How i wish

Quoted from The Star, Thursday September 30, 2010


'PETALING JAYA: A businessman has won RM47.82mil – the largest ever lottery jackpot in Malaysia.'

Read here.

Gosh...what will I do with the money if I'm the winner?

So many things running through my mind:
1) Travel around the world - on business class
2) Savings/investment
3) Give parents
4) Buy propertiesssss/renovate parents' house
5) Buy new car
6) DSLR
7) Braces for teeth
8) Clothes/shoes/bags/anything I want
9) Charity
10) probably sponsor everyone to Bali for a wedding? hahahhaha

Sigh...how i wish...

A home

Recently, certain party is urging the government to control the soaring prices of property. Looking at the price now, a decent double-storey house can easily costs RM400k. It's getting more and more difficult for middle-income earner (like me) to own a house.
Few years back, I am not keen to own a house. As I am not ready to commit. I guess I made the wrong decision. Now, when I am ready, the price is just too costly.
Been visiting few show houses. But I don't fancy a big house, just a home to come home to everyday. I want to decorate my house from scratch. The tilings, the paint, the lightings to the curtains, furnitures, and all the nitty gritty details.

Comfy living room

Dining area

Kitchen

TV room

Bedroom

Earlier this year, I got a chance to visit a really nice bungalow. Heck, it even has it's own lift.

Sofa in Karaoke room

Karaoke room

Koi pond

Expensive set

Staircase to orchid house

Staircase to rooms

Hall upstairs

Sigh...such a beautiful house....

Kitty

The little kitty few months ago has grown into an adolescent now. But still as playful as always. I loved to watch her playing with her mummy but that's a rare scene nowadays. I guess that's part of the lifecycle. When kitties reach certain age (or month), it's time for the mother to teach them to be independent.Everytime, when kitty wants to play with her mummy, she is disappointed as the mummy doesn't want to play anymore. Mummy is seldom around also. Not like last time, she's always around to protect little kitty.
I feel sad for the kitty. She seems lonely, confined in the small compound of my house. At times, she will sit at the gate, looking longingly at the world outside. At times, she will venture into the house, exploring each room and playing with anything that she could find. At night, she refuses to go out and hides under the sofa. I guess she wants companion.
She is still a small kitty to me. But I know eventually, she will be able to jump over to the outside world. She will be free but with that, she will be exposed to the harsh world outside. I'm worried for her but I guess, that's how life is.We're protected when we're young, but sooner or later, we will be moving on and we will have to go out there and face challenges. We can't always stay under the wings of our parents.
I wish kitty all the luck in to world. And I hope she knows that the door is always open and she is welcome any time. Be tough kitty...and be smart too...

Datukship

Taken from The Star, Sunday, 26 September:

'It is easy to get away with a fake Datuk title as there is no national registry to verify the authenticity of datukships.'

No wonder there's so many Datuks around....*shake heads*

More from:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/9/26/nation/7106677&sec=nation

Summons

My house received a 'saman' from DBKL few days ago. Yup, you read it right. We got the summons for not providing a so-called 'legitimate' garbage bin.
I will not pay it because:
1) who says we don't have one? you can't see it doesn't mean we didn't have it.
2) why we didn't put it outside if we have one?
a) on that particular day the summons was issued, it's not a day that the garbage truck will come-so why bother putting it out when we have no garbage to throw
b) from previous experience, garbage collectors simply throw the bin after they have emptied the content-the bin will even gone missing at times
c) stray cats and dogs tend to be curious of what's inside, thus, spilling the content
3) The summons did not state the amount
4) The only place to pay it - DBKL. You think everyone is so free to go all the way to town to pay a stupid summons?

Instead of wasting energy/time/money, why not DBKL think of ways to improve the garbage collection system? Why not spend resources on educating people to segregate their waste and not forcing people to put a bin outside their house? Why not think of how to avoid the garbage trucks leaving behind extremely smelly water?

王力宏- 美

another nice song...

1Malaysia day

As I was standing in line, waiting for my turn to pay, two incidents unfold. It was at Tesco on 1Malaysia (holi)day. There was a system malfunction, so the scanners at the counter weren't working resulting in long queues with many impatient customers. I was queuing near to the display rack.

