggage strewn all over my room...

Actually I only brought him out for half a day each on Sunday and Tuesday, muahahha.. cos we ended up being to lazy to leave the bed until late morning and the only pictures available are from his first day in Sg, since after that he kind of became an honorary Singaporean employee a.k.a. my maid, so no point to take pictures, lol...

So here goes, I actually took him on the same route that I brought Lil previously i.e. walking from Marina Bay MRT to Raffles Place MRT, whee~

Recognise the landmarks?? :)

City Skyline~~

Suddenly realised how senget my eyes are.. the pic turned out so lopsided.. T.T

We got real excited when we saw these.. they weren't there the last time I went *defensive* motion sensor solar powered fans!!! Real cool~! Spot the pun? :P

At some deserted pier near Fullerton Hotel.. I seriously need to fix my hair =.=

With the very thing he was so eager to see.. hahaha... merlion molester!

My photography skills can pass?? lol...

Had planned to have dinner at Bugis Junction cos I'd read abt this Japanese dessert buffet place called Lets Sweets.. I was so so anticipating trying it, but turned out it had closed down.. sobs... Only SGD19.90 per person for dinner, maybe too worth it till the business started making losses, cos ppl couldn't stop eating once they started, lol... We ended up having something entirely different for dinner, at a restaurant called Honguo 红锅 (literally red pot)..

Me with Yunnan Cuisine called 过桥面线

Giant bowl of soup, vermicelli and 12 types of ingredients to throw into the soup.. the waitress wanted to put the ingredients in for me but I chose to do it myself cos it seemed fun.. In the end quite lame lor, just pour everything in and thats it.. Ceh... Quite satisfying tho, cos the bowl was soo huge, the meal took me forever to finish... :D

Monday I had to work, and my maid cooked a scrumptious meal that could feed an army for our dinner. Tuesday we went to Funan Digital Mall (he forced me to bring him there =.=) and Orchard Road where we watched Final Destination 5 in 3D (Eeeew!!). Wednesday, I had to work again so he came and met me for dinner at Lau Pa Sat. All too soon, it was Thursday and we had to say our goodbyes..

So sad that I have no idea when is the next time I'll be seeing him again.. Cant wait for his next visit.. so many more places that I want to visit.. *hint* Universal Studios and Sentosa Luge and Singapore Flyer, Whee~ :)

suaku

2011-07-03T16:45:00.001+01:00

Ooooo... I think I can blog using my iPad now~ but can't upload pics.. Too bad..

New Years Day 2011~

2011-07-01T07:50:00.000+01:00

Missing my guy awfully bad right now... T.T... Here's some pictures of us waaaaayy back during new year's day 2011 (ok i exaggerated a bit, its still 2011, lol)

That was the day we celebrated his birthday 2 days early and oso the day we kena tipu by San Francisco Steakhouse at Tropicana City Mall... Actually can't blame them oso, since we were the ones walking headfirst into what we knew was a trap... :S

You know how these restaurants serve a 'special' menu during big holidays like Valentines, new years day, christmas, etc... well it was the same at San Francisco, only abt 10 choices from the 'special' menu with 'special' prices oso.. grr... and no turning back for us as we'd walked right into the far end of the restaurant, and we'd been wanting to have western food since forever.. grr x 2...

still, we made do with what we had and had fun anyways~~ ^^

Don't ask me what exactly we ate of drank cos after more than half a year, i seriously can't remember... XD

My medium rare something something steak...

his chicken maryland...

birthday boy~! :*

That was also the day I fell in love with 2 unexpected things.. One was the Bollywood movie called 3 Idiots (it was so funny and touching, it made me sniffle a little... aww) and the second:-

Ninja Joe pork burgers~~ :P

tried original, teriyaki and black pepper that day.. i liked original the best.. cos im a boring person like that... @.@~ funny, if you take note of my next post, you're going to think im a very big porky lover, but that's usually not the case.. hmm..

Anyways.. i think my ninja joe craze has passed ever since it opened at The Gardens Mall and suddenly wasn't that special any more, since I could have it any time i wanted... XD

To my dear, I think I miss you <3<3<3 sighh...

Lil's Birthday Part 2: Dessert at T Forty Two~

2011-06-18T11:00:00.007+01:00

After lunch at Canoodling, I was telling Lil abt this place selling macarons (I used to spell it as macaroon but then read in wiki that most ppl use the French spelling macaron @.@~) in Bangsar Village II that I'd heard abt the last time I was there.. and being very suaku and not trying it before, I just had to find the place! We were very dumbo, cos we circled the whole building quite a few times searching for the shop, well to be fair BVII isnt that big... After quite a lot of walking, we decided to read the directory more carefully and realised there was a shop listed under cafe/confectionery that we didnt see at all...

Rupanya we'd already passed it quite a few times, but just the area outside and not the actual shop and shop window... T.T how stupid *facepalm*

Finally hit paydirt!! :)

The place is called T forty two.. and the decor is really nice... :)

got grand piano some more leh~! :P

Queen of the day in her high backed chair... the seats were damn comfy i must say~

another pretty dining area separated from us by glass windows :)

the menus were interesting, know why?

cos they had different quotes in front... Pink says "Tea is water bewitched" - Lu Wah, and Blue says "Love and scandals are the best sweeteners of tea" - Henry Fielding~ means anything to you???

Taadaa~ the stars of the day, heck they got even more photos than the birthday girl~ :P

L to R: Bittersweet Chocolate, Strawberry, Green Tea and Passion-fruit

My favourite surprisingly was bittersweet chocolate, cos i usually don't choose chocolate when it comes to flavouring i.e chocolate ice cream or chocolate pudding, etc... The strawberry and passion-fruit ones were surprisingly fruity, exactly like the real fruit itself, very fresh... the green tea one tasted a little to strong for my liking tho..

What surprised me was the texture of the macarons themselves.. I'd expected them to be cake-like, since they look like little cakes but its actually more like marzipan, and I was a little surprised when I took my first bite.. O.o... For RM3.90 each, they are pretty pricey, and very indulging.. not something tat I would consider for teatime any other day lor... hehe...

We also ordered the chocolate fudge cake (RM9.90) which looked crumbly but was actually very gooey and yummy and warm inside... :) nice... but better not eat it in front of someone you secretly admire cos the cocoa powder tends to stick to yr teeth :P

Other tantalising desserts.. chocolate tarts, passionfruit cheesecake slices, lemon meringue tart, chocolate fondant, strawberry shortcake etc etc etc.. A dessert lover's dream come true, sighhhh... The pink one in the middle is the rose macaron which costs a crazy RM13.90. omg! I can have a full meal for that price :S but secretly wondering whats so special abt it...

Other baked stuff with canggih-ranggih pronounceable names like croque monsieur, turkey ham and gruyere muffin, Spinach feta and pine nut briquette O.o..... extremely saliva inducing oso... *eyes glazing up*

We reached the cafe at around 2.15pm and were given a 25 minute window to finish playing around and eating as they were having an event at 2.30pm, a baby shower =.= I know kids nowadays are damn 'ho mia' but babies as well?! Gah.. But no worries, we still managed to finish in good time and had 2 refills of warm water each :P

A little something that deducted some marks from my macaron experience.. I saw a baby roach under the table! Arghhhhh... didnt say anything cos we'd finished eating at the time and I dont think the birthday girl noticed it... shocking eh? but not as shocking as seeing a full grown one in the middle of The Gardens Mall one fine day when we were going back to the office from lunch... *True story* This goes to show that high end places are not safe from nasty pests as well @.@~

So, YaY! cos I finally tried macarons after hearing abt them so long.. but i guess its just a fad, like cupcakes and donuts.. :P

Lil's Birthday Part 1: Lunch at Canoodling @ Bangsar Village II~

2011-06-13T16:09:00.009+01:00

Another chance for celebrations... Lil's quarter of a century birthday is here!!! We were out and about all day on Sunday for an early celebration.. Part 1 was at Bangsar, Part 2 at Mont Kiara and Part 3 at SS2.. amazing right????! :):)

I'd visited Canoodling at Bangsar Village II once before, thanks to my food blogger colleague, Mr Wei Ming, I didn't really like the food that we tried that day but since I was having a serious bout of coughing the last time round, I decided to give it another try together with Lil, whom I figured would love the quirky decor, hehe....

At our table which had its own spotlight.... bright and cheery yellow makes you feel happy too!

The lights were hanging lamps, how creative~~

they had all sorts of doodles on the wall and crayons on the table for you to play around with... how fun~

Menus! The one looking extremely like an exercise book was from the place next door, called Ricetaurant..

see??? the horrible squares from my childhood, cos i had a hard time keeping the words in them, lol...

our appetiser, only RM4.90, tempura kangkung... It wasnt cheap considering that its just a few fried leaves... but it tasted yummy with the dip that they gave us which was a mixture of sweet and salty flavours and complemented the batter quite well :)

I quite liked this to be honest... who would have thought? Tempura kangkung @.@~

Lil's main... 'The Canoodle Oodles of Noodles' the flour wrap felt and tasted like chee cheong fun skin and it was quite fun to create our own roll plus the meat was quite tasty as well, so this this gets a thumbs up from me for being interesting and tasty... Hehe~

My claypot 老鼠粉 which which is the special dish or sundays... nothing special about it though. Apart from the pretty egg on top, it didnt taste that special and was rather salty.. Had to slather the accompanying chilli sauce on every spoonful before I could eat it... :S and I thought it could help change my perception abt the place having a cosy atmosphere but mediocre food, too bad....

