aikoakito

Graduation: Photoshoot

2012-02-26T00:17:00.000+08:00

For my graduation photoshoot, I decided not to engage to any indoor studio photography. Instead, I made my two men, the boss and my brother to volunteer to be the photographer for outdoor photoshoot. Arming with two DSLRs, an external flash, tripod and our compact cameras (which were barely used), we went off to the uni the following morning (271111). Since papa has to work, we split in two different cars after a dim sum affair in the morning with the boss chauffeured us in another car. We have initially planned to stop at every spot around the whole uni’s compound, which sprawled over about 999 acres in area. Started off with the enormous university logo outside the compound, we followed on with the waterfall which was located just on the opposite side. The weather was very sunny, and we were eternally grateful for that despite the sweltering heat else the sight of umbrellas can be seen in all the photos ;P.

Thereafter, we headed to the uni’s libarary, which I can safely assume as one of my favorite spot around the uni :). The boss suggested me to get into the library to have a portrait of mine taken with some real books as background, since I have forego studio photography which are using rack of books in their canvas backdrop. Initially, I was a little apprehensive if we were allowed to do so but later got exited after from assurance from the boss. But, unfortunately it wasn’t open that morning :( Besides, I am not sure myself whether the uni’s library are opened on Sundays though *slap forehead*. So, we just make do with the lockers room, the main entrance into the library as well as the mini garden with foot massage trail with a mini pond surrounded by animal miniatures :).

Next point was the Canselori (i.e Chancellery building), the administration twin tower building. The view from the building and around the building itself were simply breathtaking. There were several spots around the building that visitors will definitely stop by to have their photographs taken :-). Besides, the view from this highest vantage point overlooking the sea was indeed spectacular, with lush greenery around is no doubt an added point. I can safely say that we spent the longest time here :). It was already 2.5 hours through our session the moment we left Chancellery building for my school in SEIT (i.e School of Engineering & Information Technology).

Due to time constraint considering that I have promised my mom's colleague that I would lend and to send over my robe to her by 1300hr, we have decided that SEIT will be our last destination, and giving some other places a miss after I narrowed down my list (i.e Marine Aquarium & Museum, the hostel building and the beach). Besides this is also attributed to tiredness and I am near to melting state with the robe on top of long sleeve woolen shirt. Photography session will never be completed without the mandatory visit to the school I have been attending for the whole 4 years long :). By the end of the day, my brother got sun-burnt while the boss had a backache but we had a really enjoyable day :P.

Graduation: The Day

2012-02-09T19:43:00.002+08:00

I have officially graduated from my Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering after four good years in university and that summed up to 20 years of formal education. Well, that was actually more than two months back (261111) :). I couldn’t exactly recall vividly what I did on the eve, except for church service in the evening and our customary supper whenever we are out at night apart from ironing and packing; to which I attributed as the cause where I have to axed off my plan to put on the eye mask and woke up rather late the following day. Thus, I have to pack all my necessities from hair brush to facial cream and whatnots into the car. Unfortunately I have to give my hair-dryer a miss and left the house with wet hair and towel draped around my shoulder.

I was still deep in slumber the moment the boss called me up when he was at the departure hall, informing that he missed the plane :P. I wasn’t too surprised although I have to admit that I was praying at the same time that it was not true :P Oh well, another typical banter from him :P I quickly jumped off from the comfy of my bed and apparently the house was all quiet that morning. My parents and brother were out, and my sister had left way earlier as she was among the violinist involved for the graduation ceremony’s orchestral team. I was literally left out and gotten myself ready in a jiffy. Not long after that, my parents and brother came back, with a dozen of beautiful bouquet of fresh pink roses.

We left the house nearing to 0900hr and headed to the airport to pick up the boss, who will be spending a good 3 days with us in conjunction of my day :) We were late by about half an hour as the plane had landed 15 minutes before we left the house. To my surprise, the boss flew over another bouquet of a dozen of nicely wrapped roses of different pink shades. We headed to one of our favorite breakfast spot in Inanam for their ngau chap thereafter. We were lucky this round as the owner of the stall was around, unlike our recent two trips in the same month where both gave us unpleasant experience when the stall were left out to be attended by his employees. Service was inefficient, not to mention slow and there was once our orders were totally forgotten despite only a few tables were occupied. This round, we had no complains :).

Then, we headed to the uni right after breakfast, and it was 11-ish the moment we reached. Along the way from the main entrance was heavily congested and every nook within the radius of the hall were swarmed with people. We can imagine how crowded and wet the washrooms would be inside the hall as well as school buildings within walking distance from the hall. Thus we decided to go a little further to get ourselves changed at the School of Arts. We had all the washrooms for ourselves and debuted with our outdoor photography by the murals done by the art students :)

Since there were still some time before a quarter past 1300hr, which was the time we were asked to gather in front of the main entrance of the hall. Thus, dad suggested that we go for more outdoor shooting which we had initially planned to do after the ceremony, lest causing us all wet and sweaty prior getting into the frigid hall. It was a brilliant suggestion indeed, as post-ceremony photography can be saved for my course mates and friends. We spent slightly more than an hour for some light photography around the lecture halls and it’s surrounding overlooking the sea.