Incident 1:
An aunty about 50-ish came up behind me (left side)and queue up. At the same time, a man in his thirties queue up on my right as well. The man is with his wife and a small kid.
I didn't notice anything at first until the lady suddenly said to the man that she was there first. And then all hell broke loose. The man said something like "My ass you're here first. Stupid lady. Don't think you are elder than me you can cut queue. Idiot lady. Stupid 'X@*%)^&."
I was quite surprised. From his appearance, he seems to be a well-educated man. Buy boy, he was rude. And his wife just stood quietly there. I mean, come on la...It would not cost you too much time to give in to the lady. There's no one else behind here anymore.
Personally, I think the lady came first. Just that she's standing on my left and people starts queuing up on my right. I wanted to say something but no use arguing with such a rude man.
So in the end, the lady left as he won't back out. There was a foreign guy behind the rude man. He even offered her to queue up in front of him but she declined. I'm not sure how his wife felt as I heard her trying to cool her husband...saying that he's too bad tempered.If I am the wife, I would be embarassed.

Incident 2:
There's a bitchy lady a few places in front of me in the line.
Her husband (I presume) wanted to go into Cosway (one of the shops in front of the cashiers) for a while. She loudly objected, not allowing him to go and instructed him stand there with her.
The husband went anyway, and walau, she was fuming mad. I can her her sulking and she whipped out her phone and called him I think. When the husband came back, she was scolding him loudly and with both hands on her waist. And this couple is younger than me.
I cannot understand how the guy can stand such a bitchy girl. I hope I am not like that in the future. Well, having said that, it all boils down to tolerating each other when you are in a relationship.

Maybe I am being prejudice...

Burst of colours

I like this. Colourful, not too sweet with a hint of sour-y taste...thanks Pat for bringing it back all the way from Land Down Under....

Made with love

I've been having itchy hands lately...I wanted to learn baking and making snacks. So, whenever there's free time at home, I'll search for some simple recipe to try out...

Mixed fruit cake - didn't really work out. Too dry.

Death by chocolate - too sweet and moist.

Fried bread with fillings - yummylicious. Filled with butter, cheese, mixed vege, cheesy hotdog, mustard and tomato sauce.

Sui gao - mum thought me this...her cooking is always delicious.

Serradura - nice but not yet perfect.

Everytime, I realise, I failed to clean up. Thanks mum for always washing and cleaning up the mess I made in your kitchen. I guess i fulfilled one of my resolution for this year. This is a life time learning. My mum is always a good cook. Gotta spend more time and learn from her.

encouragements

It's amazing when sometimes we are able to bond with people that we've only seen in pictures. You can really feel that person's sincerity without the need to be talking to them face to face. I've made a big step recently. Yes, I took the leap(fingers crossed that I've made a wise decision, else I will be falling into another hole). In these times of uncertainties, I had a chat with a colleague that I've not seen before and instantly, she made me feel  better. I guess we shared many similar thoughts. Well, thanks for the encouragement. Hope you find what you're looking for too. Like we keep saying to each other, we must be positive.

3 layer tea

First tasted it in Miri, Sarawak and fell in love with it. Been trying several 3 layer tea (combination of brown sugar, evaporated milk, tea) here but none can match the one in miri...
Until I found this in Pak Hailam Kopitiam.

Love the taste and it's best to order tea instead of coffee...

Weekend foodie escape

A much awaited weekend getaway to Penang, as it has been delayed several times due to our work schedule. The weekend started after work on Friday for me and Rai. We went to the pasar malam in Taman Segar and bought lots of food for dinner. Rai was practically drooling just by looking at the food and wanted to buy the whole pasar malam back…
The next morning, we started our journey at about 6am. Stressful morning, as we got lost even before hitting the highway. We were supposed to pick up Mei Leng at KL Sentral and it was no easy feat. The sign boards and routes at KL Sentral is confusing.
After much twists and turns, we finally hit the highway and head towards Bidor, our first stopover. It’s a ritual for any trips up north. As usual, I had duck mee and coffee at Pun Chun kopitiam. Their food quality is not as good anymore. We bought some local snacks- ‘kai chai’ biscuit, ‘sat kei ma’, ‘kacang tumbuk’ biscuits, etc…

Next up in the itinerary is Foh San Dim Sum in Ipoh. The last time I went there was about 5 years back. At that time, the place is a shabby restaurant with very limited seats. After a facelift, it is now a big, two-storey building. And still, people were lining up to be seated. The dim sum here are good. Huge, tasty and up to standard. It’s a bit pricey but worth every penny paid. We got a summon here for parking illegally. Mental note: DO NOT TRUST those parking touts.

We continued our journey to Penang. Weather was really good that day. Cloudy with a bit of sunshine, so it was not too hot. Upon reaching, we headed towards Gurney to check-in to Gurney hotel. My second time staying at this hotel. I like the friendly staff despite the hotel being a bit old. We had a sea-view room.