I had this the last time -- Pasta Pad Thai, sounds interesting but a tad disappointing... the noodles were gluey and there just wasnt any oomph to the taste...

Crispy duck salad, if i remember correctly, this was rather good, the duck was flavourful enough and Vi ordered this as her dinner so the portion is quite satisfactory i must say~

Pandan Chicken Wings were ok oso... funny how all the appetisers and desserts are not bad but the actual noodle dishes are just so-so considering that its a shop selling mostly noodles @.@~

my dessert... Aloe Vera, Sea Coconut and Ginseng Roots served ice cold...very refreshing and for RM5.90 the bowl was filled to the brim with aloe cubes and sea coconut slices :)

Lil's dessert, creamy mango and pomelo dessert and a peek of my iPad in its new clothes, whee~

and before you forget me :P:P

All in all, the prices and service were quite reasonable and wifi quite fast, plus the ambience was cosy as expected.. but the food could be better, imho....

We had our second dessert at T Fourty Two, also at Bangsar Village II and I cant wait to share what we had that we'd never had before this~~~ to be continued.... cos im sleepy.... :P

Hanging out at Chin Swee Temple~

2011-06-06T16:01:00.014+01:00

5 June 2011

A long awaited retreat~! Our first time driving up to Genting Highlands, mainly to escape the horrible city weather, and we ended up at Chin Swee Temple, of all places... we could have chilled out at starbucks or picked strawberries at the farm, so i have no idea why we chose to climb up and down flights of stairs and slopes looking at statues instead @.@~

Anyways, i rather enjoyed the trip cos the last time i visited the place was ages ago so it was like visiting a new place, and its always nice to be able to visit a new place (even though its not exactly my first time there... confusing much??)..

The first thing of interest that i saw there was a bug... a stripey spider to be exact... was trying to take a pic of it when it suddenly fell right in front of my nose... scary man... actually the whole place was full of bugs... they must enjoy the view too~

pretty flowers... luckily took a pic of them before we set off exploring, cos it rained pretty heavily while we were exploring, and when we came out all the pretty flowers were drooping... :D

pretending to enter the pagoda to climb it, but actually we felt too lazy so we didnt climb up... :P

8 stories of tightly winding stairs...no joke~

uh oh, he pushed till it became slanted :S:S

the nine dragon wall and the gods of fortune hill behind

Dragons on the roof too~

The whole place just looks surreal... with the greenery and mist, it feels just like a whole other world...

You can imagine yourself at some hidden temple... (if you look closely, you'll realise that Buddha has grass growing in his hair... cute...)

or acting in some period kungfu movie... lol...

Got fake cranes oso... tat grey thingy in front is supposed to be some magic fountain/ water dispenser where you press the button and water comes out.. but apparently it needs some maintenance :*

Giant Buddha can help make your tummy look smaller... lol...

It started raining a little while after we arrived, so we went to hide in Goh Tong Hall, obviously named after the founder of Genting Highlands.. It was full of these beautiful sculptures that form the personal collection of Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay.. all of them were besar-besar belaka and must cost hundreds of thousands of Ringgit O.o... The main reason we went to the hall actually was to find a place to sit while we ate the waffle pizza's that we got for lunch but while observing the ppl in the room, i realised something funny...

every single person went and molested this happy looking sculpture :S there was this man who was rubbing its tummy and the heads of the little monks at the side of the belly for so long that i was wondering whether the paint would come off... I figured it must be something to do with luck, so what the heck, I went and patted its tummy also.. what to do? I'm kiasu wat

After that we went and looked at the sculptures depicting the 10 levels of hell, with super gory and scary sculptures that i couldn't bear to take pictures of in case i get nightmares while looking at them :S:S:S apparently even a small thing like littering can make you end up in a boiling pot of oil... so beware....

The last place we visited in the temple was Chin Swee Hall where I found the biggest 木鱼 (literally translated as wooden fish-the thing monks beat when they chant) ever seen! the stick even looks like a fish's eye :D

Climbing all ard the place got us real tired out, after all i wasnt wearing shoes that were suitable for lots of walking so we ended up in the casino uphill for the purpose of getting free milo, hahaha...

missed us??? :P

Had a lovely lovely dinner at Gohtong Jaya before we made our way back to hot and stuffy KL (RM48 frog legs anyone?).. The jam was terrible on the way back cos the rain and the winding road caused plenty of accidents = plenty of things for ppl to kaypoh and slow down for...

*groan* what an end for a super fun day~~~ only made it back at ard 11pm that night and had to work the next day, SOBS~

09.01.2011 The Perfect Sunday~

2011-05-03T15:31:00.000+01:00

Suddenly feel like reminiscing about a perfect Sunday while its raining heavily outside on this dreary Tuesday... :S We'd planned a whole day of activities for Michelle for her 22nd birthday celebrations one fine Sunday.. :)

I took a bus down to Korean House at SS2 to meet the girls or our first stop. I've been to Korean House a few times before and I like it a lot cos like most Korean restaurants, each meal comes with refillable tea and lots of appetizers and priced at only RM9.90 per set, which makes super kedekut and kiamsiap me very happy!

Spicy chicken set (came with rice)

BBQ Beef set (also came with rice)

Kimchi fried rice..
see all the vege?? makes me feel so healthy whenever I dine there... :D

Birthday girl and me~

After lunch + lots of tea refills and chatting, we made our way to our second stop which I've mentioned before here for the customary birthday cake...

Original Vanilla Mille Crepe

Strawberry Mille Crepe

Chocolate Dream

Enjoying her strawberry mille crepe cake....

Next stop was to Tropicana City Mall where we watched Season of the Witch... quite an exciting movie if only it didnt have such a lame ending... @.@~

Headed to Bad Ass Coffee for a drink and ended up salivating after looking at their menu.. In the end we succumbed and decided to have an early dinner... lol...

The bad ass donkey~

i was pretending to be paparazzi while they were ordering... :)

Hey, just realised Lil stole my jacket... O.o...

The decor in Bad Ass Coffee is so fun.. I loved their menu boards and counters and all the cute stuff all around...

erm, nope, this is not the cute stuff i meant

I meant these cutesy jars with colourful teas

and this random sack filled with stuffed toys

and also the cute plaques they had :)

The main counter~

souvenir shack

If I remember correctly, I had the non-coffee Polar Bear drink and Michelle had some very interesting flavoured coffee, cant remember what flavour it was though...

Minestrone Soup

Hot Dogs!

and lots of sauce to go with them :D

and someone very seriously (which is rare for her) eating her very huge hot dog...

my very very yummy Hawaiian burger.. everything becomes hawaiian once you add pineapple :P

Will call this very simply breaded fried fish, it had a much better name in the menu but i cant for the life of me remember what :S

Everyone looks so cute while eating :P:P:P:P

I remember we spent quite a few hours there hogging the table... muahahhaha.. cos it had such a cosy atmosphere, and the grub was good... really recommend the place lor... :)

Free advertising~

Wifi-ing~

Massaging~

Self-timer shooting~

love the place V^^V

Toilet break oso must take pics @.@~

Tropicana's CNY decor more pink than red~~

Next stop, wanna guess??? 林林玲 has also been there~ :) We fooled around outside for a long time before we went in...

aiya fail betul, halfway pushing my glasses up my nose :S

show you the interior first so you can keep guessing... lol

kebab!!

Glass roof!! :)

In the toilet again~ @.@~

Starting to hate doing OT (overtime work)???? then head down to OT-- Overtime, the best place for chilling out thats famous for Starker Beer and live band performance that are quite good...

said starker beer~

we wanted to order 1 pint for half a free pint so each of us could have half a pint each, but the waitress got confused or something and we ended up ordering 2 pints for 1 free pint = 1 pint each.. everyone looked like a tomato afterward... :S:S:S

Best day ever with my girls~ :)

The best ending to the night, walking past a cage full of these puffs of cuteness with wriggly pink noses.. they were all asleep until we woke them up and they started looking around groggily, hehehhehe....

My Mum's birthday was 49 days ago =.=

2011-04-23T04:13:00.006+01:00

* Foreword: My mum has fallen ill so here's hoping she gets well soon! (cos im going back next week and wanna taste her cooking, no lah joking.. sincerely hoping she will get well soon and ease some of my worrying~)

This year, I got to celebrate her birthday with her back home :):):) Nothing really fancy, jus my mum, my brother and me... We'd decided long long ago that we'd get a cake from humble beginnings cos my the both of them have been eager to try ever since I started raving abt mille crepe here and here :D

The ribbon was really pretty at first but my mum was pretty eager to open it before i could take a picture so we had to tie it back, and you know i always got Cs and Ds for art and craft... muahaha...

French Vanilla mille crepe from humble beginnings~ quite reasonably priced for such a huge cake and they delivered right to our doorstep (well ok, our gate..), and were quite punctual :)

birthday girl soooo cute~ im so smart put only 1 candle, so you'll have a hard time guessing her age :P

see our beanies at the back? and twilight? and the ugly door?? a tiny glimpse of our humble abode :)

the candle looks so lonely on such a huge area of cake... but easier to blow anyway....