When it was almost 1300hr, we quickly get back into the car and off to the Chancellor Hall. Thanks to the VIP entrance pass mom was provided, we managed to get a so-called VIP parking, which were just a few feet away from the hall’s main entrance. This has definitely saved us a lot from walking for a far distance, very much everyone’s relief under the fantastic weather, clear sky and scorching sun :). The queue was rather long by the time I got there. Frantically searching high and low for my friends, I stumbled upon a registration counter meant for fellow lecturers. Out of curiosity, I took the opportunity to ask if students were required to register too. The guy standing by the security barrier rudely brushed me off in disdain stating that the counters were only meant for teachers (in his word referring to lecturers). Oh well.

Not long after, I caught up with some of my friends and thereafter asked my family and the boss to get in the hall to have their seat. We spent quite some time to adjust our hood before I realized that I have forgotten my mortar board! I called my mom, who was the one holding my bag and she didn’t pick up the phone. The same goes to my papa and my brother, my calls went unnoticed. Then, I resorted to call the boss. Phew, luckily the boss picked up the phone and informed my parents about it :P Not long after, my dad and brother came out and we met at the stretch of red carpet we have agreed upon earlier shall my sheer blur-ness strikes. Well, papa knows this syndrome of mine too well and before they get into the hall, we promised to meet up at our pre-definite meeting point shall the prawn head me forget or miss out anything. I was on the verge of getting shoo-ed away by the officer in charge :P.

While we were queuing outside the entrance, both Kuo and I were deeply touched when we see Pau, our senior who has been a great mentor made his appearance by the bushes. Lol. It was a coincidence as the compound was all guarded with securities and he was not allowed to interfere the graduatues. Thus, we literally met up with him discreetly. He quickly handed both of us a stalk of flower with a baby teddy on it. Upon thanking him, we were caught red-handed and reprimanded to leave the gift right away, lest we will not be allowed to enter the hall. Left with no choice, we returned it to Pau who was planning to leave right after but instead, we made him to come back after the ceremony.

The event proper commenced at about 1345hr with the graduates marching in by school and course program order, followed by fellow lecturers, professors and subsequently the upper echelons, all smartly dressed in their robes and mortar boards. This was followed by the national anthem, proclamation of the ceremony, other formalities and a brief speech by Vice-Chancellor cum our state’s Chief Minister respectively. Followed on was the most anticipated moment, where the Bachelor Degrees were conferred to each graduate (a padded certificate folder embedded with golden logo and wordings sans certificate). It was almost 1500hr when I received my 'scroll' and the conferral process itself took about 3 hours or so. Everyone were apparently restless and couldn't help but eyeing at the handphone's clock from time to time :P.

This was followed then with a speech by the graduate representative. Graduates were basically advised to perform well to bring glory to the university and society generally and reminded to repay all the good deeds our parents had showered upon us. With the state anthem and uni’s song, the ceremony for the day has finally come to the end at around 1700hr. More photography session with friends and course mates after that and we finally decided to leave when it strikes 1800hr and advanced for a dinner fix at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Everyone was arduous by the end of the day but still hitting the sack past midnight. Besides, I was still able to make two trays of little darlings to be devoured the following night :).

Colors of India: Majestic Sunrise from Tiger Hill

2012-01-26T02:04:00.000+08:00

Previously, all I knew about India ware about the famous Taj Mahal building and Indian culture which is associated to almost everything bright and colorful. My very limited exposure about how India looks like and what India has to offer has totally changed after the boss came back from his visit cum trekking in India, and of course after I made the boss to recap and share his experiences for long hours, which was definitely a rare sight for him who used to be an ardent good listener over a talker. Thus, I ought to jot this down before my memory slips away. Shall I be given an opportunity to visit this place one day, I would definitely jump into this idea at once :)

I was awed by many of the sceneries the boss brought back especially on the majestic sunrise occurrence from Tiger Hill, Darjeeling. At the very moment when I look through these photos, then only I realized that for many years of my life, sunrise and sunset went by me every day unnoticed. This post serves a reminder to myself that everything under the sky are meant to be treasured, to be appreciated :). How we have taken so many things for granted. A trip to India or more accurately Darjeeling is not going to be complete without the visit to Tiger Hill, which is located approximately 12km from Darjeeling town to witness the vibrant sunrise over the Himalayan mountains. Tiger Hill, the third highest mountain in the world standing at the height of about 8500 feet high over Kanchengjunga range and the tip of Mount Everest, which is located 170km away (straight line distance) is viewable from this point.

Visitors gathering by the observatory to witness the majestic occurrence.

Despite covered by thick lush forests on throughout the way up, this has not abstained the determination of visitors to experience the grand entrance of the fire ball as it peeps out through the thick mist and clouds. Visitors were recommended to get up in the wee hours during dawn, preferably around 0400hr to be able to get to the observatory in time to witness the gorgeous occurrence. Some even simile the occurrence as the world’s best scene, which I think can’t be more apt :). Here are few sequential panoramas of the sun rising occurrence from Tiger Hill.

Sunrise on the way. The skies looked like it had caught fire.

The reddish yellow light of the sun has begun to emerge.

As the sun climbs up the horizon, the skies gradually turn into pulsating vibrant orange.

What said to be specially unique and even some simile the occurrence as the world’s best scene was not merely on the sun rising phenomenon but watching the first ray of Sun shed light upon Kangchenjunga range, which was covered with thick snow , thereafter turns into red as the sun raises, followed by orange then into golden hue. The whole scenario took about 20 minutes before it turns into white again, when the Sun climbs up the horizon.