After a bit of rest, we headed out for food again. We drove around town, walked down some historical buildings and finally, reached this corner kopitiam in near Lorong Selamat which serves excellent ABC and rojak. I forgot the name of the kopitiam. We went back to buy the rojak sauce the next day. However, the Penang chee cheong is not good. Tasted weird. I miss the chee cheong fun in Batu Lanchang market.

A short distance away is the famous char kuey teow- Kafe Heng Huat in Lorong Selamat. The lady owner is quite arrogant. She told us to wait 1 hour if we want to eat her CKT. To be honest, aside from the big prawns, the CKT is not the best I’ve tasted. And it costs RM7 per plate. We ordered also some o’chien from across the road. It was good.

After walking around and cam-whored a bit, we headed back to the hotel for a rest. Went down to the pool and spotted some Korean guys swimming. Sadly, they are errmmm...not as good looking as we hoped. For dinner, we walked from the hotel to the infamous Gurney Drive. Crowded as usual, we had rojak pasembur, ikan bakar, a lot of fried stuff , etc. Detoured to Gurney plaza on the way back and I spotted a really nice shirt from Dorothy Perkins and couple pairs of nice shoes from C&K. I didn’t realise that we had Jacuzzi in the bathtub previously. It was fun soaking in it but it makes some very noisy and loud sound.

It was raining heavily the next morning. We braved the rain and headed for breakfast in Jalan Mc Calister. I really like the prawn mee and we ordered another bowl after finishing the first one. Next up, we went to the sleeping Buddha temple and Siamese temple. We were kind of stranded there for a while as it was raining cats and dogs again. Luckily the rain subsided and we headed to Khoo Kongsi. I really like the building structures around that place. A good place for some artistic photography. Mental note: MUST visit the place at night as the lightings they set up looks amazing in the bochures.

After Khoo Kongsi, we drove to Kek Lok Si. Not surprising, the place was crowded. Saw some turtles making out in the pond on the way up. LOL. The shelter for the big Kuan Yin statue is still not completed. Doing what most tourists will do, we took photos here and there. Mr Sunshine was beginning to peek from behind the clouds.

A visit to Kek Lok Si is not complete without eating the infamous asam laksa at the foot of Kek Lok Si. It’s not really the best asam laksa to me but it’s well known...so what the heck. Seating are scarce and the place is not really hygienic to me. I love the fried popiah stall and the muar chee stall nearby though. With the asam laksa swimming in our stomach, we began our journey back to KL.

We had dinner at Ipoh’s famous ‘nga choi kai’. This time we tried Lou Wong. I had the dried Hor Fun. It’s just simply delicious eaten together with the steamed chicken and bean sprout aka nga choi. The meat balls were great too. I wanted to try a tau foo fah stall nearby but unfortunately it has been sold out. Mental note: MUST try the soya and tau foo fah next time. With this detour to Ipoh for dinner, we proceeded to head back to KL.

It was a overall a great trip for us after our Langkawi trip couple of years back. More to come, guys?

Poor cows

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/9/7/nation/6990566&sec=nation

Food Review:Carl's Junior

Did you know that Carl's Junior started in LA as hotdog cart back in the 1940's? It grew to be a famous burger chain and till today, has about more than 1,000 outlets worldwide.

I'm a big fan of beef burgers. And Carl's Junior's doesn't disappoint. I tried their Western Bacon Cheeseburger with Charbroiled All-Beef Patty, Two Strips of Bacon, Melted American Cheese, Two Crispy Onion Rings and Tangy BBQ Sauce on a Toasted Sesame Seed Bun. The bacon strips is rather too thinly sliced though. The beef patty is juicy and I love the onion rings in the burger itself.

Dear had Spicy Chicken Sandwich with Spicy Chicken Fillet, Lettuce and Mayonnaise on a Plain Bun. Their non-beef selections are rather plain compared to their beef choices.

We also ordered the Chilli Cheese Fries with Natural Cut French Fries smothered in Chili and Shredded, Melted Jack and Cheddar Cheeses. Looks yummy but the taste is not my cup of tea. I think the combination of only cheese and fries will be a better.

The service is poor though. With only one counter operating, we had to wait quite a while for our turn. Also, the space is small, thus, not many seats are available. Well, plus point is they have free flow of soft drink.
Overall, I wouldn't mind a second visit. Definitely will try their Famous Star and Super Star burgers the next time. Our calories count that day: