Lunch Fix at Wojamama

We had our lunch quite late on the 010911 and we settled for Japanese at Wojamama, Star City sometime around 3pm. I couldn’t really recall our itinerary on that day, and I was only able to churn out this post after coming to two months of time. I have been spending so much of my time tinkering and fiddling through the the net on a little bit of this and that daily. I depleted my time on the previous week by giving my blog a wider, cleaner, simpler look at the same time giving it some cheery colorful tinge. Me, knowing nuts about html codes had been browsing the web spheres to figure out the coding, from scratch even as subtle as to place a gadget to the centre of the sidebars and the list goes on.

Backto our quick lunch fix the other day, after browsing through their menu, eventually we settled for their Happy Hour meals as per promoted in the bulletin board we first stumbled upon entering the eatery. We ordered in jiffy as we were aware that the restaurant will be closed for rest sometime around 5pm, or slightly later. We settled for 2 main dishes; I had Yakinuki Don, stir fried beef served on rice and the boss had Shogayaki Don, stir fried chicken with ginger served on rice. Quality wise, foods were on par with the price, and it would be nicer if there is a tinge of vinegar in the rice :).

Yakinuki Don

Shogayaki Don

These simple main dishes come with one side dish each. Thus, we had fried crab filament stick and chawanmushi. By the way, there were only 3 options to be chosen from. The one we crossed off was edameme.

chawanmushi

fried crab filament stick

compulsory dose of ryokucha

By the time we are done with our main meal, not much of choices for sushis available on the conveyor belt and most of the plates were either placed with sushi menu or artificial food display which will be prepared only upon request and by that time, the restaurant was in its midst of clearing up and closing down. Nonetheless, we managed to grab a plate of Kani Mayo and Corn Mayo sushis to be gobbled down quickly :).

Kani Mayo

Corn Mayo

It had been a busy week

Hye Hye! It has been a week since a post appeared on this cyber home of mine. Let's just say I had a busy and tiring week working on a coloring task. It was actually 15sets of 7 pieces each (more to come) of our new church building blue-print architectural plan. Apparently, I was the one with the closest work field and currently have the freest time. Thus, I was appointed to take up the task :). The boss was in KL for the whole week to get his visa to India done and to get some RM exchanged into rupees, attending his former uni-mate's wedding banquet as well as fetching a brand new Ipad2 home. Talking about this, we couldn't find any money changers here doing rupees. None, prolly due to its minority population in our state. The boss sensed some urgency for me in getting the work done and had been helpful by video-calling me from time to time to make sure that I did not drop asleep while coloring. Lol.

Beside the need to withdraw myself from web sphere for full concentration sake, I was bending myself to almost 90 degree towards the table to reach the far end of the A1 sheet most of the time, keeping my hand moving back and forth while my eyes gluing on the telly when my favorite drama(s) were aired. I was sort of targeting myself to be able to get over it in a maximum span of two days time before I get my hand laid on them. But, oh boy! the first piece for the first sheet of the first set took me a whopping 40 minutes (where the first page has the most complicated layout). All in all, everything was done only in a few hours time before submission on Friday night :).

On another church-wise update, the kids were joining the 2 days 1 night spiritual nurture program (i.e Bible Camp) last fortnight and RE teachers were required to turn up to assist in the group activities. I did not turn up on the first day, but went for only half of a day on their second day, which was also the final day. We were asked to guide and take part with the construction of an aquarium by using polystyrene sheets along with some other craft materials. Students were distributed into 5 large groups of different level and age. I found that all the kids in my group (to whom I have never taught as most of them were coming from Chinese medium class) were very very cooperative despite having me speaking a handful lip smattering Mandarin and I personally think that they did a very good job. Guess some bias-ness is allowed here as I am the purple's team in-charge *thick-skinned me* :P.

And, yesterday morning I was in-charged with the revision session with my RE students. It has been a regular practice for me to apply reward system ranging from a piece of candy to a small pack of junky or occasionally some Christian-related fancy stickers and bookmarks whenever the kids take part in the class. Few days back, my mom brought back a bag of candies, courtesy of afriend of our family who came back from China. She handed it to me and suggested me to distribute them to the fello kiddos. So, once they were done with the revision handouts, each one of them had their fair share in getting one candy each. Since the candies came in different flavor and packaging, to be fair I asked them to close their eyes and randomly pick one. For the girls especially, who luckily drew out the panda, they squealed in delight. Whilst, the rest were equally happy and starting popping into their mouth right away after the class dismisses. The look on their faces was priceless! :)

Overlooking South China Sea

The boss and his siblings extended their stay by two additional days after the NYFprogram has ended. It was the Independence cum Raya second day, was also theday to tour the city for the NYF participants who were interested. I met up the boss only sometime in the noon on 31082011, having the thought that he might want to spend some quality time with his siblings, but little did I know that all of them had their to-do lists and friends to go with pre-planned beforehand.