Tiger Hill after the sunrise.

Pre and Post Graduation

2012-01-14T01:06:00.001+08:00

This is a backdated post, way back in November 2011 and forewarned, this is going to be a longggg post ahead, the longest post I have ever churned out ever since I started blogging. It is going to work like charm to make you fall over sheer boredom :) Soon to graduate students were allocated a span of about one week to collect our robe, mortar board, hood and other apparel accessories as well as a car pass. Since two of my other friends requested for S size for the robe but was unable to take leave a week ahead the graduation ceremony, thus I was commissioned to take up the errand :). I reckoned that I must be among the early birds before the size ran out of stock so I have planned earlier to get there on the first day morning.

On that day itself, I touched down the collection hall sometime around 1000hr, and I was eternally grateful that I myself have done the pre-collection online formalities and have as well urged my friends to get the Tracer Study surveying form completed and to get the slip printed beforehand. Thus, I was eligible to skip the first counter but headed for the second one right away. The area in the collection hall was enormous, reclaimed after several number of lecture halls opened up into one. As in the photo, the size of a lecture hall is from the far end column to the nearer one. The line wasn’t too long, not short though (pictured). But, somehow it doesn’t seem to be moving at all, until 45 minutes later where I was able to move forward by one third from where I first queued.

Halfway through, I have just realized that I should have requested for three copies of the so called borrowing-and-lending-agreement, instead of the one I was given at the entrance. Looking at the long queue behind me, I was so reluctant to detour and to queue up all over again. Thick-skinnedly I asked for the permission from the girl behind me if I can return to the same spot after getting the forms, she smiled and nodded agreeably :).

By 1215hr, my turn has finally arrived. Before the in-charge personnel was able to attend to my aid, he was busy printing receipts for about 7-8 other people prior me and requested one after another of his other colleagues to distribute them to the recepients by signaling his colleague to the respective students one by one, thus the dormant long queue. I can visualize the impatient glare from those lining up behind me, having the thought I being the cause for the delay. I supposed majority if not all of them, were queuing and paying for themselves.

When I have finally gotten all three receipts, I was then directed to the open fitting section. I did not try on any, instead I ask the guy what was the smallest size as I heard about XS size while lining up earlier. I was told that there were XS earlier, and but only S size onwards were available. I quicken my pace to the appropriate counter and was directed to the other side complete some formalities before receiving our robe set. My heart skipped a beat of relief the moment my turn has arrived and handing the receipts and documents to the in-charge officer and I got my bag of robe set all hassle-free. But, little did I know that all the drama had just begun! *shake head*

After I have received my robe set, I was intercepted from getting them for both of my friends without a permission letter, which was not mentioned in the terms and conditions on the website and phone call earlier (despite being asked). Besides, I was told by my friend that permission letter was not required last year when she gotten the robe set on behalf for her senior. I supposed that the administrative assistant who attended to my aid was a newbie, almost all the information he gave me was inconsistent and contradictory. After some reasoning, I was given me the permission to hand in hand-written letter (upon my request) on my friends’ behalf by his other colleague, probably a senior if not superior. This new guy didn’t give me any good impression to begin with when he was making fun of my queries to other officers. He was interrupting and it pissed me off when he further added that I can only initial by-hand on behalf but the hand-written letter must be provided by the respective nominee involved. How does it make sense when someone is able to write the letter but needed an on-behalf to initial for them?

He really made me sizzled with full of gas and got me blown up. Obviously, he spoke faster before he actually deciphers my point to the other officer. Not wanting to encounter any post-letter-handing dispute, I decided to have the formal letters typed. I then made my way to the uni’s library. But, having the thought of the library’s computer with very limited access, the fact that I don’t have a pendrive with me and where to print out were scaring me. So, I was sorta trying my luck. All I planned to do was to get the letter prepared, then e-mail them to my account before making my way to the printing kiosk on the upper floor in the library. But, provided only if their computer is connected to the internet, to which I wasn’t sure despite going to the library religiously for the past four years for their food at the canteen. LOL :P

I was praying at the same time that I could make it to settle everything the same day so that I would be able to secure a S size for the three of us. I dashed to my assigned computer and start typing away, at the same time waiting for the reply from my friends for their address and IC number. After I saved the documents, I attempted to send it to my e-mail account. But to my dismay, I failed after several attempts. The document were saved on the desktop but was unable to be attached. I went to the counter and seek for assistance. I soon found out that the uni’s computer has blacklisted hotmail and gmail (I am not too sure about the latter though)! According to the technician, only yahoo account can be supported. Agony for me as I only have the earlier two (then). I knew very well that all the computers are installed with very high security features, restrictions placed on accessing websites deemed to be a threat to the uni’s network and leave alone installing free software into the computer, and Microsoft Office can only be accessed upon request upon registration at the counter but I have never expected that it was that strict to such extent. Ahh, the bane of modern technology.

The technician at the counter then offered me his personal pendrive with the condition that I must get my documents printed at his office without taking away his pendrive from the computer lab and even asked if I would return it to him right after I am done. LOL. Of course I do and I am more than grateful that he is willing to lend it to me and I am more than happy to save the hassle looking for printing services. Happily returning to my seat feeling relieved, but my happy thoughts were short lived when I failed to transfer the documents into the pendrive :(. Once again, I headed to the counter and looked up for the same officer. He came over to my seat and checked things out and later found out that documents saved with dot-docx (our typical Microsoft Words document extension) cannot be transferred. I was left with no choice but to retype the entire document all over again so that they could be saved under XML extension, with the officer by my side. Bless his helpful soul. When all the typing and saving were done, off we headed to the counter and he printed me two copies of A4 sheets that cost 60 cents per copy. I regard this as a very low-priced saving grace :).

