September’s spot-check

On the tail end September, the boss was here again but this round he traveled by road together with a colleague for a field trip in the mid-west-coast. Since the work calls for his itinerary on the first day, he intended to make this trip as a secretive one, to which he spared the following day a spot-check :). But, the night before he left, on a very casual video call conversation, I casually asked what he was doing a moment ago before retiring to bed. As usual, he would usually deliberately name those basic to-do-lists to me from bathing to prayer. This time, I smell something fishy. LOL. I dug and probed further, finally he gave in and reluctantly revealed that he is doing some packing and will be coming over the following day and initially wanted to keep this as a surprise. This boss of mine is full with little surprises from time to time, and I have been sorta complaining for not being able to make preparation (in fact there is nothing to be prepared, apart from getting myself up in the morning and get out of the house. Somehow, still needs some planning though) but I secretly appreciate them all :)

It was a rather short and task-ful outing this round, and also the first time I spent time running errands with him and meeting his colleague. Early in the morning, I met up the boss and his colleague came over and picked us up and off we went for a dim sum affair. Thereafter, he dropped us off to the Inland Revenue Board as the boss had to get some issues sorted out. Everything went smoothly and sooner than we have expected, in less than an hour time. After that, we walked over to Karamunsing, which was only located across the busy highway. He was sourcing for money changer doing Indian rupees then but to no avail. When we stumbled upon a cobbler kiosk at the basement level, the boss decided to get his hiking boots, also the only footwear he brought over to be repaired for RM30. We were required to wait for 30 minutes, which eventually done in 45 minutes. In fact, I took a number of photos of the boss’ feet on the loaned sandal, owned by the cobbler guy with his socks on. A funny sight but unfortunately, it was accidentally deleted along with the rest of the photos :(. 

These were the only photos I was able to recover. The boss inside the Revenue Inland Board office while lugging his camera, a range of different sizes of plastic shoe trees at the cobbler’s kiosk in Karamunsing Complex, Karamunsing’s food court’s Teh-C Special (dual-layer instead of the usual three) and Sjora mango peach juice, pastry with mushroom and chicken filling (the filling tasted alike to Pizza Hut’s Hawaiian Chicken’s topping minus the pineapple) in Tg. Aru. 

From Karamunsing, we walked over to Asia City. Upon touching Asia City, we decided to hunt for lunch despite being still very full after the late breakfast. Thus, we decided to stroll around and the boss asked where I would like to go. I casually answered Centre Point. He further asked me if I have anything specific in mind to look for, and to which my answer is no except for some window shopping. While getting across the road, I was led to another side instead. I can’t help but asking where are we heading. The boss was non-chalantly replied ‘Centre Point lor’ and we eventually landed in a jewelry shop in Kg. Air. For the first few minutes, I was strolling along the pathway and looking at their beautiful jade pendants through the glass from outside while the boss went in, thinking that he would want to check on the prices for gold as he had been mentioning about gold investment sometime ago.

Until the boss called me in and asked me to choose a gold band design that I favor and asking the shopkeeper to get the right size for me, very much to my utter shock! Before I was able decipher their conversation, the guy handed us several designs which he thinks suited our size. I didn’t know why I was so nervous and I don’t remember how did I react or what have I said. Lol. This boss of mine was determined to pay them right away until when dad called me up saying that he has to pick me up a little earlier that afternoon before picking up my mom from her office to collect one of our car which had been sent for service which was ready for collection, as to avoid the heavy congestion later. Yes, the congestion level from the city back to our home is usually horrendous! I quickly intercepted the boss and excused ourselves by telling the guy ‘we’ll be back some other day’ :P. I have been contemplating whether to jot this down, but I simply wanted to mark it down before age catches up on me :) The boss then offered dad to pick up our car instead going all the way to pick mom up and that saved us one trip of congestion all the way to mom’s office :). 

