Merry Christmas 2010

Christmas is here again, and this year, it's on a Saturday... Although it’s a great day to celebrate but the not-so-happy thing is that, I have to spend Christmas at my workplace. This is nothing new to me since the day I joined my new company 2 years plus ago. My Christmas is not really joyful as I have to work. This year’s Christmas is also the same for me. While others are happily celebrating with their loved ones, family and friends, I had to celebrate it with my PC, my work, at my work desk in the office.

My man also had to accommodate to me and my job so, he too had to send me to and from work today. I just hope, next year’s Christmas I won’t be celebrating it at my workplace again.

Lord, please hear me out as I don’t wish to celebrate Christmas at my workplace anymore. Amen.

To those who are celebrating Christmas, have a blessed one, and those not celebrating, have a great weekend

As for me, got to get back to work again... sigh...

Cooking time again...

It’s cooking time again for me today since it’s a holiday for us. I had a request to cook something nice for them since my man’s siblings will go back to their own hostel tomorrow and will only come over to our place 2 weeks later. So, their request was for me to cook them chicken curry and Chinese bean curd seafood soup.

At 3pm, I was there in the kitchen preparing all the ingredients since it was quite a lot of preparation to be done just to cook something like this. Although it sounds easy to some of you, but for me, it’s a task that had my skills put to test. The whole preparation process took more than 3 hours coz I had to start from scratch e.g. peel, chop, and blend garlic, onions, ginger, etc…

At 7pm, it was dinner time, lucky thing my dishes came out well enough for them to go for second helpings and the look on their faces showed that it was a satisfying and hearty meal.

In the future, when I have funds for a small little oven, I’ll try my hands on some roasts stuff. I don’t have a sweet tooth so baking will be out of my list… maybe roasting a chicken or bake some potatoes, etc… got to start at the beginner’s level before I can be a pro like my mum…

A Saturday spent planting a Tree, Carey Island

It's the end of the weekend again. The 5 working days didn't move smoothly, there were so many walkthroughs and meetings to attend and suddenly, there were too many things to do with so little time given.

However, the weekend was better. My man went for tree planting at Carey Island in conjunction with Alfa Romeo's 100 year anniversary. We started off our journey at 7.30am and headed to Auto Connexion's sales office for the flag off at 9am. The whole journey was great coz there was a straight convoy of 78 cars with escorts all the way to the island. The weather was a little upset coz it was drizzling off and on throughout the activity. The whole event ended in the afternoon and by the time we reached home, we were dead tired.

Sunday was also another event related to cars. We went over to KLGCC for the Alfa Romeo’s car show. All owners of Alfas were given the privilege to see an almost full collection of Alfa Romeo antiques to modern makes of the cars. It’s an event worth going for car enthusiasts’ coz everyone was able to have a close up view on the cars.

And now, it’s 9.15pm. Time for me to take an early rest to charge up for the week ahead. Tuesday’s a holiday for us and I’ll hope I can spend time at home resting, but I can foresee I got to prepare meals since I have guests at home.

Till the next post soon… Good night…

Bavarian Bierhaus @ The Curve

On Monday 2 weeks ago, I took a day off work and spent my time with my man. It was also my birthday so he brought me out for a dinner. We were supposed to go down to KL for some Thai fusion food, but it was quite late after his car service, so I decided to drop by The Curve for a pork knuckle meal. It was at Bavarian Bierhaus and they serve pork knuckles, and sausages as their specialties.

My man and I ordered a meal which consists of a knuckle, a sausage, some preserved cabbaged and sautéed potatoes.  The knuckles was fried to perfection, keeping the outer layer, a.k.a the skin crunchy, and the flesh juicy. The sausage was of great taste too, it has a rubbery coat outside and succulent inside. The rubbery coat wasn’t bad so don’t imagine it will have a texture of a rubber band. We had our beers to go with the meal, my man had his usual Carlsberg while I had hoegarden.

It was a satisfying meal I could say and to top it off, I received my gift for this year, and it’s a little handbag to add to my collection.

I’ll load the photos later to sum it up…

A memorable Sunday lunch @ The Apartment, The Curve

Last week I met a primary schoolmate over the internet and we started chatting for a while before we decided to meet up one day to catch up real time. So, I instantly decided on a date which is 21^st November 2011 and she said OK, we’ll meet.

And now, it was a hot Sunday afternoon and we met at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara. I have not met her since we graduated from primary school in 1994, we were both just 12 years old and we parted to proceed with secondary school. We kept in touch through letters (yeah, you read it right… we wrote letters to each other the traditional way) but it died down few months later. Our letters became less and then vanished. So, that was where we stopped and didn’t keep in touch at all.