The moment I stepped out from the computer lab, it was already a quarter to 4pm. I quicken my steps as the collection hall will be closed by 5pm. The moment I stepped out, I was greeted by two of my coursemates, who were apparently settling some overdue loaned library books formalities at the main counter. They would be heading to the academic office right after, thus offered me a ride :). The process at the office was a breeze after I have brought the letters along. Once again, the new guy I mentioned earlier was giving me very contradictory info. The borrowing-lending agreement has to be halved, one for the office and another part for our keepsake to be signed on. This guy did not return the upper half to me earlier, but returned my friends’ when I got their robes. So, I casually asked whether the letter should be brought along during the returning of the robes, despite they don’t look as important. He said “of course, else you’ll not have a smooth return” in Malay. So, upon hearing that as, naturally I asked for half piece of the agreement I earlier signed on, to which he did not returned me earlier. He then hesitated and said “Nope, you don’t really need that lah”. How contradictory in a split seconds, huh? *roll eyes*

I was able to collect all three robes within a span of about 8 hours and most of the time was spent at the collection hall. I was only ravenous by that time and I missed my lunch earlier, thanks to the heavy kolok mee breakfast with my sister. Recommended by her friend, and was my first time to patronize the coffeeshop. The portion was huge and it costs only RM3.50, which is the cheapest meal I ever had for so many years now. We opted for mee without soy sauce for gravy (there were two options; either with or without soy-sauce), thus we were given soy sauce soup instead. I guess so! Opps, I digress :)

But, I wasn’t able to be able to subscribe for the stage photos which was set up at the same venue because I did not have sufficient cash amount for a total of three person with a short of RM10 and it was almost 6pm when my dad came and pick me up. The booth was only put up when I returned to the collection hall, else I would have withdrew some money while I was on my way to the library earlier on. One more thing, we were not informed earlier to bring extra cash for miscellaneous subscriptions (i.e stage photos, studio portraits, flowers and gifts if desired etc) apart from the RM150 convocation fees per person. The first-time graduating me has never thought of these too. By the end of the day, I noticed my index toe nail on the right almost chipped off after the long hours of standing and causes me so much pain. No thanks to the flats I wore, I should have gone with a slipper :)

Fast forward to the following day (161111), I returned to the hall I went the day before, merely to subscribe for the stage photos from the uni’s sole appointed photographer with my mom. That took me only several minutes :) Upon getting home, I have been checking not once, not twice but for umpteenth of times of the three bags I brought home to make sure that nothing is missing before I pass them over to Kuo on Friday the same week when is coming over for the ceremony. One thing I might have mislook was the teeny details on the robe itself (phew, luckily nothing goes wrong with their robes). I noticed that the fabric covering the puffed-up button and the nylon rope looping around the button on the sleeve went amiss only by the night before the graduation day, while I was steam ironing the robe. It wasn’t too obvious, but still noticeable as a uncapped white button instead of a navy fabric covered one (photo 4 from top), which can’t be more apt to the robe’s color. Left with no choice in the midnight, I decided to sacrifice one of my hat (picture 5). The outcome was satisfactory but not noticeable (picture 6) :). But on the following morning (for the ceremony in afternoon) when I have just touched down the uni and was about to don on the robe, I found that the fabric cover for the button at the other side of the sleeve had taken off too! Who has ever thought of bringing my hat along with sewing kits for just-in-case incidents? Mom rummaged into her handbag and passed over to me a whiteboard marker to streak around the naked button :).

Besides, there were a couple of unsightly food stain spots on the gown’s panel but was easily cleaned with a used toothbrush and water the night before. Somehow, it gave me an impression of dirtiness whenever I don on the robe despite the overpowering softener scent on the gown.

Apart from that, a colleague of my mom who will be graduating the same batch as me were asking my mom if she can borrow my S-size robe. The petite-sized her gotten a M-size a day after I have gotten mine. That was how soon all S-sizes were gone by the second day of collection. I agreed and promised to lend it to her 1.5 day before her graduation was scheduled, so that I can save the following morning after my graduation which was scheduled in an afternoon for photography session. When she returned the robe to me, the interior part was full of synthetic fibers in red, which I supposed resulted from new clothing. I have tried my best to clean it up but they were too stubborn and to not much of avail but returning the robe as it was. Despite all the grouses, I am savoring every bits and pieces and the moment spent and sorry for the boredom, this is my only vault for me to spill memories and craps besides broadcasting them to the boss. Ooops :). How are those 'sleeping pills' treating you? :P