Supper Comfort

I am one procrastinator who keep things update by when the milk has churned into butter. By the way, I have never thought of blogging about this, after patronizing the eatery since donkey years ago; not until the other day, when my brother was home for one week in conjunction of Deepavali hols (and is home again now for semester break) we were there for every one day interval for the whole week!. And, only during our last visit there, I have just discovered the name of the shop :P.

Our family had accustomed to unhealthy habit by taking heavy supper quiet regularly. One of our favorite supper spot is Kheng Hin Coffee Shop in Foh Sang. We used to patronized this eatery for at least once in a week without getting cloyed and the best part of it was it is in its midst of peak hour when we were there close to 10 or 11pm, the time we usually have our supper comfort. At least, we don’t witness empty tables all around, with kitchen helpers cleaning up and getting ready to call it a day of work and the roller shutter were pulled slightly down at such hour :)  This eatery is typically packed every evening/night up to wee hours in the morning.  

These are the repetitive food we ordered almost all the time without getting tired. Our all time claypot seafood porridge order. A steaming hot bowl of hot porridge boiled to a smooth and thick consistency with generous amount of seafood consisting a halved-sized crab, prawns, fish chunks, in addition of seaweeds topping and a handful of spring onions. Heavenly! :)  

A warm and tantalizing bowl of sau yuk (i.e roasted pork) or sang yuk (fresh pork tossed in thick sweet soy sauce gravy) kon lau mee are certainly a welcoming deal before calling it a day. A dash of sesame oil along with their signature chili helps adding flavor to it, certainly a perfect combination one cannot miss :).  

Look at the bowl of roasted pork kon lou mee. Such simple ingredients but absolutely divine! Just looking at it makes my mouth water :P 

Stuffed eggplant and tofu garnished and delished up by golden brown pork lard, very much to my papa’s tastebud :)

And, a plate of 10 pieces of fried dumplings are usually enough (on top of above) to make us satisfyingly full to the brim before hitting the sack and wrapping up the day :). 

Life is Just A Bowl of Cherries

Life is just a bowl of cherries; sometimes it’s afraid filled with worries. Don’t be afraid, when things go wrong, just be strong. When things seem up in the air, and everything is so unfair, and you stumble and fall, just pick up yourself and sing. If one day you lose your way, just remember one thing my friend. When you’re under a cloud, just visit music and sing. If one day you lose your way, just remember that I’m here to stay, don’t you give up and keepyour chin up. And be happy! (borrowed by the lyrics of a beautiful song, Happy by Mocca). This song has been and still one of my favorite and was once my phone’s ringtone for a long period of time :).

We have two cherry trees (i.e Commersonia bartramia) standing gracefully in our mini garden (or yard). For so many years down the road, I hardly recall the time when I last savored the fruits. One thing was that the soil covered by the canopy of the tree has aborted our turf from growing well and is a little sloppy especially after downpour, thus it was a little uncomfortable to be walked on. Second thing was also the main reason; there are a number of regular beautiful birds coming in pairs frolicking around the trees daily. They can literally finish up the whole tree all by themselves :)

My mom, as usual loves to spend her quality time on last Saturday morning (121111) in our  yard after marketing and came into the house with a handful of fully ripened cherries. Most of the time, we could only chance upon almost-ripen fruit, which are still in green with yellowish/pinkish hue yet edible and tasted as good (but not as sweet). I squirmed in delight the moment I saw a small bowl of cherries on the coffee table and unbelievingly asked her ‘Wao, how did you managed that?’  My mom answered, ‘the early birds get the worm’ (i.e cherries in this case), and added ‘to supersede the birds from getting the worm, you have to wake up surprisingly early!’ LOL

Perching on a Ladle

I have a thing for insect, but not all kind of insects. Cockroaches are definitely the first to be stroked out of the list.  I am always attracted to them but unfortunately, I know the name (in layman’s) only for some common ones. Here’s a grasshopper alighting on a ladle inside the utensil holder in our kitchen (081111). I just found out that there are 18,000 kinds of different grasshoppers in the world. So, this is certainly one of the 18k :) Many years back, when we have just moved into our current neighborhood, we can easily chanced upon rare and beautiful insects perching by inside the house. Prolly they were seeking refuge after the vast lush greenery had been chopped down for development.

