Walking Contradiction

KL - Wedding Invitations

2011-08-24T20:42:00.000+08:00

Looking for a good person in KL to get creative ideas for your wedding invitations? We went to The Wedding Hub. The Wedding Hub is really a place where all the different vendors have a collective space to give you everything that you need to find out about your wedding (be it makeup, dresses, invites, favours, etc etc). We met Debra to get a quote on our wedding invitations. She represents Acadia - personalised wedding invitations.

The first impression, extremely friendly and bubbly person to talk to. We only need to explain our theme to her, and give her the full details of our venue etc, and she comes up with 3-4 different designs to suit our theme (and budget!). Personal review, perhaps not the cheapest price you can get, but definately friendly to work with...

Wedding Hub

B-08-3A, Block B, 3 Two Square, Jalan 19/1,

46300 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

I'm addicted to.. Words With Friends

2011-08-24T20:31:00.000+08:00

I remember CG, NY and I sitting in expressemente illy in BV. Each of us was just playing with our phones. CG was deep in concentration about something, and I looked over and saw that it was this iPhone app called Words with Friends. He told me to try it, so thus I downloaded it (it is free... USD 0.99 for the version without ads). After many many tries, I finally managed to beat CG by 1 point. He still continually beats me in all other games though, but those pictures wont be posted here...

You can also try the other sister... Hanging with Friends.

I started playing this with a variety of friends then I realised that wow, some people are really good at this game.. then I realised.. hey, hang on, are they cheating? People which I know of average vocabulary are now scoring big points and absolutely thrashing me.

Ok, so I'm a bit of a sore loser, so I decided to search the internet. Lo and behold, i stumbled upon LexicalwordFinder.com.... They have an entire board which you can key in, and then it generates the best word for you.., WTF? I now use this cheat to play with people whom I think are cheating, but really, its extremely alot of trouble to key in the ENTIRE board, just to say I've won WWF (Words with Friends)...

In the end, I've just lost interest.. There lives a little phase of addiction of which it lasted a full 3 weeks. Moving on to other things......

True Reflection

2011-05-15T22:55:00.000+08:00

It was 2004 in Australia, I had a sudden deep realisation that I can do more fruitful things with my life. I did a complete 180 by quitting my job, leaving my friends, and leaving a country I had called home for the past 6 years.

Exhiliration from that kept me going for these past 7 years. Over the last 7 years, there has been many ups and many downs in my current line of business. Over this weekend, I've met various people in my life who have helped me come to realise that there are different things out there, and that there simply needs to be a change in priorities.
Change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn't all bad — not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life — to keep us moving ... to keep us growing ... to keep us interested . ... Imagine life without change. It would be static ... boring ... dull. It's time for a change.

Transit in Melaka!

2011-05-04T00:07:00.001+08:00

HB and I were road-tripping to Singapore (more on that on future posts) and decided to stop by Melaka for 2 most famous things that it is known for. Melaka Chicken Rice Balls and the durian cendol ! Yumz. Ours mouths were watering for like 45 minutes when we realized driving into Melaka on a Saturday of a long weekend at 12pm was probably not the smartest idea. We went through countless traffic lights which took forever to get through….
We finally thought we were close enough to Jonker Street and parked. We started walking, walking, following some people, and using our trusty GPS on the iPhone… Lo and behold, it started to rain .. Grr.. minor pit-stop at a shop to buy an umbrella and found our way to the famous Chicken Rice Shop..

Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Shop (Nasi Ayam Hoe Kee)
468 Jalan Hang Jebat
75200 Melaka, Malacca
06-2834751

We ordered the standard set for 2 (loose rice, 10 rice balls, steamed quarter chicken, but no assam fish, in retrospect we thought we should have ordered it since we never come here…) All I can say is that the chilli and the sweet soya sauce were probably perfect condiments to go with the delicious rice balls. At the end of the meal, my mouth was itching for something sweet.