Since they were staying at the hotel located adjacent Suria, I met up the boss at the nearby mall. When we walked pass the hotel building from Wisma Merdeka, the boss pointed the hotel where he stayed which was also his first experience there. The only expression that I exclaimed was a whoa!. Not because of the hotel was built extraordinarily; but I have just discovered that the once old and shabby building that shared the similar acronym as my brother's name had been refurbished and converted to a hotel by the name of CBS Gaya Centre Hotel, tucked in conveniently in the heart of the city :). Back then, when my brother was a toddler and have just recognized ABC, we have always jested that it was his building, and he nodded agreeably. Lol.

Suria is still pretty bare and new to me, despite with the opening of handful numbers of new outlets from my previous visit. What attracted us was the food court at the top floor which overlooked the South China Sea. However, I safely assumed that what attracted the boss most was the KL ROJAK :P. I had not noticed that if not he mentioned to me that the rojak in CP and Suria were actually the same chain stall. We wanted a seat by the balcony, to get a better view of the sea but unfortunately, the food court were extremely packed, prolly due to the dual-celebrations which fell on a weekend and finding a seat even inside the eatery itself was an uphill task.

Uponspotting a seat, we headed over to Kuo Man Restaurant, where their home madefish ball soup is reputedly quite good, as well as the tom yam mee hoon. We hadwanted to order a bowl each to try, but unfortunately, they were sold out toosoon like hot cakes. Thus, we decided to settle for Claypot Delight. Uponpayment, we were told that we have to wait for a minimum of half an hour forthe boss’ stewed beef claypot rice. I then asked the guy to get my porridgeserved together with the stewed beef rice. He gave me a eyes rolling look andthat smacked me on my face at once on why did I make such a request, to which Iwas rather hungry that time. Lol.

While waiting, we had the mandatory plate of Rojak KL and a bowl of ABC. This bowl of ABC does not look as appealing to me, but it tasted fine. The processed jelly-alike thingy somehow gave me goose bumps when I look at them. Somehow, I like the contrasting color combination out of it :).

After a good 45 minutes of waiting, our meal finally arrived. I had a similar bowl of porridge for breakfast, somehow or other still hankering for more porridge that afternoon. Nothing much to shout about the typical Chinese style porridge, but it was good and even more appetizing with the yau char kwai to crunch on (which I rarely had unless dining for bak kut teh) and century eggs, the all-time porridge best companion!

The boss’ clay pot stewed beef rice, with a bull eyes egg in the middle. He commented it was good, and I tried some, and love its peppery sauce and the beef has no beefy smell :) This will definitely not be our last visit there, as the boss said he would like to try their other claypot fare and I would like to savor the tom yam which was sold out earlier.

Under Utilized

More than 3 years back, the boss signed up and gifted me my current postpaid Celcom number as a birthday gift. I recollected vividly, exactly on my birthday,he paid me a visit at uni’s café, he got there from SITF after paying his former dean a visit. The boss had been a loyal customer to Celcom postpaid packages, so naturally he chose Celcom as our second number. He told me that as his subline, and I can call/text or mms at any time as I wished without any restrictions. He personally handpicked two numbers, which has similar last 4 digits with his existing Celcom number and my existing Digi number. I did not know how did he manage to get them though :).

Ever since we started using our new number, the boss’ first number were underutilized, and he ended up paying monthly charges for almost nothing for more than 3 years. Mine, which was/is a prepaid number, on the other hand, is growing more moolahs with my active monthly reloading. Only earlier this year, I discovered and started to opt for Digi's super long life package, which qualifies me to stay active for one year without needing to reload on a monthly basis. So, I reloaded extra during my birthday month to earn more bonus *wink*.

After so many moons, until early September, the boss finally decided to let go his first number. I was supportive with this idea, but at the same time, was somewhat feeling a little amiss; for it somehow has left some sentimental values to me. Besides, the former one was the boss' first number when he first engaged to his first phone, and it has the nicest rhyming numbers. But, what I told myself was hey! That's a little amount towards bigger purchase. Why pouring hard-earned moolahs down the drain (okae, although I did not earn the money) :P

On the side note, I have been very loyal and keeping the same Digi number ever since I received my first phone as birthday gift from my papa in 2003 when I was in my Form 5 then. While continuing with my never-ending clearing and cleaning task, I stumbled upon these tri-monhtly newsletters I received from Digi for donkey years ago, too bad it had been discontinued after a couple of years upon my subscription, prolly for the call of environmental friendly awareness. Not many have ever seen these before including my sis. So, they are definitely a keepsake, but on the contrary side, I wonder when will my de-cluttering mission will ever due ;P.

Sometimes, disaster strikes

The title says it all. This is a letter-for-me of a cruel reminder for the silliest homo sapien living on earth. No prize in guessing who, that's me. Yes, me (again). Since most of the time, the boss will be flying his cam along with him, I just brought along my memory card and my Sony compact cam as back-up. But when my 16GB memory card to which I have yet backed up were prompted to be formatted in his DSLR, I conveniently inherited from the boss' extra SD card since his previous trip. There were quite a numbers of the boss' work related photos, he willingly deleted all the existing photos to allocate the space for me this round when the card was full half way.