Colors of India: On The Road

2011-12-29T17:08:00.001+08:00

The boss was off for his very much anticipated Sandakphu-Phalut trekking in Darjeeling, India. All in all, the journey took more than 10 days including the overnight transit in KL, the stay in Kolkata city pre and post trekking in Darjeeling, India. The boss was scheduled to return to KL on the 10th Nov 2011, before catching a flight home to Sdk on the 12^th Nov 2011 evening. We managed to catch up with each other from time to time with the boss’ newly acquired India cell number. Thus, I was sort of roughly aware of his itinerary but there was one thing he deliberately kept away from me. Not until the Saturday night, when he was about to catch a flight from KL-Sdk. He dropped me a text that night from the airport asking if I have any tasks for Sunday School on the following day, or shall I have any errands to be carried out on that day to which my answer is no. That certainly arouses me to quickly reply and ask if he was scheduled to come over to KK that night :P. To my expectation, well, he said ‘Nope, I am returning to Sdk’. Not until few texts down our conversations, the boss replied ‘But pity someone who has to fly over to KK again tomorrow morning’. I definitely need not to elaborate how did I feel. LOL. By the way, that’s very very t-p(cal) of him! :P

So, fast forward to the boss’ November’s spot-check entry on the following day (131111). We did the normal stuff from eating, eating and more eating as well as some shopping apart from lazing while letting the boss to do all of the talking. I made him talk and talk about his trip and trekking journey along with the photos he took from his camera; which was indeed a rare sight to someone who let me to do most of the talking all the time :P So, here’s a snippet on some random photos on what can be found on the road in Kolkata, to which i find interesting. I’ll leave the honour to the boss to go round with his itinerary journal in his figurines and scale modeling oriented blog :)

Kolkata city is formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. The city is also aliases as ‘Cultural Capital of India’, ‘The city of Processions’, ‘City of Joy’ and so forth. Picture 1 from left to right: If you were born in the 80s era, you would probably be very well versed with Dr. Bombay’s famous song ‘Calcutta Taxi’ which was a hit when I was in my early teenage. I remembered the whole class can hum away with ‘Calcutta, taxi taxi taxi in Calcutta’ almost whole day long. :) When I did my research a while ago, I have just discovered that the singer, Dr. Bombay was not an Indian in person. Jonny Jakobsen (famously known as Dr. Bombay) begun his career as a country artist, but was famous only after his metamorphosis into Dr. Bombay. So, this is the authentic Calcutta's taxi ;) Picture 2: Another type of taxi in the form of van apart from Kolkata’s trade-mark taxi. This is better known as mini bus in our country.

Picture 3: I first came to know about what trams are only in uni during my Highway and Transport subject. In my definition, trams are literally train on asphalt road :P From some of the websites I visited, I learnt that this transport evolution debuted with horse-drawn trams as early as 1881 and subsequently evolved into steam tramway in 1882 and eventually into electric trams that India has to offer today. The Kolkata tram is the oldest operating electric tram in Asia, running since 1902. Tram lends Kolkata an old world charm and add to the romantic element of the city. This slow moving, electrical transport in narrow and crowded streets, completes the ultimate attraction of the city. Having glided down the rails as a historian witness, tram has itself been turned into an immemorial heritage, of which all Kolkatans are proud of (via).

Picture 4: A typical looking 4x4 jeep like what we have in Malaysia. But, what made my jaws dropped was the fact that this jeep can actually engorged up to 14 adults there!. This jeep ferried 10 trekkers in a group along with 4 porters tagging along for more than an hour or so ride from Darjeeling to the site *roll eyes* :) Picture 5 & 6: An auto rickshaw (i.e tuk-tuk, baby taxi) and the conventional runner pulled one, respectively. It’s almost unbelievable to find such traditional lifestyle in the latter still exists amidst the modern transportation technology in the country. Talking about rich culture, valuable history, I think Kolkata had it all. From all the photos can be found in the boss’ memory card, I think I can also safely assume that the city is also animal-friendly :). Picture 7: A living stallion probably has lost his way standing in the middle of the road, somehow do look like a statue in a roundabout. If you squint hard enough, you'll see public buses in the background. Picture 8: The picture may not do its justice. There was a tribe of more than a hundred of goats by the roadside.

Enchanting Vienna

2011-12-20T22:11:00.000+08:00

For the second time in 10 years (first was back in 2002), the world renowned Vienna Boys Choir was in Sabah, courtesy of Rotary Club Kota Kinabalu who spent literally two full years in order to make this rare event to happen. Besides bringing one of the world’s best to Sabah, one of the main objectives were to raise funds for the dialysis project that the Rotary Club is organizing, more particularly the International Polio Plus, avoidable blindness as well as the community gravity water project. (Excerpted from Daily Express, our local dailies).

The Vienna Boys’ Choir, originated more than half a century ago, sang exclusively for the court, at mass, at private concerts and functions and on state occasions in Vienna until the 1920s. Due to insufficient funding after the end of the monarchy, the Vienna Boys Choir was privatized in 1921 and started to give concerts outside of the chapel which immediately turned out to be a great success. Since the 1920s, the choir has collected all kinds of different music styles on its travels (via). The inarguably the oldest and best known boys' choir in the world and was on stage here in Kota Kinabalu on the 29^th and 30^th October 2011 at Sutera harbor Resort and Chancellor Hall (UMS), respectively. We opted for our tickets on the latter. It feels so good to be able to go back to the uni again :). Tickets were ranging from RM250, RM100 and RM50 for the show in UMS.

The boys are selected from all over the world, China, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Europe, Germany as well as Canada with a total of 25 boys aged between 9 and 13, turning to 10 and 14 based in Vienna in a boarding school. Today, there are around 100 choristers between the ages of 10 to 14 which are divided into four touring choirs. The four touring choirs (by the name Bruckner, Haydan, Mozart and Schubert) are performing around 300 concerts every year. They visit virtually all European countries, and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas. The choir's repertoire includes everything from medieval over classical to contemporary and experimental music as well as children’s operas.