Being the sweet tooth that I am, we went down Jonker Street to Jonker 88 where I ordered the famous Durian Cendol with 8 treasures. Mind you, when I looked at the bowl of cendol, it had all my favorite things! Peanuts, corn, red bean with a tinge of durian flavor. It was far too much for me, HB didn’t care too much for the strange durian taste in the cendol, and the fact that we paid RM5 for it.. heheh.

After this minor pit stop, it was back on track to go to Singapore!! More posts coming up soon.

Energizer Night Race 2011

2011-04-17T13:12:00.000+08:00

With much excitement, I entered the Energizer Night Race 2011with HB this year, paid RM70 for the Half Marathon category. In their website, they cited that they would close once it reached 10,000 runners, so we know that there were at least 10,000 runners last night (if not MUCH MUCH more). If you knew that you have so many participants, why not have equivalent amount of marshalls?

I've never experienced a worse run than this one. First of all, why would any normal person give out a black vest for a NIGHT run? No one would be able to see us in the dark especially when we were running the outer circle! I decided to boycott the vest but HB still wore it.

We arrived at least 1 and a half hour early before our flag-off at 8pm and the traffic was not well managed at all. Did they think that people would appear from thin air? We obviously had to drive to there! All the parking was full, and we drove into a muddy field with palm trees. I noticed people pissing into the trees. hmmmm. Was wondering why..

With no further direction, we just followed the general sea of people to the starting line. I saw the longest line of using the toilet, and no mobile toilets to be seen anywhere. The first signs of poor management showed. We then walked on and saw an enormous amount of people trying to squeeze into the Paddock tunnel. We were like.. NO WAY, so we walked further down to the second tunnel which was slightly better. However, this is what i heard it was like in the first tunnel also termed the "Tunnel of Death" by Facebookers.

Because we had come from the other tunnel, we TOTALLY missed the collection of the headlamp, and had to ask other participants where to get it. However, since parking and finding our way there took so long, it was already 7:45pm so we didn't even bother to try (considering the utter chaos)

Why would anyone time the Marathon, Half Marathon, 11K, and Fun Run to start within 15 minutes of each other????? Do they know a marathon takes an average person around 5 hours? Where was the planning?

We started our run accordingly and the first thing to note is the lack of marshalls that seem to surround the area. There was no clear direction where to run, and there was an EXTREMELY long sector when coming into the inside track that we had NO WATER. They asked us to use a LARGE bucket of ice to compensate. OK...

In the next stop, the person who was manning the Gatarode threw a whole set of Gatarode in putrid dark water (FOR WHAT reason i have no idea, there was ice in there, but its all black now... you can't see???), which made the can absolutely disgusting. To make matters worse, he was smoking.. Come onla, we all running here, do you really need to make it harder?

We did the first inside lap, and i nearly ran into 10 people who were finishing (they were 11k runners), but really I cant blame them. There was no clear demarcation of where the runners should exit, nor was there anybody to tell us to run the 2nd lap around the circuit. We ploughed through people and continued on. By this time, no surprise that there was NO water left in the water stations. Only thing left on the circuit was empty cans, half drunk 1.5 litre of water (which I actually saw a guy take from the wall, and drink out of sheer desperation... Hepatitis B dude...)

The HIGHLIGHT was at the finish line. We arrived with NOTHING! No food, no medal, no goodie bag, NO DRINKS. We left unhappy, and trust me, we were not the only one. Discussions of runners around us clearly displayed that they didn't get anything either. Upon leaving, we got a stupid parking attendant insisting that we pay for RM10 parking. To avoid conflict, we paid the man, but it gave me an even worse feeling in my mouth.

When we came home that night, the amount of twitter & facebook messages were OVERWHELMING!. There were responses every 30 seconds, and ALL negative. I'm boycotting this race next year.

Energizer Night Run Facebook Page

Of Funny Armies

2011-04-04T08:50:00.000+08:00

Last week, my Singaporean colleague showed us a few pictures in regards to the recent uproar of a maid carrying a soldier's backpack. Needless to say, this sparked tons of commentary on Facebook, newspapers what not, and mentioned that once the Malaysian newspapers got hold of something bad about Singapore, we would publish it. That was probably quite true..