This is sooooo cute oso.... :):)

been using my self timer more these days~~ :) dunno why my bro is frowning here.. maybe cos we were too short so he had to bend really low ;P

only my mum looks good here :( well, i would have looked good here if i could jump in in time... :P:P

nice one~~~

The cake looking nice while its being dissected...

can see the layers???! and my fingers??? =.=

my mum playing with her official birthday present.. a panasonic ioniser hairdryer that is super huge!!! official cos my bro and i shared... the unofficial one is an LED TV that we got from stupid, lousy, horrible, dont ever buy stuff from them ever Courts Mammoth that my mum and i shared to get... my bonus eaten up by the tv waaaaaaa.....

looks like some alien gun... hehehehhe...

bonus pic of the bridge at the new bus terminal... really pretty...

Terminal Bersepadu Selatan (TBS), i tot TBS stood for Terminal Bandar Selatan, so we had a hard time locating the place using GPS... boo! but its a very nice terminal tats very high tech and bright and clean~! but ppl cannot hug and cry when saying goodbye cos its like an airport where only those ppl who are taking the bus can go down the escalator....

Just a little reminder... Mum, please get well soon!!! :) miss you~

Eleganz in Red-MAICSA Annual Dinner 2011

2011-04-18T14:19:00.018+01:00

One fine day, I arrived at the office a little (itsy bitsy teeny weeny little bit) later than usual and found out that my head of department had been looking for me earlier... My brain started whirring, thinking abt what I could have done to cause her to want to see me that early in the morning :S:S:S turns out, she just wanted to ask me whether I would like to attend the MAICSA Annual Dinner on 16 April 2011 since I hadn't been to one before, phew... reason why she was choosing first timers to go was because most ppl wouldnt want to go a second time and she was having trouble finding seniors to go.. LoL~

I was eager to go upon finding out that it was going to be held at Renaissance Hotel (4 stars!) with free food and doorgifts and lucky draws... cracked my head a little over the theme tho "Eleganz in Red", cos I dont really have have a very vast wardrobe and hardly any red clothes, boo~

Ended up with:-

red skirt~

red nails~

and not that red lips..

Well, at least I tried my best, better than some people who ignored the theme completely.. most of the guests showed up in top to toe red tho, so I wasnt really red enough... hehehe...

Arrived at 7.20pm and only 5 out of the 10 people at our table had arrived, clockwise from top left. red shoes (not seen). red skirt, red accessories (including necklace, earrings and ring), splotches of red all over (my head of department) and red tie (bought for RM5, lol)

the thing that got me excited -- menu for the night!

The pretty chandelier~

First, the president of MAICSA, Ms Janet Ang gave a welcoming speech..

Then it was the guest of honour's turn...

Then I got distracted by the pile of lucky draw prizes by the stage :)

First dish -- Renaissance's Hot and Cold Combination Platter

Looked mighty pretty and we were served by a waiter whose division skills must have been pretty bad cos my colleague ended up with half a plate of seaweed... lol

my plate~

her plate~ spot the difference :P

Second dish -- Braised Seafood Soup with 8 Treasure, soup tasted ok

Some Corporate Governance Award being presented.. the plaque so shiny... and there was also a cheque for RM10k as part of the prize... Woot~

The VIPs were asked to stay on the stage to launch this something something guidebook, and then..

They were asked to stay again for the souvenir presentation

After spending so much time on stage, the guest of honour decided not to come down after all, and ended up performing a medley of one Malay, Chinese and Tamil song each, he sang 月亮代表我的心 by Teresa Teng and he was quite good.. he continued singing and dancing through the next few courses and i enjoyed his performance so much that I forgot to take pics of a few dishes.... =.=

Steamed Mandarin Fish, Ginger Puree...

Next performance was chinese traditional music..

Must be damn tiring to play the flute, have to blow and blow and keep bending down to change flutes~

On the pretext of going to the restroom during an especially boring bit during the performance, my colleague and I stumbled upon a room with this super bright chandelier :)

Then it was the games session where each table had to choose a leader and in the shortest time possible, find 10 items and get them on stage:- car keys, name card, red flower, credit card, earring, belt, napkin, a 10sen coin and a strand of white hair.. Eventho we werent the first, we would have lost anyway cos no one at our table had white hair T____T so wasted... the emcee actually told us to catch hold of any old uncle and yank his hair out, lol.. we were not so desperate for the prize lor :P

Dessert was a weird soya bean drink and these things that were called chinese pastries in the menu.. mochi is chinese pastry?? since when?! O.o...

red flowers to match the theme~~~ :D

The two pretty ladies whom i shared a ride with, Chooi Wei and Wai Ling :)

and here comes the best part, after the dinner ended and the rest of our table had left, the three of us fully utilised my camera and also played with the self timer while waiting for our driver to come.. hehehe...

oops, im not in yet....

with the doorgift, a book full of post its and signature stickers :):) and Wai Ling's lucky draw gift which turned out to be a kettle.. didnt expect much cos grand prize was a microwave oven only lor....

couldnt resist taking pics when i saw this nice door :):):)

couldnt resist the nice staircase also :P

All in a pretty enjoyable dinner, wonder why ppl dont want to go a second time.. maybe they are not cheapskate like me, hoping to go for a free meal and doorgift and hopefully win in the lucky draw as well... too bad for me, better luck next time~~~

What I'm Listening to This Week~

2011-04-11T08:31:00.006+01:00

I'm on MC today, whee~ Throat infection started camping in my eye all because I read the instructions wrongly and took 2 antibiotic capsules per day instead of the 4 capsules per day that I was supposed to do.. *stupid*

Just a random post to share 3 songs that I've been addicted to recently that I cant seem to find on videokeman.. so cant update the flavour of the week :(

1) Jewel - What You Are

First heard it when I was watching the 2010 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and fell in love with the lyrics~ So nicely written, it kind of makes me want to cry... ;P

"I’m driving around town
Kinda bored with the windows rolled down
See a girl on the bus stop bench
Dressed to draw attention

Hoping everyone will stare
If she don’t stand out she thinks she’ll disappear
Wish I could hold her, tell her, show her
What she wants is already there

A star is a star
It doesn’t have to try to shine
Water will fall
A bird just knows how to fly

You don’t have to tell a flower how to bloom
Or light how to fill up a room
You already are what you are
And what you are is beautiful

Heard a story the other day
Took place at the local VA
A father talking to his dying son
This was his conversation

“It’s not supposed to be like this
You can’t go first I can’t handle it”
The boy said “Dad now don’t you cry,
Remember when I was a child what you used to tell me when I’d ask why?”

(You’d say) Gravity is gravity
It doesn’t try to pull you down
Stone is stone
It can’t help but hold its ground

The wind just blows, though you can’t see
It’s everywhere like I’ll always be
You already are what you are
And what you are is strong enough"

Here's a clean version of the song.. Enjoy~

2) Emily Browning - Asleep

Omg, im so in love with Emily Browning after watching Sucker Punch, she is just gorgeous as Babydoll in the movie... and the way she sings this song, eventhough it doesnt really need super strong vocals but its just like a lullaby that helps you relax before going to bed, if you get what I mean.. The lyrics are a little depressing tho, but its just to suit the scene in the movie when this song is played.. Jump straight to 0.33 for the song to start properly cos the song's opening sounds a bit like white noise..

This song is actually a cover of The Smith's song called Asleep which is just creepy in my opinion, but this is my favourite bit, super depressing...

"Sing me to sleep
Sing me to sleep
And then leave me alone
Don't try to wake me in the morning
'Cause I will be gone
Don't feel bad for me
I want you to know
Deep in the cell of my heart
I will feel so glad to go"

3) White Apple Tree - Snowflakes

Can't find any music video for this interesting song.. the reason I like it is because the music arrangement gives me the feeling of waking up in the morning and feeling great about it.. Its been hiding in my playlist for ages and I only recently noticed it.. @.@~and its been one of the songs I'm always repeating ever since, lol...

Quite a few songs that I've been listening to over and over recently, but these 3 are the more interesting ones, i guess... cant even find music videos of them :( which is why i'd like to share it with everyone!!!! :D

6 to 10 Grill @ PJ Section 17

2011-03-20T06:19:00.005Z

17 March 2011

I guess talking about last Thursday makes me the most updated that I've ever been in months.. *sheepish grin*

Had a date with the roommate to try out this place called 6 to 10 Grill located at the Happy Mansion flats in PJ's Section 17.. We actually first noticed this place when we passed it on our way to Food Foundry, but apparently its already quite well known for its western food and nasi lemak (with pork!!!)~

Notice the pair of lips on the signboard?? Means Ho Chiak had been there before to film the place... i know, i know, means im very suaku.. -.-

At table no. 88... Huat ar~! :P According to a notice on each table, the shop's going to be moving to a new place in aman suria damansara middle of this year, luckily we got to it before they moved!

First up, very boring apple and orange juice at rm3.50 for the small version.. wonder how large is the large version... @.@~

I added in a model to make the juice look more interesting, muahahaha...

And here come the mains:-

Pineapple Pork Chop.. one of their famous dishes.. rm16.50

Looks nice doesnt it?? but i thought that the sauce didnt taste of pineapples at all.. :( a bit disappointing.. maybe my expectations were too high.. the crouton-like thingies are actually pieces of fried pork lard.. @.@~

My lamb chops~ served with a jar of mint sauce that you can slather all over the lamb.. rm18.00.. i only found out that we can change the sides after we'd ordered, otherwise i would have skipped the mixed vege with the yucky peas and asked for corn on the cob instead.. :*

Lamb bathing in mint sauce, without the sauce, the taste of the lamb was a little strong, so make sure you fully utilise the mint sauce if you ever have this, muahaha.. a fairly huge portion with 3 pieces of lamb.. 1 big 2 small (like buying 4D, lol)

After annihilating our meal, we sat there and refused to budge for more than half an hour, maybe you can call that digesting.. hmm.. and after several debates + a coin toss, we decided to order dessert from a very limited dessert menu with only 2 items, bread pudding and banana fritters with ice-cream.. After deciding that it would be better value for money (both were priced the same at rm6.00), we ordered the latter~~

only 3 mutant banana fritters.. they look more like fried durians.. and we chose vanilla ice-cream~ very crunchy and very piping hot so you have to make sure the banana and the ice-cream enters your mouth at the same time :D

Super giant banana fritter!!