One thing that captured my attention (excerpted from the daily) on a press conference between Daily Express and the boy’s choir 32 years old conductor was that; at the boys’ age as young as 9 (to 13) as a touring group at the same time studying in a boarding school, when do they actually go to school? According to Kerem (the conductor), there were 3 semester in a year whereby the first one is the touring semester. The second and third one will be from January to March, and April to June respectively. They go to school in the morning for four hours and two hours of rehearsal, mid break, lunch break and resume with schooling from 2.30pm to 6pm before dinner and leisure time.

He added, since the boys will be touring 2-3 months in a year, by singing for all big presidents and prime ministers, holding press conferences worldwide, speaking to waiters asking for a fork, meeting fans singing for autographs and taking pictures are also a form of education, which I couldn’t agree more :).

Throughout the performances, photographs and video-taping were strictly prohibited and everyone as far as I can see seemed to adhere to the regulations. Thus, I was a little disappointed that time as I was practically geared up with all-formatted memory cards, summing to a total of 25 GB from both DSLR and compact in all but I didn't muster up enough courage to whip out my camera at all :P.

The night started promptly at 2000hr sharp with a short customary speech by the Rotarian representative and brief introduction about Vienna Boys Choir by the conductor. The choir, which went by the theme "Enchanting Vienna" making a debut with Ach, Lieb, ich muss dich lassen (My darling, I must leave you). The performances promptly followed on and lasted for about an hour or so before taking a short intermission before resuming with the second half of the program. Most of the songs were presented in French and Italian. Thanks to the booklet we were asked to buy for RM2 each (in buy one free one basis), which comprised a complete compilations of the songs presented along with English translation. Throughout the performance, there were barely any pause or brief introduction between each songs, thus we could hardly trace where which song were we in until the 10^th song which was carried out in English with a frequent repetition of ‘Moses, Moses’, which was also its title :P

Since there were two empty seats on my left, a brother in Christ who was about the age of the boss, also a close friend of ours who came for the performance alone joined us during the interval and was seated next to me through the second half. I finally whipped out my camera thinking that I have someone big whom I can count-on covering me on the sideway when I start snapping and video-ing away. Funny thing was that the first sentence he asked was ‘why are you guys bringing so many cameras?’ (little did we know that photography were prohibited earlier) and the sentence he repeatedly mentioned was ‘don’t put on your flash’ and went on ‘else, we’ll both be caught’. LOL. So, I kept it minimal with the aid of the shawl I brought along :P.

The choir infixed a couple of Chinese songs by the title “Bang Chhun-hong” (Longing for the spring breeze) in Taiwanese Hokkien and “Xiang Jia Le” in Mandarin. The crowd was very much livened up when the choir ended up the performance with a famous local song, Gunung Kinabalu; which was not included in their repertoire earlier. We were told that the songs were practiced in a mere span of two days. Audiences were clapping along in glee and started to sing along. We were allowed to have our photos taken with the choristers but we gave that a miss because we didn’t want to be caught in the post-performance congestion (both traffic and human) :P

Personally, I was very impressed with the all the boys that they manage to memorize what seemed to me to be a rather long speech with very minimal referring to the notes (only for a few number of songs). Not to mention, am utterly amazed with the angelic voices they had. They seriously deserved a pat on their back for putting up a really good show and it was an enchanting Viennese evening indeed :)

Little Darlings

2011-12-14T01:07:00.000+08:00

It had been quite some time since I last made konnyaku jelly. It was because it requires high meticulous effort with my previous moulds. I have quite a collection of trays/pans for jellies but have never been really happy with them. Some were either too small in size. I have to pop in two cubes into my mouth to get the satisfaction (read: gluttony) out of it and down through my throat within a couple time of chewing, a couple of trays have narrow bottom and the jelly were unable to penetrate thoroughly to the bottom after small fruit cubes were placed, those mould with silicone push-able bottom somehow yielded a plasticy-stink (despite soaking it with water overnight). I have only used them once, prolly the stink will diminish after a couple of usage but I don’t think I’ll be using them anymore for this purpose.

But, I am one happy konnyaku-maker now and am so glad that I have finally found the purr-fect mould (I just can't love them enough!). I have been seeing almost everyone (literally) using this kind of mould but have never took the effort to search nor ask around for it. I am so pleased with the reasonable size for each jelly. I stumbled upon them by chance from the bake shop nearby my house (which only operates during weekday office hour) during one my impromptu trip to a bookstore which is located at the same row :).

I regained my mojo for konnyaku making and pronto fetch home a packet of local strawberries when we were dining at the nearby restaurant few nights after that (Not easy, I only know one store selling these fruit on a constant basis throughout our humble city). Personally, I would always prefer a fresh approach rather than having canned fruits for its filling. I am one hardcore fan of strawberries. How I wish I could grow these little darlings right at my own yard :P The sour-ish taste resulted from the berries complement so well with the sweetness of the mango-flavored konnyaku =).

Sushi Bonanza

2011-12-06T15:45:00.001+08:00

The first quarter of December is almost down, but I still have one, perhaps two or maybe three posts more to be covered before calling it a year (Nah, I wish so too!). I am still slowly crawling from the beginning of October 2011. This post is meant to pen down the boss’ visit in October 2011. A very typical dining spot, but for this round the boss’ work call visit this round coincides with the Sushi King’s RM2 Bonanza :) It was our very first time patronizing Sushi King during their bonanza fair.

The both of us had 9 plates of sushi(s) in total and that made me a full stomach bliss. On top of that, we shared a set of Yakiniku Bento before leaving with our cup runneth over :P So, these are among the salvable limited number of sushi photos. Clockwise from top left are ebi ten (prawn tempura), unagi (grilled eel) slice, chicken cheese roll, salmon sushi, chukka lidako (seasoned baby octopus) and fry roll. Among the photos cannot be retrieved after recovery were chukka kurage (seasoned jelly fish), tsubukko (fish roe) and Yakiniku (pan fried beef) Bento.

With this, I am hoping to close down the blur prawn-headness syndrome in me *bummer*. To top that up, I have been practicing to double back-up my photos and not to mention, my 500GB external HDD is almost full in no time now, and I am depending solely on my 500GB hard disc size in my lappy. Time to invest for a new external HDD. Let’s hope that there’ll be no more whining nor crying over split milk. More on this day in future posts :)

September’s spot-check

2011-11-30T16:01:00.000+08:00

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 dug and finally he 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 looked 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

2011-11-23T23:00:00.000+08:00

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

2011-11-17T11:37:00.000+08:00

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

2011-11-14T16:56:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-11T23:26:00.000+08:00

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

2011-11-04T21:14:00.002+08:00

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

2011-11-02T17:05:00.003+08:00

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 :)

Lunch Fix at Wojamama

2011-10-24T16:50:00.010+08:00

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

2011-10-17T19:31:00.008+08:00

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

2011-10-09T23:47:00.024+08:00

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

2011-10-07T08:30:00.006+08:00

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

2011-10-06T23:30:00.002+08:00

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

2011-10-04T18:47:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-01T00:30:00.003+08:00

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! ;)

Happy Birthday, Joyce

2011-09-28T00:08:00.013+08:00

Today is a very special day! Its my uni dearie cum rummie Joyce’s birthday! And this post is for you, girl :) Reminiscing those golden good old days, I remember that we have never missed out each other’s birthday throughout the four good years. I am missing the good times we shared celebrating eachother’s birthday with Kuo, at the same time feasting over mouth watering food;from Japanese, Spanish to Korean. *drools*.

Fate has brought us together four years back in2007. The first friend whom I get to know upon stamping my feet into the first class the uni, and more alleviated to know that we can click well. However, little did I expect that fate has brought us further. We spent a lot of time together and soon became room mates for 2 good years. Braving ourselves by bringing over all kinds of kitchen utensils, pots and what-nots, we whipped up healthy meals together. The one whom I braved to share all my thoughts, andalso the one who lend me both shoulders when I needed one.

*Photo taken on 250309*

Here, I am wishing you all things beautiful in life. May your day be filled with sunshine and smiles, laughter and love. May the Lord Himself go before you in everything u do & hope this wonderful day of yours blossom into lots of dreams come true and many happy returns of the day! Once again, happy birthday, dear. Lots of love :D

Happy Purchases

2011-09-26T21:56:00.004+08:00

We were out for few nights consecutively earlier this month to do some last minute back-to-uni shopping for my sister. We were all aiding her with her stuff's hunting, yet; once in a while, I managed to steal some time into some outlets and grab several necessary-but-not-so-urgent stuff as well as unnecessary stuff for myself. Below are part of the few stuff of mine that made me grinning from ear to ear :P.

One of them was a jewelry case from Daiso. Apparently, this looks nothing much but a typical plastic case that one may find anywhere; unfortunately, all that I have come across thus far were either too small, too few numbers of compartments or with single cover (the kind single-lid-covers-all), to which I would usually get to store my craft's stuff. This purchase is what I wanted exactly to store my accessories; with individual cover and spacious enough for my fingers to dig in :).

And, something totally out from my list; Delicia nail enamel/varnish from Daiso. I am no nail expert, but I fell in love with its very-easy-to-apply brush. I am not sure how specialist would define a good nail enamel is like, but to someone with very limited of nail painting experience, the friendly brush would be the first criteria. Painting can be done in a jiffy and I *heart* the cute looking bottle and I also very pleased with its finished outcome too; smooth, even and sufficient with single coat. The best part was it's almost odourless :) I think I can put on hold for the thought of getting the 5 in 1 Nail Coat by Lelan Vital at the moment. *stingy* :P

Loreal Smooth-Intense leave-in serum. I was first introduced to this product by Kuo, and I remembered that forthe first time using it, I fell in love immediately with it and had been pestering her to bring that over to the class forthe first few days before I managed my very own first bottle that weekend. One bottle of 100ml can last me for more than one whole year despite me washing my hair on a daily basis :). When we went into Guardian, I decided to buy and keep another bottle, for I have about 2cm left in the bottle which I presumed could last me maybe for about 20 pumps more or less. The price was RM38.XX according to the label attached to the rack. I just thought to myself ‘not too bad, after more than one year they have only increased their price for no more than 6%,this time with a sleeker design some more’ thereafter headed to the counter for payment, to my utter surprise, the price in the cashier counter showed RM27.XX, I thought my eyes were playing a trick on me. Not wanting to be detained upon leaving the counter and asked for the balance at the exit point, I reconfirm with the cashier and was told that discount labels displayed wasn’t updated and the price scanned was correct amount after discount. How to not feel ecstatic about such a bargain? =)