This morning, there was another article where they showed the Malaysian army do this... These people decided to kill a hornbill and pose with it... Just when I thought Malaysians were one up Singapore..

The Wedding Dress

2011-03-21T16:26:00.001+08:00

It's finally time to decide on the Wedding Dress! After visiting numerous Made to Measure (MTM) shops in Sri Hartamas such as That Special Occasion, The Wedding Isle, and Pretty in White, I finally decided to go with Pretty in White as their prices are quite reasonable and I guess the designer (Louisa Michael) is also from Sarawak. HB made a joke last night.. "Our photographer is from Sarawak, the wedding dress designer is from Sarawak... I sense a pattern.."

On running

2011-03-18T13:57:00.002+08:00

I just completed the Bareno Open Women run 10Km last weekend and got a 120th place with probably a time of 1hour 15minutes. Mind you, this was without any training whatsover, after a trip to Jakarta and to Kuching.. with lots of unhealthy food and drinks in between...

. As I look forward to my next race which is the 21Km Energizer, i wanted to recall what I did for the KLIM last year..

I completed it in a net time of 2:21:10 (which I hope to top in my Energizer Night run)... wish me luck.. I better go home and run tonight.

"Excerpt from last year KLIM results from their website"

"Sign-up successful from this year website"

Have already known a few people to sign up, so see you running there!!

Our first Valentine's Day

2011-02-28T18:39:00.000+08:00

Most years I've never really been much of a Valentine's Day celebrator.. This year was a bit of a surprise... After lunch time in the office, I got a really surprise delivery of flowers (tulips, my favourites! and chocolates (ferroro rocher.. my favourites!)... Albeit a bit embarrasing, but it was really nice to get something.. bit of a cliche, but still nice nevertheless.

We left work around 7 and got stuck in the most massives of jam.. so hungry that we popped open the ferroros and ate them in the car ! :) We finally got home and changed, the the date began!!. Not wanting to do the standard dinner in restaurant thing.. we went to.... RED BOX, The Curve for a night of Karaoke..
The food was quite mediocre, ate some of it, but really concentrated more on the singing.. or rather screaming.. (sexy, huh?). I lined up songs from Linkin Park, Cranberries, etc etc.. while HB went for the more pop songs like the Michael Buble and all that. We sang some cheesy duets and before you know it, time was up.

Went home and popped open a bottle of Champagne! Enjoyed a nice night, talking on the apartment balcony and I think we played some Flight Control on the iPhone as well..

On and all, a perfect Valentines Day.. This post is a bit late. but thanks HB for organising everything. It was much appreciate. Muaks!

Random trip to Jakarta

2011-02-24T10:41:00.000+08:00

All i remember is that on Friday we were having a discussion in a meeting room, and suddenly it was decided that we would be heading to Indonesia for a day the next week.. Talk about a random business trip! So the plane ticket was booked to Jakarta, and the hotel was set to be at JW Mariotte. Apparently this place has been bombed twice before... Good choice secretaries...

Flight: I was placed like in the 2nd last row and 2 people next to me decided to fight over overhead cabin space... jeez..

Reached JW Mariotte, and first thing was... meet up with JL in Blu Martini bar in the hotel. The coincidence of meeting her was uncanny. HB wanted to catch up with her for her birthday and turned out she was in JW Mariotte Jakarta, on the exact same night as me.. At midnight, we had a quick drink, and went back up to the room.

The view in the morning at 7am was traffic jam traffic jam, traf

The only thing I saw in Jakarta was the meeting room in which I had the meeting, and then I'm now off back to KL.. talk about a quick, short and random trip..

Hitched!

2011-01-27T20:26:00.002+08:00

Legally married !!

I'm addicted to SnowFlake!

2011-01-25T16:42:00.004+08:00

The latest craze in the desert world (oklar, not exactly the latest craze but my new-found craze), is this place called Snowflake. They serve a mean Taiwanese desert, and i guess there are too many pictures of the food already so I wont take another one and post how good the desert is. The cool thing about this place is that they take your order, then you pay, and they give you a UFO as you wait. When the UFO beeps, its time to pick up your order..

The Snowflake I go to is near my house, but there are plenty about..

Snowflake Dessert Cafe
26-1, Jalan PJU 5/10
Dataran Sunway
Kota Damansara
47810 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel/Fax: (+603) 6148 2282
Email: snowflake.kd@gmail.com
Business Hours: 1:00p.m. - 11:00p.m. (Sunday - Thursday), 1:00p.m. - 12:00a.m. (Friday - Saturday)

Top Chef Challenge!

2011-01-22T17:49:00.016+08:00

Fiancee and I always argue who is the better chef... What would be a better way than to have a Top Chef Challenge to determine who would be the ultimate winner. The rules?

1. Set budget (less than RM50 per person)
2. Set a time limit in the grocery store (half an hour)
3. Set a time limit to prep and cook (one hour)
4. Each person would do 2 dishes. I would do one main and one desert and fiancee would do one appetizer and one main.

The results:

The appetizer cooked by fiancee is a stuffed tomato with brocolli and ham. Thought it was super yummy and quite ingenious.. It paired well with a glass of wine.

Let's move on to the main.. My main is a fried salmon with asparus with a lemon sauce. It was yummy, but the heat on the pan is a bit funny, so I somehow burnt the skin but didn't quite cook the flesh. Fiancee did a ovenette grilled ribs with honey soy i think it was, and it was so yummy. We used our fingers and lick each and every rib.

I then presented the desert, which was vanilla jelly with a mango puree. Let me say that this is a super well made dish, and the way to eat it, is to take the jelly, dip it in puree, and bite it. Was not too sweet and ended the meal well.

The winner? Well, me of course ;)

Cooking Sarawak Laksa!

2011-01-20T17:10:00.018+08:00

This is an older post but I saw the pictures in my phone so I thought it would be appropriate.. It was a fine Saturday morning. Fiancee and I had just come back from Kuching few weeks back, and bought with us some number of Sarawak laksa paste with us. Yum Yum.

To make the stock, we cooked the prawns together with the shells, and added the laksa paste as well as (ready for the speacial ingredient?) evaporated milk instead of coconut milk...

We fished out the prawns and peeled it once it was done. The egg is pretty simple, fry and slice into long strips.. The chicken I think we just boil in water, and also rip out strips accordingly. Instead of bean sprout, cos fiancee doesnt like it, we went with angled bean instead (if you noticed the strange green vegetable)

Boiled the meehon with salt and oil and put it all together! Walah! Best brunch ever!

The new Chef in me

2011-01-18T17:01:00.000+08:00

Of late, I'm really beginning to enjoy cooking. It's a nice way to pass time, and distract my mind. One Friday, I was on leave and decided to cook my fiancee a nice dinner as a celebration of him leaving his job.

We started with appetisers: Tomato and Mushroom bruschetta. I bought a nice French baguette, Roman tomatoes (not local ones), and used leftover Shitake mushrooms. I pre-cooked the tomatoes and mushrooms, and buttered the bread and then put the pre-cooked stuff on top, and subsequently used my ovennette to grill. Outcomes? Shitake mushrooms aren't really good for bruschetta, portobello is much better, as the smell was a bit overwheming for me..

Mains? I cooked a nice beef stew with guiness with some decorative parsley on top. Which cut of the meat i bought? The one that said Stew on the wrapper! People who know me well know i dont like to touch raw meat so needing to throw whatever i bought directly into pot. I slow cooked that for an hour with beef stock and Guiness with onions. Then I popped in the potatoes and carrots. Slow cooked for about 2 hours, pouring more Guiness and beef stock and water occasionally. The outcome was good, but unfortunately, I left my eye of it for the last hour, and it simmered most of the water, and burnt a bit of potatoes and caramelised the Guiness at the bottom. nogood... It was still yummy to eat.

Last but not least, desert! I dont have an oven, so i decided to do something that didn't require oven. Since that cut out most cake and cookies, I thought, huh.. maybe creme caramel. Love the desert and thought it would be nice and light after the stew. So, I started with caramelising the sugar. First problem is that, I dont have ramekins, so i thought i would substitute with coffee mugs (look almost the same right??). Then making the custard, the custard was really lumpy, and worse was that I dont have a proper whisk. I tried fork style, didn't quite work so I had to strain the lumps. Poured both caramelised sugar and custard in the coffee mug. then recipe says put into oven!!! SHIT, i got no ovennn.. Maybe should have read the recipe to the end before i started. So I thought, i can squeeze it into my ovenette, nope. didnt work, so decided to go Microwave route. Once I went there, I cant go back. After about 30 mins on low, i chilled it in the fridge. The main problem is that it didnt sete very well, so I hid the surface with some kiwi and cherries on the side. It was yummy (well I did put lots of sugar), but i daresay I wont try making this again until I actually have an oven.

Fiancee loved the stew and effort, so all is well. :)

The Registration.Of.Marriage (R.O.M)

2011-01-12T18:39:00.000+08:00

In less than 2 weeks, I'm going to be a legally married woman!!

Dress checked, shoes to be booked, all the relevant people have RSVP'ed, wedding flowers check!

Did I miss anything else out?

Catholic Marriage Preparation Course (CMPC) @ Archidiocesan Pastoral Centre

2010-10-20T15:35:00.000+08:00

One of the pre-requisites for a Catholic to marry in church is to attend the CMPC (Catholic Marriage Preparation Course). This course is really not a conversion course (for those of you out there who are worried that they are going to ask you to convert just because your other half is Catholic).

After some research, I realized that you have 2 options when taking this course:

1) A 6-7 week course with your local parish. – Approximately RM80 per couple

2) A weekend crash course (3 days, 2 nights stay in) at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre which is what we did which cost RM250 per couple

Note that for the 2 options, they only have 4 sessions a year, so remember to plan early! Due to the fact that the longer course was held on weekday evenings, I couldn’t commit to leaving work every week on the same day early, so the weekend crash course suited us. A quick call to Justin Ng the organizer, and he originally advised me that there was a slot in Jan-2011, but then he realized that he had one final spot in Oct-10 because one couple has pulled out.

Even though we were supposed to run the Mizuno Run on 17-Oct-10, we opted for the last course in Oct-10 (15 to 17-Oct-2010). It was truly unforgettable! We were the 27th couple and the last couple who joined this course. The course was a stay-in course, and we stayed in dormitories with air-conditioned beds and seminar hall. For people who think there would be a lot of downtime and chit chat, there was hardly any time to breathe…

We began with Tea on Friday evening around 4pm and ended on Sunday evening around 3pm. The food was quite good (though I don’t take spicy food and everything was quite spicy!), and there were plenty of breaks and supper but each of the meals were capped at an hour, or an hour and half for dinner for us to shower. The course was packed with 14 sessions around many different areas. The key areas that I remember are:

Knowing Me, Knowing We, Communication within the couple, Fighting with rules, Natural family planning, Bringing up the children and Next Steps. The key to making this course useful to you would be to participate and carefully think about the questions. For us, it was an eye opening experience but very useful. The best thing about this course is that we got a nice certificate ceremony at the end as well…

The SFX & Assumption Church links has a lot of information surrounding this so would suggest to look it up there as well.

Eng Seng Seafood @ Joo Chiat Singapore

2010-09-08T12:17:00.002+08:00

A few weeks back, I was in Singapore for a company training and one night, we decided to attack some SERIOUS crabs.. A friend recommended this place in Singapore called Eng Seng Seafood. We told the cab driver that this shop was Joo Chiat Close, and he decided to bring us on a tour around all the streets of Joo Chiat which had ummm.. ‘pleasant scenery’. I.e. working girls.

We finally found the place, and originally wanted to be greedy and order 2 ORDERS of crabs (pepper & chilli) but the lady-boss said, there is no way you guys can finish that, and suggested we order pepper first as it was what they were known for, and order the chilli if we can finish it.. OOOooOO.. We accept that challenge!