Before the meet up, I was thinking how awkward will it be when we really met face to face but I just stopped thinking too much and went on with the ‘date’. We found a quiet restaurant (The Apartment) and ordered our meals before starting off with all the updates and news that we’ve missed. Come to count the years, it’s been 15 years since we’ve last met and now, we are all adults and living our lives well.

We had a long chat bout our classmates and it was a great thing to know and start refreshing our minds with those people that we hang out with when we were kids. Spending 6 hours in class doing mischievous things together, making fun of each other, and playing together. Time past so fast that now everyone is in the working world and getting on with their lives as adults.

This is the start to our small little get-together and I know there’ll be more to come. As for now, I’ll be signing off… till the next post… Have a great week ahead.

Dinner @ Craft Brew

It was a special day for us on the 11^th of November. With this special day in mind, we thought of going out for a quiet dinner while spending some precious time together refreshing our memories on the event held last year.

We decided to go try out the food in Craft Brew at Mutiara Damansara. I read some reviews on the restaurant and got to know that they had Spirulina Beer as one of the drinks on their menu. After work that day, my man came over to pick me up and off we went for dinner there. We ordered their house specialty “Honey Mustard Roasted Back Ribs”. In addition to that, we also ordered pasta coz I was hungry like a bear. While going through their drinks on the menu, there were too many beers to choose from (btw, their beer is something really special). We couldn’t decide on what to choose so we finally went for the Red Dot sampler which has 4 different types to sample and taste. It includes 3 core and 1 seasonal beer.

It was overall a nice dinner spent together and I will definitely visit the restaurant again for a full pint of Spirulina beer…

2011 Starbucks Planner

Here I come! 2011 Starbucks planner… when it was the beginning of November this year, my mind was all about the planner which Starbucks had. Every year, Starbucks will come out with this planner for the following year which we can exchange it by collecting stamps (of course, we had to purchase our drinks there to collect a stamp). I managed to complete my mission last year and woohoo! A 2010 planner was in my hands.

This year, the design is not really appealing compared to other countries, but I am still standing strong to get one. So, with this target in mind, I will very often be having my breakfast with my man at Starbucks starting from now. I just cant wait to get my hands on one of the planner so, here goes, my coffee drinking spree.

I am all along not a coffee drinker, since young, I wasn’t trained to drink coffee, so I’ll just have to stick to my hot chocolate as usual while my man can have his coffee. 

Starbucks spree, here I come…

Wall Art

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I was talking to my man about redecorating our little home with something new and suddenly, wall decoration struck our minds. We’ve been staying in this little house for almost 3 years and we thought of getting something new to refresh our home.

So, off I went browsing the internet for some modern wall stickers and murals and only I noticed that there is so much to choose from. However, nothing really nice, simple, classy, and modern came my way so the only thing I got to do is to continue searching for it.

At the same time, we also thought of giving our hall a makeover, discussing on how to redesign our TV rack and cabinets. However, there’s still much to be discussed so just hope that there’ll be some progress. So, anyone with any ideas on some modern contemporary designs, do share with me so that I can have some ideas on how to go about refurbishing my little home.

Anyway, tomorrow’s the start of a working week so I have to call it a day earlier to have a good rest before I go back to my pile of work in the office.

Happy Deepavali

Yesterday was a public holiday (Festival of lights which is celebrated by Indians) and I was invited to my colleague’s house for a gathering session with delicious Indian home cooked food.

We had a whole variety of spicy food a.k.a. prawn sambal, chicken masala, mutton rendang which went really well with putu mayam , nasi birayani and tosai. These are all Indian delicacies which we are able to find everywhere however, there’s a little twist to it as it was prepared the home cooked way. Everyone enjoyed it and we were all sweating away because of the spiciness level that boosted our taste buds…

We spent almost 2 hours at my colleague’s place chit chatting while filling up our tummy with food on the table. It was a great lunch and we gobbled down everything that is edible served. Kids were having a great time playing while the mums gathered for catch ups on motherhood. Meanwhile, the men were also having their topics about automobiles and cameras. The weather was really hot but we had refreshing juice to quench our thirst and kept us cool under the heat.

Definitely will be looking forward to another Deepavali open house next year…

A sunday spent in my little kitchen

I was busy with trainings during the past few weeks and didn’t have time to update anything. Life was fast moving and I had so much to do at work till sometimes I think why I am doing this while others can just do something that they like and enjoy.