After dessert we were forced to make a move, not cos we were chased away or anything, but cos there were just too many flying ants showing up to join us for dinner.. our fault for choosing the table under the lit up sign =.= if i ever get to visit again, hopefully i'll have a bigger budget and get to try their famous red wine pork ribs which cost rm32.90 or the mixed grill which has steak and large prawns *salivating*~ but wont be rushing to re-order the same things tho...

hope my chance comes after i win the lucky draw for this month.. teehee~ i wish i wish i wish~~~ rm100 food voucher come to meeee.....! :P

Day 2: Birthday in Malacca, whee~

2011-03-13T15:41:00.000Z

Going to start the post with a pic of our hotel room in CK Hotel. We 3 girls got to share the huge deluxe triple room, it was actually quite huge, we shld have just 5 of us shared one room and put extra mattresses for the guys.. hahaha.. they got a standard single room with 2 single beds and faulty air conditioning instead :P Our room was so huge that i had to put on my glasses to see the tv screen properly cos it was right at the other side of the room.. @.@~ I liked the room pretty much cos it was clean and spacious with very minimal furniture :)

After we got back from Melaka Sentral, it was bath time and we were all set to watch the Miss Astro Chinese International 2010 edition on tv, had lots of fun commenting on the contestants and cheering my ex-classmate on (she won third place :D) and i was all ready to turn in when someone said they wanted supper O.o.. personally i was quite full already but still ended up devouring a few sticks of:-

Satay Celup!!I think its the 4th time i've had it and its still just as yummy~ :) we didnt manage to eat a lot tho since it was already almost midnight and dinner was only half digested then.. haha..

night scene behind the hotel, that's a very pretty bridge..
(pic courtesy of Lil)

Played a few rounds of BigD, we had the foresight to bring playing cards, heh! then it was time for bed... Day 2 began with us searching for brunch in town.. decided to pay a visit to the dataran pahlawan/ mahkota parade area for some air conditioned window shopping.. As usual, it took us quite some time to find parking spots but in the end we managed to get 2 spots right beside each other~

Chicken rice balls at a shop called Classic Chicken Rice, cute eh! I'd had them before someplace else and didnt really like them then, i felt that the normal hainanese chicken rice tasted better but this version seemed much tastier~

whats chicken rice without the chicken :P

the sets also came with soup and vege.. perfect~!

After brunch, we explored round the malls, there are quite a few malls all linked to each other and it took us quite some time to go one full circle.. Jo's bf oso wanted to look for an iphone 4 at the maxis stores there cos it was all sold out in kl and pj at that time.. turned out malacca was out of stock as well, hehehe...

saw a cute x'mas performance.. very catchy kiddy x'mas songs~~

Think that's the end of our makan-makan trip?? Noooo... of course not! It was my idea to bring the everyone to Dataran Pahlawan for cake and ice :D:D:D Thanks to my Mayyi, a.k.a Lady Boss, i'd found out abt this place on my last trip down :)

First up, the famous original mille crepe cakes that i've fallen in love with since my first try at Food Foundry, but nothing beats having the original!! In fact, after trying Humble Beginnings and Food Foundry, Nadeje Patisserie still wins hands down cos of the larger slices, yummy toppings and super reasonable prices~! :) They also have air-con and wifi and games and comfy sofas, whats not to like?!

Disclaimer!!!! The last time i came, each and every cake was sold out :S:S:S

Orange Chocolate~

Mango~ I think this was the special of the day cos cant see it on the menu..

Banana Chocolate~

Tiramisu~

Looking so pretty in a row.. dunno which one i prefer more.. next time i wanna try the milk tea and green tea flavours, if there is a next time, hehe..

After 4 slices for 5 of us, we became greedy and ordered another, strawberry chocolate~

RM60 away from a free slice of cake.. :*

We conquered Nadeje! Yippee~!

the design on the floor is sooo pretty... :)

Still at Dataran Pahlawan, another place i wanted to revisit - Pinkberry! Lots of lots of icy desserts to choose from, and it was very apt cos of the hot hot weather~

Cendol that tasted much better the Jonker88 ones and only RM1 pricier for such a huge bowl.. the one on the left had extra durian topping.. yums~

Mango ice..!

and the balls are actually honeydew balls, kind of looks like the chicken rice balls from earlier. lol..

The perfect end to our foodie trip, i think we managed to cover most of if not all of the famous must try food in Malacca that weekend :D started our journey back to KL in the late afternoon and it was late evening by the time we got back.. Had dinner somewhere in PJ and went back to collapse into bed~! my poor guy still had to drive back to Klang alone, the poor thing... :P

What an amazing birthday weekend~! *satisfied smile*

Day 1: Birthday in Malacca, whee~

2011-03-12T00:18:00.000Z

My goodness, I cant remember the last time I've had the time to sit down leisurely and think of what to blog about... Life recently has been a hectic cycle of work work work, then shut down and rest... XD Finally can get down to reminiscing abt my food hunting trip to Malacca during my birthday way back in December last year... *.*

Began the trip by picking LiL from her place in the morning then zooming to Malacca where we were to meet my mum and my ex-neighbour~

Our first stop: Atlantic 1 Cafe for nyonya food :D

I keep wanting to call it Atlantic Point, the place i stayed in while in Liverpool @.@~ arriving there at 11am, we were the first customers and had to wait a little while before they opened completely.. Amazingly, by 11.30am the place was crowded already, i guess its a stop for many tour operators...

Less talk and more food? Here goes:-

Appetizer, fish fritters and sambal sauce, simply yummy~!

The restaurant's famous pineapple rice~

the rice that emits the nicest smell ever--pandan rice!! :P

Braised Tofu

cant remember the exact name, but its kind of like dry curry chicken~

sambal sotong :):) with petai!

nyonya style fish~

lady's fingers with mashed chilies, yums~

it would be an understatement to say the food tasted good.. the 7 of us actually finished rice for 8 ppl and polished all the plates :):):) i highly recommend this place~!

with my good friend's boyfriend ^^

and we caught a waitress to help us take a group photo.. heeheehee~ the funny thing was tat she tot we wanted to take a pic of her and started to pose when we handed her the camera.. @.@~

After checking into CK Hotel, the budget hotel we were to spend the night in, we continued our trip to Jonker Walk. Malacca has gotten more and more jammed up.. it was soooo difficult for us to find a parking spot :S Since it was high noon, it was also super duper hot walking around the place.. Couldnt wait to have anything that was icy cold~

joining the long queue outside Jonker88, seems that everyone who visits Malacca has to come here.. to the point that it has become too touristy and over hyped.. :( i remember it used to be quite quaint the first time i came cos of the antique decor..

Cendol and ice kacang.. it was a welcome treat after the heat outside.. we managed to grab a tiny table after hovering ard the ppl still eating for quite awhile... i dunno whether its a usual occurrence, but i felt the gula melaka tasted bitter that day :( i've had better cendol elsewhere lor, minus the long wait and the ppl staring at you eating so tat they could grab yr table as soon as you leave...

failed picture O.o...

Better :)

must buy thing in Malacca--pineapple tarts!! :)

spotted these two ppl shooting a foodie show in Jonker Street, any idea who they are?? i vaguely remember seeing the girl in 美食大三通 once i think.. hmm..

apparently these are brushes for scouring stuff.. cant imagine myself using one lor. they dont look tat clean themselves, how to clean things?

while we were walking along one of the streets minding our own business, a girl appeared offering ppl free drinks, we looked ard and saw a whole truck full of Seasons drinks being given away for free.. turns out they were new flavours of iced tea from seasons, free new products who doesnt want?! :P very yummy apple tea and peach tea!

with mummy and her bandaged finger, a week after it got squashed by the main door at the place where i stay :S:S

It was late afternoon when we left Jonker Street, without even pausing to rest, we were off to our next makan destination, the Malacca Portuguese Settlement~ and once again we arrived too early for dinner.. luckily there was a very nice pier there which kept us occupied for quite awhile :)

damn cute!

the guys/ drivers~

us girls/ backseat drivers/ bosses :):)

my 38 guy :* I passed my camera to him for awhile and here's what he ended up doing-

*eye roll*

US :):)

trying to reenact a scene we saw on the other end of the pier... epic fail cos of my sheepish expression @.@~

Group pic :D

got 2 sun wu kongs?? lol...

with the 2 aunties who were lazy to move away from their bench :P

free advertising for the portuguese settlement museum, hehe..

All too soon, it was time for dinner.. we chose stall no. 8 called Big Ben i think.. many of the stall owners came and tried to persuade us to patronise their stalls, but personally i prefer less attention.. :)

our portuguese grilled fish with a bite taken out of it cos auntie was too hungry to wait for us to take pics.. lol...

sweet and spicy crabby crab, loved this dish!

omelette~

butter chicken for the guy who refuses to eat seafood.. XD

Spiced brinjal :)

yummy vege with lots of juicy onions.. i likey~

and of course, bottomless rice!! whee~

had to send the 2 aunties to the bus station for them to catch the bus back at 7 something that evening..