The crabs arrived and we thought.. Oh Man, don’t think we can finish it. I decided that the only thing I can finish is the claws and that left my crab-eating-partner 10 legs and 2 shells to finish. Needless to say, 4 claws and 2 beers later, I’m stuffed to core as I watched him eat and eat…

The crabs was super delicious, and surprisingly they started to close the shutters at 8:30-8:45.. WAT, too rich and don’t need to work so late?? We were hurried out, the damage came along and personally I don’t think it was too expensive considering the amount of crabs we ate.

The real danger was… the durian shop opposite… called durianlingers. More on that soon..

Feeding the Hungry at Grace Community Services

2010-08-20T13:54:00.000+08:00

As part of the Project Corporate Social Responsibility, I signed up to our "Feed the Hungry" Programme in downtown KL.

Grace Community Services - a non-profit organisation involved in various charitable activities with one our their activities - a food relief service.It runs every Sunday of the month. Since 2002 Grace Community Services provides a warm meal to over 300 homeless, vulnerable and underpreviledged men, women and children living in and around KL city cetre. The meal consists of rice, chicken, vegetables, a drink and a banana - a complete meal!

The whole thing took about 4 hours, the time was spent creating a big production line, where we put rice, chicken, veges and a spoon into a styrofoam container, and packing the Neslo into plastic bags. The next hour was spent distributing the food. The method of distribution was quite interesting. They all had to take a number first before they could get the food, such that the giving out food wasnt a frenzy!

The people that we saw who took the food? Well, some really deserved it, but some were definately just freeloaders who were carrying expensive handphones, or wearing expensive shirts. Heart kinda sunk when I gave to food out to them, but oh well, who am I to judge?

I would suggest anyone to sign up for this activity and it was really quite an eye-opening experience overall...
Where they are located:
81E, 4th Floor, Sri Bunus, Jalan Medan Bunus, Off Jalan Masjid India.

iJoyce

2010-07-21T20:47:00.002+08:00

If you ever heard of the saying, “If you can’t beat em, join em”, well that’s exactly what I did when I bought the the iPhone 3GS (via Maxis). The debacle with buying a phone with a plan is that I’m on a supplementary line with a Value Plan with my dad.

Maxis Interaction 1 (the call centre – dial 123 on Maxis phone line):
I was told that as long as I brought an authorization letter from my dad, I could subscribe to the iData 50 plan and maintain my current plan AND buy an iPhone. Thought to myself, GREAT!

Maxis Interaction 2 (Saturday trip to visit Maxis Centre)

I brought my authorization letter to the Maxis Centre. Greeted by some friendly staff. Was told that I could subscribe to the iData 50 plan BUT I needed a photocopy IC from my dad AS well as the authorization letter… OK, fine.. still in good spirits I said I would come back with the photocopy of my dad’s IC… *nom nom*

Maxis Interaction 3 (Monday lunchtime visit to Maxis Centre)
I’m BACK! With the Authorization letter and photocopy IC. Greeted by friendly staff again. However, this time told that:

1) I COULD NOT sign up to iData 50 plan because any additional subscription would require my dad to sign in the presence of the Maxis centre. Since we are both not in the same geographical location, that was virtually impossible. Someone could have told me that on Maxis Interaction 2…

2) Option was to transfer the line out to my own line, subscribe to my own plan… BUT the authorization letter said that it only allowed me to subscribe to iData 50 and not transfer out. Hence, no iPhone… :(

Irritated and frustrated, I requested to speak to the manager, and asked him HOW NOW? After some haggling, he made an exception for me…

To Maxis: Could you please tell your people to have a standard SOP of what should be said? Seriously.. it would have been easier for me to MNP out to Digi… Grrr… However, thanks to Azizul, Manager of the Maxis Centre @ Midvalley Garden, the iPhone was successfully bought!