I recollect vividly that I can easily catch up to 5 reasonably sized insects in one evening to be brought over to school the following day for Science subject when I was in my lower secondary. I was schooling in the afternoon session then, and I remembered of checking on them from time to time that morning at my nanny’s place. I was so pleased when they were still alive inside a plastic container with some breathing holes and few strands of grass inside the moment I reached the school. These days, we can still enjoy these little friends of God’s creation but no longer as often. The last time I saw one was penned down here :).

Mr. Teddy

I may be a jigsaw puzzle girl. Give me a set of 2D puzzles comprising of thousands of tiny weeny pieces, I wouldn’t mind sitting on the working desk hours after another. But, I am a real noobie when it comes to a 3D puzzle. This is my maiden masterpiece, and boy, it wasn’t easy at all when I first laid my hands on it. But, once you get the hang out of it, you will L.U.R.V.E it and this is not that hard afterall, this I assure you :) On one of our outing, the boss stumbled upon and decided to get the 3-d green apple that comes in 44 pieces, to which he already had a red apple earlier from Play n Learn. He gotten another one for me, so that I have at least something new to keep me busy apart from the lappy and mr. telly, according to him. 

This 3D teddy puzzles set came with 41 separate pieces of a set and was supposed to be an 1.5hr challenge. I spent my first hour on the first night dismantling the components and managed to joint 4 pieces of them. Yes, 4 pathetic pieces :). Comes the second day, I spent 2 hours while watching the telly just in getting around with the no.4 element. Going over and over again, I suspected no.4 was not placed correctly, despite it was intact perfectly because I couldn't figure out the subsequent piece.

I was getting a little impatient when I started to gather and recount all the components. All my calculation ended up with either 39 or 40, never 41 as stated on the box packaging. I started to belief that the missing part could be the subsequent piece. Boy oh boy, I was panicked and yes, a little upset too but I was pretty sure that I have taken the highest pre-caution when I was dismantling it on the bed despite with my eyes half-opened the night before. Still, I went to my bed, fluttered my blanket, checking inside of my pillow, side desk, under the bed as well as the narrowest part near to the headboard. So, there goes my two-hours without progress except for two episodes of Chinese drama series. 

On the third day, I was determined to finish the whole thing up and was mentally prepared shall there be any missing element, I will make do with anything plastic-ey and let painting do wonders. I sat down and went round with it, rotating the teddy’s two legs around, trying to squint my eyes as much as I could to scrutinize the groove of each and every element, one by one, over and over again. I finally proceeded and managed to slowly fix one piece, and slowly proceeded to another. I was pleased and was determined to finish up the whole thing the same night (read: morning) and I finally managed it with a faster pace and voila! My 3-d teddy was done the next hour, without a single missing element. The missing piece(s) remained a mystery. Lol, I am not sure if the packaging was written wrongly, or they included the stickers (for the eyes and nose) to come out as 41 components or blame it to my lousy numbers :P

If you squint hard enough, you'll notice that teddy's right ear wasn't intact properly. It was wobbly when I fixed it into its designated space, thus I twist it a little backwards in order to keep it intact for the time being as I ran out of uhu-glue :). Looks like ear-twisting is an art to learn too :P I am always inspired by many little things around me. Even the littlest thing in life worth noting and they can be the reason to celebrate. This time, I am again inspired. La-di-da-di-daa :D On a side note, today marks 111111, the triple convergence of the 11 is a once-in-a-century cycle :)