We actually had 4 meals that day, but since the last one was supper, i think i'll put it under day 2, hehehhe :P:P a very very satisfying day one full of fun and food and friends ^^V

2010 Birthday celebrations Part 1

2011-01-15T08:32:00.000Z

10.12.2010

I was elated to know that people at work actually remembered my birthday this year!!!! *cue fanfare* and let the celebrations begin~! :)

We had a very cosy lunch at Din Tai Fung cos I had a 30% birthday discount voucher to dispose of, and a total of 11 people added to the noisy environs of the restaurant.. ended up getting free yam xiao-long-baos for dessert cos we complained to the captain after we got some pretty bad service from a particular waiter (his face was blacker than Justice Bao's, lol)... anyways, 30% discount + free dessert made the meal pretty worth it in the end~

After work, it was the customary candle-blowing, cake-cutting ceremony in the pantry.. heehee...

Got 2 cakes, one from my lunch gang and another from my immediate boss *hearts* :):):)

Fruit Sponge from Bread Story~

choc x'mas cake from Lavender, lol... trust my quirky boss to get such an unusual birthday cake... didnt quite expect to see santa on my b'day cake @.@~

with Kimmy Kim, my group member whose birthday is just 7 days later than mine.. so we got to share the cake from our boss~ :)

This is mine! All mine~! :D

With Si Yuan and Esmei~ cant believe we have the fate to be working together after meeting all the way in UK :)

With members of our updated lunch gang.. Robin, Ann and Ang~

Esmei and my new 跟班 Lee Ean.. :P

Wats she staring at?!?? Esmei, always the one with the best expressions... :)

The mess we made in the pantry while ppl were still working outside.. hehehe

and a very nice closing shot~

Damn touched for the lovely celebrations :) but since i'd planned to leave the office early to meet up with Lil and Michelle for Part 2 of my birthday celebrations, I ended up rushing to the lrt station cos we'd had too much fun in the pantry until i was way over schedule...

Love my colleagues to bits... xoxoxoxooxoxo~~

A very chapalang post... :P

2011-01-14T14:25:00.008Z

Looking through my unsorted photos, i realised that I have lots of lonely photos that by themselves, are not enough to constitute a complete post.. Suddenly had a brainwave to lump them together! *what a great idea~* :P

This is my Caramelised Banana Waffle from Waffle World in 1 Utama when we had a little LJMU gathering last year... kinda miss the food there cos it was quite yummy~

This is the foot-long sausage meal oso from Waffle World, looks appetising eh? :P

You'll never guess where this canggih looking place is.. hehehe.. Its actually The Companies Commission of Malaysia, their new building in KL Sentral is just jaw-dropping (my jaw just cant help dropping whenever i imagine how much taxpayers' money was used-is being used- on the place) :S This is only one of the many training rooms, they use the latest technology (the receptionists use wireless phones even) and their meeting rooms even have their own electronic signboards outside that show who and what meeting is going on in each room. @.@~ my office is not even 25% as canggih i think...

Computer interface.. the place was high-tech but the training was kind of a farce.. the officers hadnt prepared themselves well and couldnt answer some of the questions we posed.. muahaha...

the most unattractive looking dish served at a most horrible taiwanese restaurant called Xian Ding Wei... thats oyster mee sua by the way.. had lousy service at both outlets i've been to, Sunway Pyramid and The Curve.. food is lousy oso!

Pumpkin buns, at least tats wat it said on the menu, but it had pork inside (pity the vegetarians who order this according to the description in the menu) and HAIR! urghhh.... and they never gave us a discount when we complained.. @.@~ never going again! actually i said tat i wouldnt go again after my first experience in Sunway, and that wasnt even half as horrible as the second time.. just that i mistook the outlet in The Curve as another restaurant which serves excellent taiwanese food.. :(

Snowflake's bestseller!!!! Yums~ Went to the outlet in Kota Damansara with Michelle and Lil... :)

Like the hot version as well.. the watery grass jelly sets as you eat which gives a very nice texture :D

AT Sushi Zanmai with Jo in between exploring the shops at Farenheit 88 :):)

after one bowl of rice each, we were bursting at the seams already, but we unexpectedly got this dish of sushi courtesy from Lil's dad after bumping into them at the restaurant~

Something i've fallen in love with recently, but its not available in many of the outlets :(:(

Hot, crispy-skinned, silky eggy eggtarts!!! *drool*

coloured mothballs??? :) nooo... they're glutinous rice balls, courtesy of my mum away from home -- my roommate.. hehehehe... Thanks!!!!

X'mas tree at work in all its glory :):)

After all the presents have been deposited, what a happy sight! :)

X'mas gifts from my colleagues, 9 gifts this year!!! :D but dont be envious.. cos i had to buy the same amount of gifts.. :S:S no pain no gain...

Smoked Salmon Carpaccio
Appetiser from our new year's eve dinner.. a few colleagues with no plans for new year's eve got together at Italiannies to kena tipu by the restaurant.. LoL.. Turns out they only served a standard x'mas set menu tat day, grr...

Fried Calamari & Zucchini
a yummy appetiser but portion was too small to be satisfying :( stupid compulsory set menu... much prefer dining at Italiannies during normal days...

Prawn Gnocchi
This was yummy, but i imagine it'd be too filling for one person.. we thought we'd be smart and order 2 sets, one RM58 and another RM78, cos there was a glass of free wine with the more expensive set... and we added a dessert.. but ended up needing to order a third set cos the portions were too small for 4 ppl... sigh...

Salmon Steak~
didnt really like the sauce...

the dessert we ordered, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie :):):) tats a Reese Peanut Butter Cup on top~

Squid Ink Spaghetti
Very different from the version i had in Venice which made all your teeth black, this one was a little unconvincing... hehehe...

Ricotta Fritta
which loosely translates as cheese fritters??? oh well, guess eating out on public holidays is like this, costly and dissatisfying... :S:S:S

yay, no pics wasted! but relax, there wont be any more chapalang posts for the time being.. not until i accumulate more random, lonely pics... :P

Around Singapore City in one day~

2011-01-11T14:23:00.002Z

13 September 2010~

Same note as the previous post! therefore, more pics of ME! :P:P One more trip into our neighbouring country for Lil to have a look around.. i secretly think i'm quite a good trip planner if i may say so... hehehehe...

This time we based our itinerary on the MRT line :) Bugis-Marina Bay-Raffles Place-Tanjong Pagar-Orchard-Chinatown-Clarke Quay-Kallang-Bugis~

Loitering round Bugis Junction when all the stores were not open yet :) The sky was damn black as we were leaving Bugis, but luckily it cleared up later for us to make the most of our day..

Next stop was Marina Bay.. I'd actually forgotten what there was to see at Marina Bay, completely didnt realise tat's where the Marina Bay Sands Hotel + Casino is located, how silly... It was swelteringly hot, hence the umbrella, lol...

Customs House~
We actually just kept walking without knowing where we were headed for...

One Fullerton Hotel.. can see our reflections on the building just like the Beatles Story Building in Liverpool~ :):):)

We accidentally stumbled into the hotel while looking for someone to ask for directions, and it is so so grand, i wish i'd have a chance to stay there... *wishing*

stopped by Starbucks for some refreshments.. Starbucks is much cheaper in S'pore if you earn SGD :(

we walked and walked and ended up walking from the end of the harbour to Merlion Park =.=

Lots of tourists milling around and we managed to catch one to help us take a photo :D

After bringing Lil to shop for some souvenirs, we walked some more to the nearest MRT Station which is Raffles Place to take a ride to Lao Pa Sat for lunch as we were meeting our chapalang tour guide who works nearby.. made a detour by Boon Tat St as well... After lunch, we decided to take the bus to Orchard since our tourist pass could be used for buses as well as the MRT :)

With one of the lions at Ngee Ann City~ We actually took the bus twice going one way past Orchard Road at first, then alighting and crossing the road to come back again... @.@~ kiasu ppl dont waste things, especially 8SGD per day tourist passes.. hehe...

amusing ourselves in some tandas at some shopping mall =.=

Somewhere in the middle of Orchard.. doing silly stuff as usual~

Saw this when we were on the bus, but took ages to locate it after we started walking.. I'm standing so awkwardly cos i was trying to hide my Big Gulp cup behind the red colour guy... :P

hugging the post~

oh, and we got to experience the F1 experience in this little booth where you would have gone deaf if you stayed inside for too long, whee~

outside ION Orchard and the MRT station before heading for our next stop -- Chinatown!

The only pic where you can spot me while we were in Chinatown..

Basically just went road the roads looking at the interesting stuff sold and then we went to the huge Buddhist temple and tried to rush to the top floor to catch a glimpse of the Buddha relic on display there before the chamber closed at 6pm.. We were just in time, but i didnt really know what we were supposed to be looking at and furthermore, no cameras allowed inside... I think we spent quite some time in the temple cos it was quite huge.. luckily i wore jeans that day cos Lil who was in shorts had to borrow a sarong... :P

Last stop of the day was Clarke Quay, cos it was nearing Mid-autumn festival and there were many lanterns on display there :):)

Rabbit!! Its my year this year :):):)

later that night~ many other lanterns there besides the 12 zodiac animals :)

cute statues ard the quay

With them again~!