Anyway, life is all about problems which it’s our responsibility to search for the answers and solutions. So, for now, I will just be satisfied with what I have but however, trying to get my hobby into a small skill.

I was clearing my documents in my PC coz I need to send it for a reformat, so I can’t work on any photos till I get my PC reformatted. While getting it done, I am currently browsing through the net and reading up some books on photo compilation. Just hope this will increase my knowledge and skills and improve for the better.

It is a relaxed Sunday for me and I was busy preparing meals for my man and myself. I had this sudden rush to cook the whole day so I started off with getting the ingredients ready for our lunch. We had stir fried potatoes with abalone mushrooms with teriyaki sauce and stir fried broccoli with baby corn (a typical Chinese dish). When I dished out and when the foods were in our little belly only I realized that I didn’t take any pictures of my little success. As for dinner, I learned from a cooking program a recipe which needs a little extra time to prepare. I named this dish Steamed fried rice with fresh water prawns (coz this dish was to fry the rice, then steam it together with the prawns). Hmmm, the dish came out quite nicely and it was surprisingly delicious for a first timer to cook this dish.

I can’t say I’m good in cooking but I had a great mum which thought me how to cook and she even wrote a step-by-step guide just so that my dish won’t taste weird. Thanks mum…when I started working my mum kept asking me to learn to cook so that when I get married and have a husband, I can feed him full with home cooked food (Chinese always believe that, in order to make a man happy, we will have to fill his tummy with good food). However, I wasn’t bothered on learning to cook coz when I come home everyday, there will be dinner served on the table.

Now that I have a man in the house, it came in handy when I realized that I actually knew how to cook. I have the ability to figure out what ingredients to prepare for some basic food. So, I decided to go to my walking recipe library (a.k.a. my mum) for help. And yes, she thought me so much that my cooking skills drastically improved and now I can say I am able to cook some decent food to feed my man…

I will try to take some pictures of my little success next time… as for now, I need an early rest after a whole day in the kitchen.

A hobby of Photo compilation ...

I suddenly pondered about doing some online reviews and doing marketing on the internet instead of sitting in the office, tied down with the fixed hours unable to do things that I want at any given time of the day.

I just realized that there’s still so much things that can be done on the internet and I’m not saying about selling some clothing or some physical stuff online. I would like to use my own spare time to do something that I enjoy, and in this case, I like to compile few photos and put all of it into one picture. Although I know my designing is not up to even a beginner’s level compared to people who are into designing, but, for me, I just think that I will no matter how start from somewhere. I don’t have any super duper software to do the work for me, all I do is just plain ole’ compilation the way a greenhorn does it. No harm trying out something new and who knows maybe one day I’ll just succeed *dreaming on cloud 9*

Of course, with the more pictures I practice with, the more I’ll get the hang of doing it better and automatically, I’ll have more ideas on how to compile pictures better. As for a start, I’ve done the compilation with my own pictures during weekends. I just like doing this and I can easily spend long hours compiling it.

The pictures that I compile are for my own use of course, and to satisfy myself. Instead of seeing a plain picture one by one, why not just compile all of the pictures that I like and add some touches to it and make it a nice one. Maybe some people don’t like the way I do things, or the way I arrange it but it really depends on a person’s taste or preference.

As for now, I’m trying my best to experiment on this hobby that I like doing since long ago and maybe one day soon, I could provide this service to someone who appreciates it. Currently, this will be some photo compilation by a greenhorn, a.k.a Myself

Till then, have a great day

An International Dinner Series, 2010

The weekend's here again. I was browsing through my folders and came across some photos taken during a dinner my man and I attended last month at Sage Restaurant & Bar @ The Gardens. The menu for the night was French Fusion food and they served Martel liquor which went really well with our food.

It was a sight to experience since I’ve never been to such dinner and when I was there, everyone was dressed up to the theme. It was a Friday so I didn’t manage to dress up, we were in a hurry and went straight for the event right after work.

The chef was great, the dinner started at 8.30pm and we all went straight down to the tasting of Martell VSOP, Martell Cordon Bleu, Martel XO and Martell Creation Grand Extra. It was an enriching experience with Martell’s finest cognac and French fusion fine dine menu.

Before the dinner started, I was secretly asking J whether we should go for McDonald’s after the dinner since to me, fine dine always serves their small portions of food in a huge and wide plate. I was wrong at the end, by the time they served the final dish (e.g. dessert) my stomach was filled to the top with the food I graciously ate earlier *burp*.