This morning, before leaving the house, I remembered pretty well that I downloaded (back then. Now read: attempted) all the photos from my inherited SD card into my lappy this morning before going out, in case my SD card acted up on me again. Thus, I was confident enough to press 'delete all' when the screen prompted 'the card is full'. Bummer oh bummer, very well said! Upon reaching home, when I checked my folder, to my utter shock, it was empty!. Big big OOPS-ie. Come to think about that, I didn't suspect a thing when I needed to 'delete all' whereby most of the time, I would usually apply 'cut' and nothing will be spared inside the card. Thus, there shouldn't be any way I have to 're-delete' via the cam. So, the harsh truth was I must have applied 'cut' but was distracted before I 'paste'. This round, I was killed by my sheer confidence. Sigh.

That includes photo for several posts I have yet worked on. It was such a heart tormenting moment to ponder about. Aiks, I seriously a-b-h-o-r repeated lessons learnt hard way O.o. Silly me. Worse, I have taken so many more photos into the memory card after that. That said, I was unable to recover many photos too. Ironically, I retrieved some of the boss old scale model photos and some of baby John’s photo instead. How uncanny!. The boss comforted me that I was lucky by trading in those food photos that tasted just so-so (the latest Sushi King menu was a let down) with the sweetpie (i.e baby John) :) Twas quite true nevertheless (to certain extent though, I am still feeling a big loss. I am not exaggerating.

Snowing in a Bottle

Take a guess on what is the content inside the bottle which looks very much like a snow globe. This is actually virgin coconut oil in the midst of its freezing process. This bottle of natural goodness had been sitting idle on my shelves for more than half a decade. Coconut oil was claimed to benefit the skin, especially in defying age in a natural way and works wonder with its moisturizing effect. However, I have never put it into use due to its unique smell, to which I find a little disturbing.

Just in case you didn’t know,coconut oil has a freezing point as low as 24 Celsius degree (via here). That elucidates why it started to form snow flakes within the first couple of hours in an air-conditioned room of 25 Celsius degree. Each time when I wake up in the morning, the content in the bottle has turned into a white solid and turns back into its  initial liquid state when it gets warmer.

Random Snippets: NYF 2011

Apart from the two full days and three nights of intensive biblical studies and fellowship activities, I couldn’t recall any other activities or rare happenings that I wish to elaborate on. However, here’s some random snippets which I wish to pen down as remembrance sake. National Youth Fellowship (NYF) this round was the maiden activity that was held with the participation from youths nationwide in conjunction with the Independence's Day and Raya holidays. Of course, I get to know brethren from West Malaysia as well as Sarawak.

The first program begun on an evening, and the boss arrived with his siblings only by the next morning. On the same evening, I mms-ed him how the name tag looks like; atthe same time, giving him a glimpse of the green group I was in. The next morning, he texted me upon arrival while we were having our topical studies inside the church hall. I took the opportunity to ask him which group he was assigned to. This boss, as always has his tacs in dropping a hint; this was the reply from him which I’ve coined “I think it was green. Wait wait, its blue leh. Eh, or was it red ah?” :P

From that banter message of his; I have the sense that he was in the same group as me. He just love making me anxious and seeing me eager in knowing something; specifically for things that would favor me in the end of the process :P. Even banter should come with a sense of logic, that’s very typical of him :P. You will know where did all the so-called logical colors came about below. To which he deliberately said "I see few colors at the bottom of the card mah; they didn't tell me which one was meant for the group" Lol :P Those were the colors from our state flag, which was located right next to the grouping color sticker.

Throughout the program, the church hall was full to its brim. There was a day when I reach there after the program has started, I had no choice but to sit at the very last row on a plastic bench and during the break time, I attempted to look forsome empty seats somewhere in the heart of the hall, but alas, only the most front row was unoccupied. So, I learnt my lesson and on the following day, I reached the church very early to get a decent seat.

I was seated next to a lady in her 30s; who half way through the program, conveniently grabbed my hymnbook and flip opened and studied whatsoever photos/bills/meeting minutes and what-nots can be found; to which I spaced in between of the pages. That took her a good 10-15 minutes and returned the book to where it was placed earlier at the space in front of my knee without a single word throughout ;P. As for myself, I am taking that as a very good reminder that some de-cluttering is due. Shame on me :).

I don’t remember if I have taken any photos during the fellowship activities or during the choir and musical presentations. But I have not missed out taking pixs of my portion for supper throughout the whole 3 nights but this one is my favorite, to which I am still drooling when I look at it ;). Pumpkin with white fungus dessert, a mini curry puff, a lone mini red bean glutinous dessert (I have never fancied this sticky dessert, took this because of its cuteness but I still stomach it) along with two slices of less sugar cake presumably carrot cake and the main highlight was its cream, which has a tinge of saltiness, a little grainy in texture. Tasted heavenly! ;)