There was also a Taiwanese food festival there that day, but we ended up having Long John Silvers for dinner cos the crowd was just too huge to fight against so we didnt bother.. made a little stop at Kallang cos we'd actually missed the latest time to redeem the deposit for our travel cards, and had to ask for my old roommate to save us.. but luckily we managed to get the refund without having to bother her in the end thanks to a kind aunty at Kallang station who gave us the refund and said that she would help us to exchange the card the next day.. stupid unfriendly unhelpful worker at Bugis MRT Station!! hmph!

All in all a very fulfilling day in Singapore cos we managed to fully maximise our day visiting many of the tourist spots :D but we were both dog-tired that night, heh~

Around Sentosa in one day~

2011-01-10T14:22:00.000Z

10 September 2010~

Note: My camera didnt come out from its hiding place in my bag much during my trip, therefore all pics shown here are from Lil's camera and since i dont like to post pics tat belong to others except if i'm inside.. expect to see lots of ME in this post.. :P

***

Since Lil was telling me abt how she's never been overseas, I suddenly had this brainwave to get her to go back to JB with me and then we could go overseas, to Singapore! muahahhaha... considered crossing a sea lah... @.@~

Bright and early on the second day after arriving home, we began our journey across the causeway.. wanted to try the new direct bus to Resorts World Sentosa (the hottest attraction in Lion City right now) but didnt expect the queue to be sooo long :S until we had to switch to plan B and take the bus to Queen St and take a ride on the MRT from Bugis to Harbourfront~~

Lunch at Superdog in Vivocity~!

First things first, met up with our 'tour guide' (i think i was doing more of the guiding instead -.-) and brought Lil to National Geographic, mainly cos i wanted to go in there again.. hehe.. Then we started to search for lunch.. Went into Food Republic first, but the problem with too many choices is that you end up not knowing what to choose, so we ended up having hot-dogs in Superdog.. After lunch, we went upstairs where I went to buy passes for the monorail to Sentosa while the other 2 explored the roof~

with the Sentosa Cable Car & Superstar Virgo in the background :D

with our chapalang tour guide~

We match the cows outside Marche.. whee~

Since our goal was to conquer all four stations on the Sentosa Express: Sentosa-Waterfront-Imbiah-Beach, we set off immediately for Waterfront Station~

The customary Universal Studios photo~ :)

Peek-a-boo~ im actually in here somewhere if you can spot me :P

Casino~where we two girls left the gambler and went to explore the place ourselves...

Lots of activities that weekend.. There was also a mime performance going on at the back...

After leaving the main street, we found a place where we spent quite a lot of time amusing ourselves.. :) Taadaa, the escalator leading to the hotels above the casino! damn ridiculous right?! but the escalator had a multi-colour lighting display and very grand fanfare welcoming us and most importantly, a mirrored wall :D we actually went up and down countless times, enjoying the music and the lights @.@~

put two crazy girls on an escalator and they can still manage to have lots of fun... :):):)

After the grand escalator, we came across this grand toilet! @.@~
We actually saw a lift with a toilet sign pasted outside, but couldnt see any toilet, so we decided to take the lift upstairs... toilet with an executive lift.. how grand?!

The mirror looks like photo frame :)

oh ya, and you thought that was the end of the escalator??? :P we actually caught the gambler to go on a second round with us, lol...

Adam & Eve sculpture by Bottero~

Wanna help them firm up their butts~ :)

browsing round the souvenir shops~

For part 2 we went straight to Beach Station.. figured that we might as well go right to the end before turning back.. :)

Beach Station of course got beach lor... i think this is Pahlawan Beach if im not mistaken~ many happening places with ppl partying along the beach and would really like to try the Sentosa Luge and Megazip next time i go...

The cutest sand art ever that we saw while we walked along the whole length of the beach..

hehehehhe... her idea + my work~

Ppl washing feet oso want to take pic.. :S

New Zealand Natural ice-cream~! and it was foc!! cos somebody belanja.. muahahaha~

By then it was getting rather late and we still had Imbiah to conquer.. had to go to the must-see attraction before night time... so we rushed to the monorail station to find that the queue going back was super duper long.. in the end we decided to walk since it wasnt that far, but had to climb up a hill to get there tho...

at the mosaic fountain-park at Imbiah~ damn sweaty after climbing up the slope...

monkey business~?

see other people climb, we also want to climb in the spirit of kiasu-ism~ :)

and finally!!! get to take a close-up of the Merlion.. wanted to go last time I was in Sentosa with my mum and aunt but missed out on the chance...

Close-ups!!!

us and the merlion~ :):):)

Since it was getting late and we'd managed to visit all the 4 stations, it was time to get back to the mainland and get ready to go back home... grabbed dinner somewhere in Bugis before heading back~

me dreaming with my mountain dew~ :)

super 'flattering' pic of me to end this post... :S:S:S

Bangkok Day 3..

2010-12-07T08:44:00.012Z

3 Dec 2010

Time flies and the final day of our trip came quickly enough.. T.T~

Complimentary buffet breakfast was quite good.. forgot to snap a pic the previous day when i'd made quite a nice salad.. sigh..

BTS ticket, kinda like our LRT ones but used touch n go style~

Back to Sathorn Pier and another boat ride~ This time i made sure i was standing on the other side of the boat from the previous day, so that I wouldn't miss seeing everything :D

more 'king's birthday deco'..

one of the piers.. i think they shld look quite pretty at night when the lights are on...

Sheraton Hotel's private pier and ferry

modern monks.. he's actually retaliating at me taking a photograph of him @.@~

pointy roofs show us the direction of the Grand Palace :):)

This time we go down at the right pier -- Tha Chang

Tried this crunchy snack at the market... sweet ones had coconut, papaya and raisins, savoury ones had coconut and spices.. interesting~

After the market (the one selling vegetables, where mum got another pair of shoes at rm9.90) :S, we continued down the road to look at the stalls selling all sorts of weird stuff at the flea market.. This time, yet another guy came up to us and asked whether we were going to the Grand Palace, and 'kindly' informed us that it wouldnt be open for visitors that day and he would recommend we go to another temple that was open to foreigners for that one day only (sounds familiar?), he then started yelling for a tuk tuk on the other side of the road.. this time, we werent abt to get forced to a place that we didnt intend to go to again, so we quickly walked away in the opposite direction~

It was only later that we saw a sign outside the palace grounds saying: Please beware of wily strangers!!! @.@~

The following places are listed as attractions in Bkk.. i have no idea why.. haha..

The pier that the royal family uses~

Silpakorn University~

for your reading pleasure~ :P

and finally~! I thought we werent allowed to enter?? stupid conman.. hmph!

they were having some sort of rehearsal for the King's birthday celebrations..

super hot and sunny, so we hid under the shade

Looks quite grand eh? Wasnt planning on touring the place anyway.. just wanted to see what it looked like.. :)

even the rubbish bins look regal, lol...

guard posts all along the wall of the palace~

multicoloured hedges :):) wonder when i've started liking colourful things so much @.@~

After satisfying my wish of seeing the Palace, it was time to head back to the hotel and grab some lunch before going to the airport for our evening flight..

Aaaahhhh...they say it looks even better in the evening wen the sun sets...

Wichai Prasit Fort~

Grabbed lunch at a roadside stall near the hotel then went back to check out... Bkk is really good for hardcore shoppers.. tat perempuan, my mum managed to get some limes from the roadside even as I was still finishing my lunch :S

After checking out, we still had time to spare before our cab was to arrive, so we went wandering round nearby the hotel, since downtown Silom is a commercial area, it was mostly tall office blocks.. so we ended up in Boots, havent been inside a Boots store since coming back from UK, its something like the Watsons stores we have here, and we all know how much I like wandering around Watsons, so was equally happy to be browsing round Boots.. hehehhe... Next stop was 7-11 of all places.. and we managed to get some last minute souvenirs, and ended up with -20 baht :S:S:S luckily the cashier at 7-11 was so kind and let us get away with it.. :)

Last minute souvenirs... Lavendar & Orchid soap from Boots and Pretz in weird flavours like Ham & Cheese, Beer and Larb (i have no idea wat tat means tho...)

in Bkk, you can find candles and joss sticks inside 7-11, never know when you need to do some last minute praying eh?? :)

Our hire cab came at 2pm sharp, just like we ordered, then we were off to the airport... fell asleep in the taxi.. expected after all the walking that morning..

view of part of the airport.. wonder wat those mounds are for?? fengshui? @.@~

To be honest, Bangkok isnt high on the list of cities I'd like to revisit.. for one, its toooo hot.. and there seem to be people who would like to scam you at every corner.. even the shopping gets tiring after awhile, cos of the constant need to bargain and money seems to flow like water cos you're spending in hundreds and thousands.. :S I still prefer KL much much more... hehehhehe...

Bangkok Day 2..

2010-12-07T06:59:00.023Z

2 Dec 2010

Woke up bright and early (super early at 5am KL time~ cos forgot to change my phone's alarm time to Bkk time which is one hour slower than us T.T~~).. Too early till i had time to laze around in bed and play a few rounds of Mega Jump (iPhone app) before going for our complimentary buffet breakfast...

Started our second day at Chong Nonsi station again~

Had planned to visit the Grand Palace and its surrounding sights that day, so our first stop was Saphan Thaksin station to catch the shuttle boat to the touristy area of Bangkok :)

One of the many grand-looking buildings around town~

Funny looking car/bus~

Thats right, we went on a trip down the Chao Phraya river, didnt go all the way down tho.. We were supposed to take a touristy boat ride for 150 baht per person, but a funny turn of events led us to a 16 baht per person water taxi ride that brought us to town all the same :D enjoyed the breeze immensely!!