Before we left after the event ended, we were each given a token of appreciation which consisted of 2 liquor glasses and some liquor infused chocolates. Mmmm… yummy chocolates I can say.

A picture says a thousand words, so, here you go, compiled the pictures in one

A full menu for the night...

Seeked advice on blogging

I was talking to my ex-colleague the other day on how do I start blogging. It was so long since I've last met her and it was great and enjoyable just talking to her. Then I've come to realize that, even now when we don't even meet, we can have long chats on just a simple topic.

First, she taught me how to add widget on my blog, then recomended me on some book review sites. I dont mind reading, but to review it on a commercial site, reminds me of writing some essays during exams. Loads of questions and doubts will start flying in my mind, all the "what-if" questions made me think twice whether to do a review or not? Anyway, I might go into reviewing but I am very sure that now is not the right time for me. I'm still struggling on how to come up with a topic to write.

Anyway, back to my ex-colleague. She's now a full time mummy taking care of her young little prince. The last time i met her was when her son turned one month old, and now, he's already 19 months going on 20 months. Time really flies when we least noticed it. Things are changing so fast that if we stop for a while, we will be left behind. Struggling to catch up the pace is a not-so-easy thing to do.

I would like to say a word of thanks to my ex-colleague for everything that she's taught me. More posts to come in the future...

Italia Auto Grand Trip to Hatyai, 2010

It has been so long since I last posted something here however, I'm now determined to post something here more often.

Last weekend, we went for Italia Auto's grand driving trip to Hatyai, Thailand. J (a.k.a my man) took his little baby for a spin up to Thailand for the first time with other I.A members. 22 cars which consists mostly of Fiat Coupe and Alfa Romeos.

Day 1 @ 7.45am (KL)- Breakfast provided by Auto Connexion before the flag off at 9.00a.m. Everyone was pumping up food into their stomach before starting the journey up North to Thailand. As for me, knowing well I will be spending several hours in the car, I've packed up some of my stuff (i.e. PSP, pillows, a small blankie, & my little cute piggy stuffed toy) before the flag off @ Auto Connexion; J's white baby caught in the act

The journey was tremendous, at 200km/hr everyone was showing their driving skills. Before we knew it, we were already at Hatyai's border going through customs and getting our passports stamped. Of course, not to forget, J bought insurance for his car and traded some RM for Thai Baht.

7.30pm - dinner was served at the hotel with a full spread of Japanese buffet, it was awesome to see such a variety of japanese food served in Hatyai. Before the dinner, I was talking to J if the dinner would be Thai's local dishes. But, it turned out to be the other way round which was out of our expectations. We did had a great time chit chatting with other I.A members about everything from the journey up to Hatyai and the agenda while we were there.

Day 2 @ 8.30a.m (Thailand) - The day started with American breakfast at the hotel's Cafe. The I.A group hopped on to 2 vans and headed to Songkhla. First stop was to the Golden Mermaid Statue on the beach of Songkhla. The guys had a great time posing with the mermaid with weird and hilarious poses (ahem *mermaid topless* ahem).

Our next stop is to Songkhla's Aquarium. We were just in time for the feeding session, the diver treated a leopard shark like a harmless pet, hugging it like a soft toy without worrying about how wild it can be. Of course, I dont really know how dangerous a leopard shark can be though. We were all occupied with snapping photos in the dark, hoping to capture a nice piece of art on camera till we forgot our stomaches are actually growling until we made an exit from Songkhla Aquarium. Sam (I.A. president) who became our tour guide for the day finally instructed the van driver to bring us for our lunch and demanded that we would want to have Tom Yum Koong and other local food. No pictures taken on the lunch we had as we were all gobbling down what was served on the table. After our oh-so-late-lunch at 3.3opm we headed to the floating market and once we got down, we were stunned to see countless people busy bargaining for food and drinks sold my the hawker on the long boat. I was just too tired to squeeze myself through the crowd just to get a drink to quench my thirst, lucky i had my knight in shining armour who managed to get a cup of nice cooling coconut. By the time we reached our hotel in the evening, J and I were too tired to stroll the streets.

Day 3 @ 8a.m (Thailand) - Today, we'll be leaving for KL, home sweet home here we come. We had our breakfast and checked out. We were splitted into 2 groups before we hit the road back. Once again, the trouble which we had to go through at the Customs before the guys accelerated up to 190km/hr back home.

A good, fun, and enjoyable road trip to be remembered...