Not done with the serum drama, the prawn head-ness syndrome in me has never subsided to one lesson after another. Sigh. I have been procrastinating from mentioning about this happy purchase of mine as I have ‘lost’ my newly bought serum until today, after some frantic search up and low (I realized its missing only last week), I finally found it lying underneath my trashes inside a Daiso plastic bag I hung by my desk, the moment when I was about to throw that plastic which was full to the brim :P

On another day at different Guardian outlet nearby my home, while strolling around aimlessly waiting for the rest to settle the payment at the cashier counter, my sister called out for me to go over to the front counter and ask if I am interested with these classy little tin cases. Yes, she knows very well that I am a sucker for all sort of tin cases, especially if they come along with products we purchase. Talk about frugality ;P. I quicken my steps towards the counter. Once again, I couldn’t believe my eyes that less than 10 tins of limited-edition Kotex Luxe were sold with only RM1.88 per unit, can you believe that? I couldnt believe it myself too. Apparently, because many of them were dented and scratched and new batch of packaging will be released soon. They were too winsome to resist. I had hard time selecting 3 tins (2 for myself) that were still in 99% perfect condition. So, okay-lah, I am going to give myself the consent to use only one tin and the rest will be kept until … *shudder*. :)

Celebrating the Moon

2011-09-21T20:37:00.015+08:00

Mid-Autumn Celebration in this current years had been celebrated in a simple way, and this year without my brother joining us. When I was younger, we would usually gather at my grandparents house. These years, we will usually be settling it with a dining out at my parent’s favorite Chinese restaurant. How much did you actually know about the Chinese Moon Festival, or better known as the Mid-Autumn Celebration or Mooncake Festival? If you are interested to read up a few numbers of legendary stories, which tell the celebration's history, read up about it here.

So, what is the significance of glorifying Mid-Autumn without moon cakes? We never missed having moon cakes served on the dining table with a teapot of Chinese China Tea (like how the boss called it), and I used to be a very light moon cake eater for any mooncakes that come with lotus paste, until this year where I walloped quite a bit and fell in love with the less sugar versions in all the moon cakes gifted. We were showered with moon cakes most of the years and this year we received three boxes, where 2of them were given by my parent’s acquaintances and another one from the boss :)

Tai Thong moon cakes, all four pieces were double yolk with white lotus paste. I love their packaging so much. The cheerful design imprinted on the cover very much resembles the joyous celebration. Look up for their other designs of gift boxes (under packaging tab in their website), they have specially designed boxes to resemble different season in a year. How cute. Likey! Themoon cakes were tight in sugar content, very much to my liking. I broke the record eating the highest amount of moon cakes in my entire life :)

Tai Thong moon cakes

The one below was courtesy of the boss. Whenever I was given the autonomy to choose, me being the typical me, I was easily enticed to fancy looking products available in the stores. I was kind of attracted to pie moon cakes such as this and this displayed at on the rack, but the boss commented that they don't look that-mooncake-y. Lol. Like previous years, we landed at Multi Bake and this time, I went for their souvenir package for it was the only package available that came in tin case (I have soft spot for tin cases! ;)). I handpicked two different traditional moon cakes; white lotus double yolks (since this was the first moon cake gift we received, little did I expect that we will be receiving a whole box of all white lotusdouble yolk's days after). Another one was mixed nuts moon cake as I know it was one of my dad's favorite.

Multi Bake's moon cakes

True enough, dad enjoyed the mixed nuts variant to bits. The only comment was it was a little too chunky compared to previous years, thus slightly drier. When he saw the pies moon cake sometime after that at Ngiu Kee,he commented the same as the boss; and added that old-school moon cakes are invariably the best. Well, I think that roosters somehow shared the same mind. By the way,I am girdled with 3 roosters; dad the fire rooster, the boss as the metal rooster and my bro, the water rooster respectively.

Mixed nuts moon cake

These homemade jelly moon cakes came in abox of 4, courtesy of a friend of my parents. One of them in purple has been given to a friend before it reaches home. These lovely moon cakes tasted as lovely as its look. The pink one has red bean paste jelly as filling, orange one with mango jelly filling and the yellow colored moon cake came with corn jelly filling.

Homemade Jelly moon cakes

Each year, what made me feel delighted most was the after-consumption affair :P. I heart every kind of gift boxes/tins that comes with the moon cakes. Here’s my collection thus far, these empty boxes/tins are occupying quite an ample section in my cupboard. Be it any brandname of mooncakes, you’ll get a unique and different design each year; sometimes dependingon the type of moon cakes you purchase too.

Some of the empty gift boxes/tins

They will come in very handy whenever I wanted to organize my stuffs and definitely save me a bit from splurging money for boxes :). Earlier this week, I have started to make use of some of them tostore my souvenirs or small gifts, to store my sewing kits and craft materials and what-nots. Another one to store my stacks of receipts O.o. Yes, I do keep certain receipts to trace my what-where-when for all my happy purchases and good food :P. I should really make it a habit to pen them down into a notebook instead. Aits, guess the old habit in me dies hard ;P

Cardboard gift boxes

Moon cake tin gift boxes

Now you tell me, how to not keep such pretty and intricately designed gift boxes? :). I know this post came out rather late, and one can even get mooncakes for half the retail price by now. Lol. Nevertheless, Happy belated Mid-Autumn, peeps :)