Some of the sights along the way:-

Hilton Hotel~

Pagoda~

Vege boat..

Temple boat~

one of the taxi boats.. :)

Memorial Bridge

Wat Arun, Temple of the dawn.. *wow*

We were supposed to alight at Tha Chang where all the touristy sights are located.. but accidentally got down one pier too early at Tha Thien, and ended up at some kampung looking area... @.@~

Dried fishy stuff.. If you love ikan bilis & udang kering, maybe this would interest you :P

does this look like fish to you??? yeah it is, i asked.

Tuk Tuk~

It was at this point that we got accosted by some thai, mat salleh-marrying, fashion designer lady who suddenly came up and told us all abt this temple we had to visit that was not usually open for foreigners, blah blah blah.. shld have known she was fishy.. where got so nice ppl out in the middle of nowhere... we ended up being escorted up a tuk tuk and taken to some secluded temple tat was under renovation =.=

On the way there, i spotted my favourite bank... hehehehhe...

The king's face plastered all over the place, cos his birthday was that very weekend..

Wat Suthat

We also saw this funny monument called The Giant Swing, the story goes that the Thais used to have a competition where ppl climbed to the top to reach for bags of money, but the event has since stopped due to the high number of deaths... :S

me looking very unlike me.. but what the heck, better than no pics of me.. muahhaha...

wonder why we cant have pink taxis here.. they brighten up the roads... :)

and we arrive at this supposedly royal temple... macam kena tipu leh... O.o...

and all of a sudden a guy pops out from nowhere and starts showing us around the temple.. he said he's the head architect in charge of the renovations (im still a bit sceptical, but he was very convincing~) and we had no choice but to follow him round while he gave us a private tour and forced us to take pictures =.=

undeniably, the structures were all very detailed and breathtaking~

sculptures that were a gift from China, supposedly~

mosaic bell tower :)

statue of the head monk of Thailand~

We wanted to continue on to the Grand Palace but were told that many roads were blocked as soldiers were patrolling the area to prepare for the King's birthday celebrations :( the 'architect' then persuaded us to go to this place called Exotic Centre and literally pushed us into another tuk tuk..it took me till the latter part of the day to realise that it was highly probable that we were being scammed into going to a place that we didnt want to go to in the first place.. but more on that later~

ppl there like to ride on motorbikes like this :D

giant statues by the roadside~

do not be cheated into going to this place if ever you go to Bkk!! the salespeople actually force you to buy stuff.. grr... I had to spend rm4.50 (luckily not more..) to get rid of the irritating promoter who kept following me around and pestering me to buy some of the overpriced stuff.. grr..

saw lots of rubies there tho, apparently Thailand is famous for them...

with the elephant outside Exotic..

After the very disappointing Exotic Centre, we made our way to MBK (Mah Boon Krong Centre) (actually, we shared a cab with a complete stranger who just hopped into the same cab as us and also paid the fare for us O.o...) Before the trip, everyone who had gone to Bkk before had told me to visit this place, shopping heaven they said, but personally, i prefer Platinum Mall~

The stuff you can do there:-

Laugh at the funny translations.. someone tell me what is Pock Sauce Sauce???

Have a super nice 1 hour foot reflexology session :):):)
much cheaper than at home.. only rm25 per hour!

Check out the food court, they use this canggih system where you swipe a card then pay at the cashier when you exit... :)

Eat super yummy beef noodles and chicken skewers + fried rice :P

force people to take photos with their food!

Drink free Thai Milk Tea!!!

and of course, shop & shop & shop some more!!!

4 pairs of shoes for me~! :D

Not many pics after that.. we went round every floor then dragged ourselves back by taking the BTS from National Stadium station, which is right next to MBK back to our hotel~~ Had street food for dinner :) was looking forward to trying fried crickets but didnt see any stalls selling it the entire trip :(

Fried chicken?? Noooo.. its fried pigeon.. very nice~~~

SWEET corn :):)

its already been cut nicely into flat strips so its easier and not as messy to consume.. funny why we dont see it being sold here like that @.@~

We also had dessert, thai style ice kacang which had lots of stuff inside, but I forgot to take a picture if it :* cant remember what the ingredients were already... Quite a satisfying meal i might say... watched some tv (our hotel had cable tv, whee~) and then went to bed to get enough rest for day 3 :):)

Bangkok Day 1..

2010-12-07T04:41:00.012Z

1 Dec 2010

Bangkok, Thailand~ My first fully self-financed trip overseas :):):) booked tickets since almost half a year ago and been anticipating for just as long.. shoppingggg!!!

All my Baht~

Got up bright & early to get to LCCT (LOW COST Carrier Terminal), took a bus to KL Sentral then took a one hour Aerobus ride to LCCT, bought the tickets online for only RM14 per person both ways.. quite cheap~ :)

Our check-in counter.. no luggage to check-in so it just had to collect our boarding passes...

really very 'low cost-looking' terminal.. very minimal decor...

Our plane, flight no. FD 3572~

very lucky to get a window seat and mum and i got adjoining seats on the flight over.. coming back was another story... The clouds looked like cotton puffs that day :)

After 2 hours on the plane, we reach Bkk and the outskirts still look flooded from here...

Guess what's this?? train tokens!~ cute eh.. just have to tap them like our touch n go card to get in then just drop them in the slot when you go out..

Airport Rail Link from Suvarnabhumi Airport to the City~ 30 mins for RM1.50! We spent the time by looking at the various buildings and billboards on the way..

Searched high and low for this at the airport cos we were hungry but couldnt find it.. finally found it right outside our hotel, yippee~! Corn pie is super yummy! wish we could have it here...

Samurai Pork Burger, something we will never get here :(

They have 4 types of sauce to choose from: Thai Chili, Chili, American Ketchup & Tomato, tho i have no idea whats the difference between the latter two @.@~ Thai Chili + Fries = Yums!

McDonald's in Thai :D

Our hotel (not the pyramid shaped one with the miniature Eiffel Tower, the square one): i-Residence Silom~

They conveniently provide durex (2 boxes some more!) for customers.. hehehe...

our bath mat~ :)

our hotel was conveniently located near the Chong Nonsi BTS Station, so after checking in, we wasted no time in exploring the city by Skytrain~

Beauty Buffet at Chong Nonsi station, sounds tempting.. but its all skincare items...

First stop we went to was Siam Paragon, bunnies as x'mas decor.. :)

Bunny x 2

very fake looking models.. hehehhe.. they look too perfect.. kinda weird..

We left Paragon after taking a look round the place, nothing to attract our attention cos most shops were selling branded stuff, not mere mortal stuff, nothing for us to buy.. so we decided to walk ard the area outside the mall.. since Platinum Mall which is highly recommended for economical shopping looked very near on our map, we decided to try to make our way there by foot~

many of these shrines all over town..

Supposed to visit the famous Erawan Shrine but ended up at the Trimurti & Ganesha Shrines..

Finally found Platinum Mall after abt 15mins of walking~ :) Shopping heaven, here we come~! No pics from here up till dinner time, cos we were busy bargaining & buying the whole afternoon.. :D

Dinner at the 6th Floor food court.. Fried oyster Omelette!!!

Giant, giant oysters and only RM7 a plate... definitely impossible to find back home... :)

Pad Thai~

This woman damn unnatural when posing with food.. :P

Dessert: Glutinous rice + mung beans in coconut milk~ super guilt inducing :S

After dinner, we made our way to the night market near Lumphini Park~ and again it was bargain, shop, bargain shop.. until we had to sit down and rest a bit before going back to the hotel.. :D

before that, my first tuk-tuk ride.. Its both exciting and scary at the same time... you feel like you're going to fall out anytime soon, but still its quite fun to have the wind blowing in your hair as you zip round the cars and buses.. :S

trying to take a pic while holding on to the railing and bouncing around... hahahaha

the red ones are the brake lights.. cute~

Live performance at the beer garden where we rested our feet and arms... :) they had all the nice english songs from the 90s to cater to the mat salleh market :):)

Tried Chang beer, a Thai product and local coconuts of course! dunno why they never give spoons in thailand.. i like to scrape the flesh out.. so wasteful to throw the whole thing away like tat T.T~

Day One hauls... lots of T-shirts for for bro and some souvenirs.. some clothes and bags for me oso :D

Unbelievably priced genuine leather goods~ :) can smell them from miles away.. hehehhe.. the green bag is my favourite buy of the lot~! *hearts*

Dragged ourselves out and took a taxi back.. we were supposed to take the BTS, but we were too lazy to search for the station while carrying so much stuff.. got back, took a long shower, rolled around in bed awhile before turning in for the night.. quite a fruitful first day in Bangkok~ :)

RM2 Sushi Again~

2010-11-28T00:00:00.000Z

12 October 2010~

Staying in one place for too long, things tend to repeat themselves.. Unbelievably, its been half a year since the last Sushi King RM2 Bonanza in April and as usual kiasu ppl like us will rush there for RM2 salmon, prawns & unagi etc :) After queuing a short while, we got a table to ourselves at a secluded table right at the end of the restaurant near the kitchens *when i say near i mean very, very near :S

First round: grabbing everything in sight as usual...

No pics while eating cos the variety was much much better this time... and we kept disturbing the guy dishing out sushi to the conveyor belt, a certain Mr Susumu who kept talking to us in his Japanese accented English.. I think we all could only understand 50% of everything he was saying, but we still managed to have quite a conversation... He was telling us that he was the one who came out with the original Sushi King Bonanza concept, and since we kept him entertained as well, we did get rather good service :D

With Mr Susumu~

Eddie Chua and Si Yuan~

Esmei & me ^^V

We managed 40++ plates this time.. i think i broke my personal sushi record as well, muahahaha..