Quiet Week Ahead

Finally, the quiet week has arrived. Earlier, I have been a little apprehensive towards the boss’ trip to India; mostly of safety wise especially for the trekking part :). I thought it would be an all-quiet week ahead until his return to Malaysia in more than a week time. But, I was delighted when I received a text message from for few days now with a new India cell number, to which the boss had subscribed the following day upon touching down Kolkatta, which I nearly deleted at the first place, having the thought of advertorial messages or fraudulent messages until I spotted the very familiar first line of greetings prompted the moment I unlock my phone :). The boss touched down Kolkatta city last Tuesday, boarding another flight to Darjeeling the following day, and will be going for the mount trekking early this morning.  So, that spells a quiet week ahead for me, just making do with text messages (provided if his phone battery can last throughout the trekking, which may be taking a few days time) and leave alone the normal dose of thrice daily speech therapy and forget about video calls too! :P.

Last week had been an eventful one (read: busy). My brother was home for one week in conjunction of Deepavali hols. Like usual, the whole family hardly get home before midnight clock strikes, with similar round of activities and savoring repetitious food yet they were equally fun and yummy :) Shame to admit that, there were a couple of non-consecutive nights where we have neglected or too tired (plus l-a-z-y!) to prepare proper meals for our poor doggies. Poor fellas, on those days, my very Asian doggies had to make do with plain bread with planta spread and milk (they do love milk), and sometimes with two hard boiled eggs each :P.  

As for me, I have few more sets of more coloring task to be taken care of, and I finally get all my memory cards for double back-up and formatted (which I have never did for once). Thanks to Vienna Boys Choir, the musical performance we were attending, I finally took the effort to empty and formatted a total of about 25GB of space from our DSLR as well as compact camera. But, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any videos or photographs when performances were on going. 

Oh yeah, we ushered into November with a nasty news, where a collision occurred between KK train with a fuel tanker on the last day of October. We were aware of the thick dark smoke in the air while were on our way home and little did we expect such a mishap took place. My mom was panic-striken as a number of her colleagues were going up the public transport to and fro daily. Thank God, we were eternally grateful and it was such a relief to hear that no casualty reported. Below are the photos we took (dad and I) the following day, sometime around noon. There were a massive congestion where we were stucked in the short section for more than 40 minutes, due to the massive towing vehicles and enormous crane parking by the roadside.

Done with my long-winded post. Today is the birthday of my junior and high school bestie, the one whom I grew out my childhood and teenage era with, the one I have been sitting next to throughout my high school era. Happy 25th Birthday, Jacinta (don’t think she will be seeing this though) :). Friday has descended and weekend is near. Wishing all of you a safe and awesome weekend ahead ;). 

One Torrid Afternoon

Earlier in September(070911), my sis and I went out to the nearby hypermarket to do some last-minute shopping before her new semester resumes, just the two of us. The weather was scorching hot and while walking back to our car,we passed by AA's (abbreviated with obvious reason) and made an impromtu decision to get in and the thought of getting home right away after long hours of walking and walking immediately subsided :).

A cup of cold drinks or a bowl of shaved ice dessert in a sunny afternoon are definitely receiving change. Besides, its contemporary yet not too elaborate interior design looks very welcoming, especially suitable for the two of us who were lugging two big shopping bags each, very much like an obasan :P We ordered ABC Special and Cincao (i.e grass jelly) Pudding to be shared with the aid of their attractive pictorial menu.

When our dessert were served, all can be seen were bed of thick fluffy shaved ice. The cincao pudding we ordered for RM3 was basically a bowl of plain big chunks of cincao jelly underlain by thick shaved ice and spattered with evaporated milk. It tasted like the typical cincao milk drink we had in any coffee shop or café, but without sugar. Thus, the taste was in between a tinge of bitterness resulted from the grass jelly and some milky taste as the result of the evaporated milk. Very thirst quenching and I prefer this over the ABC Special.

The ABC Special, priced RM4, was a big bowl of icy cool snow with limited variants, containing jellies, green and red beans, corn kernels, and some groundnuts. I personally think that the desserts were not on par with the price we paid for (despite being cheap), but I rather think that we had a healthy dessert instead; less sugar, very minimum of artificial coloring as well as flavoring :)