The stack of plates looks so low cos somebody *Leh Si Yuan hint hint.. forgot to watch over the plates and when the waitress swooped over to clear them, grr... We were so gila and high by tat time that we practically were begging for our plates back cos we hadnt taken a photo of the whole stack, plus my yelling to my friend at another table (met Turtle Jeff & his gf) the whole restaurant was probably filled with our laughter and voices the whole time we were there~ all we got for our efforts was being told to come again the next day and eat the same number of plates =.=

I personally think this is a nice, colourful pic which makes me happy when I look at it but somebody asked me why i was taking a pic of such ugly stuff T.T~

We were so near the kitchen that waiters used our table as a pit stop *double T.T~~

Definitely an improvement from last time cos they didnt stinge on variety and quality so it was rather worthwhile going :):):):) next bonanza in April, wonder if there'll still be ppl to go with me or not~

Food Foundry @ PJ Section 17~

2010-11-27T06:00:00.005Z

Know whats a mille crepe? Its actually a type of cake made with layers of crepes and cream.. Yummy! Been wanting to try it since ages ago, but after failing to try it when I went to malacca last year (it was sold out by 3pm) I kinda forgot about it, until Jo told me it was available in PJ at a cafe called Food Foundry, located at the Happy Mansion flats in Section 17~

Told my roommate abt it and as she's also a big fan of good food, we'd decided to look for the place... hehehehhe.. Finally got to have lunch there today after planning for ages...

Its located at such an unassuming place, its amazing how ppl even know abt the place~

Octopus on a tree??? @.@~

The cafe occupies 2 shop lots but the side with the cute bird mural on the wall was rather quiet, so we decided to sit at the other end where the fridge displaying all the cakes was situated :D

the very prehistoric looking menu.. if you want something fancy, this is definitely not the place for you!~

After doing much research on the Internet, the conclusion we got was that the mille crepe at Food Foundry is to die for but the mains are nothing to shout about, so we came up with the genius idea of sharing one main and trying 2 types of mille crepe.. muahaha~

We had dessert first!

VaNiLLa!!!!!

ChoCoLaTe!

Notice the many exclamation marks behind vanilla?? Tats cos it really tastes so heavenly that we immediately felt like melting in our seats once we tasted it, serious~ I dont know how to describe the taste but its like smooth, creamy custard and its not overwhelmingly sweet, after that, the chocolate one just paled in comparison... I strongly recommend the vanilla mille crepe if you ever get the chance to try out the place~ RM9.00 per piece, its worth every bite!

The main we ordered: Chicken Cordon Bleu~ RM17

I agree that its nothing to shout abt, in fact I've tasted much better chicken cordon bleu elsewhere.. The portions are huge however, so if you have a small appetite, i recommend this to be shared.. lots of chicken breast + mashed potatoes + vege drizzled with some creamy sauce... a bit disappointed with the filling, the ham was kind of tasteless and it wasn't cheesy enough.. Overall, i think it left a very bland taste in my mouth... :S

Food Connoisseurs~ LoL

RM3 peach tea that someone forced me to take a picture off.. I had warm water which cost me 50 cents...

Since the main course was rather disappointing, we had another bright idea and realised that we could always come back just for high tea next time... muahahahhaha~ Would love to try the other cakes if there's a chance...

I wanna try chocolate dream..

and strawberry mille crepe and almond tiramisu and baked cheese cake etc etc etc @.@~

There's also brownies, bread and butter pudding and moist chocolate cake, if anyone is interested :P Will definitely need to run up a hill after that! :S

Crazy thoughts of the day~

2010-11-08T12:09:00.003Z

1) I wish i knew what I want....

2) There's an inspirational quote contest at work. Dunno whether mine is inspirational enough or not?

3) I'm going to have swollen eyes tomorrow :S

4) How to not look so aunty-like in an ankle length dress????

5) So many things to buy, so much food to eat, i need more $~

6) Having a blocked nose makes it harder to breathe :(

7) Vegetarian food for lunch all week, am I up to the challenge?!

8) I think i'm addicted to Tap Tap Revenge 3, LoL~

9) Had a serious bout of PMS today.... @.@~

10) I'm loved after all................ ^^

Happy pre-Halloween!

2010-10-31T01:56:00.007+01:00

29 October 2010

After a long drought without a lunch-gang gathering, we finally got together for a long awaited meeting on Vi Dea's last day.. One little problem tho, since I was going to be on leave the following Monday, I had to get all my jobs on hand rushed out before I could leave the office that evening... :S

We'd arranged to meet at Din Tai Fung for dinner at 7pm, to take advantage of the 30% discount for CIMB & Direct Access cardholders.. yay~ However, I am ashamed to say that I only made it there at 7.30pm.. half an hour late is considered quite late for my usual standards :(

To make up for being late, I spent most of the time at Din Tai Fung taking funny pictures of everyone... heeheehee.... :D

esmei taking revenge on me... :S

This is actually soooo cute....!

yeah, we like laughing at each other, a lot~

Happy Family at Din Tai Fung

The food wasnt that inspiring but the company was great as usual... I clearly remember that Niki was laughing like mad and we literally had to hold her still when we were taking the group photo, lol.. After some time, we decided that the restaurant was too noisy for us to chat, so we proceeded to look for a more suitable chatting venue :)

Missha, Niki, Pumpkin Head & Esmei outside Zouk Cafe~!

I started a new trend after this pic was taken.. everyone stole my idea that big eyes are a nice feature :*

version 1

version 2

version 3

version 4

even the normally unsporting lawyer gave us his best shot :D

and taadaa... he was forced to by us to do this, but in my very honest opinion, his was the best imitation of Mr Pumpkin Head that night :):)

everyone gets to do a cute version, but me??? they get me to pose as crazy lady *sobs*

Taken when we were still normal.. I had ginger ale (F&N ginger beer tastes much nicer!!!).. wanted to try the cocktails but I'd taken uphamol earlier in the day and didnt want to experience the woozy feeling of uphamol + alcohol again :S

our very very likeable guest that night-- Mr Pumpkin Head! :) so sorry if we had injured you with our very rough handling.. hahahaha..

Guys, I want another gathering soon~~~ pretty please~

Italiannies & Eclipse~

2010-09-10T15:07:00.002+01:00

Oh gosh, this was ages and ages ago, when Eclipse was still showing in cinemas when Lil & I were all hangat hangat to go and watch it.. heehee... i am so backdated, its not even funny anymore T.T~

Anyways, we dragged Vivian along with us and right after collecting our tickets (after the first time buying tickets online, i think i cant go back to queuing ages for a ticket anymore :S), we went ard looking for lunch! Ended up at Italiannies which i'd wanted to try out since ages ago~

Looking at this quote on the wall, just couldnt help feeling tat it was perfect for a glutton like me :D

yummy olive oil.. once we sat down, the waiter began mixing a plate of olive oil & vinegar, and we were wondering wat he was doing tat for @.@~

and while we were wondering, this plate appeared~ yummy bread on the house, for us to dip into:-

Vinegar + Olive Oil :P

The reason Italiannies suddenly became affordable for us was because they were having a promotion, 2 courses (1 appetizer + 1 main course) for only RM27.90 and it was worth it cos we only ordered 2 sets for 3 ppl, and we still ended up being stuffed to the brim.. :)

Appetizer 1 - Toasted Bruschetta with marinated tomatoes, parmesan cheese and the green (pesto?) sauce which tasted awesome~!

had fun nibbling all the little bits~

Appetizer 2 - Pizza Caprese topped with buffalo mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, red onions and basil.. a bit tough on the teeth this one...

Flings.. Fuzzy Cranberry & one more i cant rmbr wat.. I had something boring like watermelon juice if i remember correctly, hehehhe...

Main course 1 - Parmesan Crusted Fish served with fried zucchini and red onion strings.. i absolutely loved the fried zucchini!!!! but didnt fancy the lemon tinged sauce, cos i am not a lemon person.. *sour*

someone should invent kerepek zucchini.. i would buy tat~ lol...

Main course 2 - Shrimp Linguine with marinara sauce

All the shrimps were super duper fat and springy and juicy... aaaahhhh...

US!!!!

This was taken before the halfway mark, when we were starting to feel really full... in the end we had to each pick a dish to finish.. *groan*

Real true.. rmbr to bring friends and a big appetite when dining at Italiannies :):):)

I love this pic cos my legs somehow look extremely long and slim here.. muahahahha

Nothing criticise for me... good food, adequate service and nice atmosphere.. highly recommended :)

Not quite the end of the post just yet~~ While wandering ard after lunch, we came across this:-

Paper Fashion! (Micky Tan's a girl by the way)

An unbelievably whimsical fashion show.. hahahha.. i was busy thinking how the models could see through their ridiculous eyelashes, and if anyone tore anything while putting on their 'clothes' @.@~

Honeycomb wall at the paper exhibition... :)

this pic taken by moi :D damn cute...

but somehow, Lilian kept failing to get me in one hole, this is her best shot of me.. i think my face too big T.T...

After beating ard the bush so much.. our main reason for going to 1U!! loved the movie and RPattz as usual.. but still hate the Malaysian censorship board..

Still had some fooling around to do before heading home.. hee~

Me the nerd~
I seriously am contemplating getting some contacts... @.@~

and so ended our day at 1 Utama.................. :)