Maxis Centre
MidValley Gardens

Lot T-231, 3rd Floor,

The Gardens,

Mid Valley City,

Lingkaran Syed Putra,

59200 Kuala Lumpur

S(e)oul Shopping

2010-07-02T11:20:00.000+08:00

How a person changes over a period of a year or so. A year ago, my post on shopping was this one...
http://www.joyceshia.com/2008/09/shopping-in-foxtown-mendrisio.html

Few weeks ago, I went on a business trip to Korea, and amidst busy days of work, I managed to squeeze in some shopping….in the most unlikely of places. Since i touched down in Seoul, my Korean colleagues have been raving about the Incheon International Airport…

My virgin Ferragamo bag (Marisa in smooth goatskin). Comes in black, chalk white and dark chocolate.. and I bought the black one more for work. Prices in Korea are super cheap and I wont reveal it but when I checked the online stores in Ferragamo.. it was WAY cheaper than that. Then LE told me that Korea is well known for high quality fake goods at cheap prices, but I reckon since I bought this in an airport!! and in a Ferragamo shop.. I should safe.. Shouln't I?

Why stop at 1 Ferragamo when you can have 2?A friend to accompany my first Ferragamo! This is a Continental Wallet in Saffiano Calf and apparently in the online stores.. they call this GOLD.. I dont know why..

Last but not least, a class small nova check Burberry tote bag with a friend of its own.. :)

My unusual retail therapy caused my credit card company to call me and ask about all my ‘unusual’ activity in an ‘unusual’ place. Damn, the credit card bill came today and I actually have to pay for it but I'm loving all my new purchases!!! It was great to live a little in life and spend the money but now back to my RM4 chap-fun lunches...

More about Korea in future blog posts...

LASIK Surgery at ExcelView Mid Valley Mall

2010-06-23T15:00:00.001+08:00

Since the beginning of the year, I was always interested to do LASIK eye surgery. The routine of having to deal with contact lenses, contact lens solution, glasses at night just got really irritating and bothersome. ZT said “You can’t just decide to take a nap when you have contact lenses on…” RP had just got hers done at ExcelView at MidValley so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and get it done as well.

On a rare day off, I went for the pre-consultation and was greeted by friendly staff that did a variety of eye checks. My cornea OK to go, deposit was paid, and appointment was scheduled for the following Saturday. The only downside was … no contact lenses for the next 7 days! After a week of sporting my nerdy look at work, anxious and excited, I walked back into ExcelView Midvalley. Last check of the health of the eyes, explanation of the medication by some professional staff, and full payment paid… Off I go!

The actual procedure lasted less than 10 minutes which freaked me out because you keep stare at a blinking red dot in the machine. The non-stop spreading of some liquid over your eyeball, and they put this little suction cup thing around the eyeball to keep it in place. (much like how a hamburger joint cooks an egg in a perfect circle…)

3 step process: 1) Cut flap open. 2) Zap it 3) Put flap back

I came out thinking I’m awesome as I managed to pull through this.. then the anesthetics wore off… it began to sting.. abit.. abit more …… abit more……. A lot more…… Gargh..

I was wearing sunglasses in Midvalley mall (I copped a few stares from some people) and was blinking constantly and couldn’t keep my eyes open.. Thanks to my knight in shining armour that sent me home (even gave me a little ice cream treat after), I rested for the rest of Saturday. By Sat night, I was back to normal with relatively good eyesight.

So, sayonara glasses, contact lens and solution. Coincidentally, YJ also did his surgery in Optimax in Taman Tun on the very same day as me. We both survived it !

**UPDATE: Including the price which is RM1998 per eye**

John Tempesta Drum Clinic @ Wisma Bentley, Mutiara Damansara

2010-06-02T17:05:00.001+08:00

Thanks to RP and NY, I scored 2 tickets to see John Tempesta http://www.johntempesta.com/ (metal drummer of Exodus, Testament, and The Cult) do a quick 1 hour clinic. After many warnings that it will be filled with Mat Rockers and that how I will be overwhelmed with drums ringing in my ears if I don’t have ear plugs, I was pleasantly relieved that the experience was not like that at all. The crowd was filled with a large variety of people - young drummers, some hard-core drummers, even teachers from Bentley Music academy.

It’s my first time to any music clinic and it was very inspiring. I don’t have much knowledge in drums in general, but I left with a new respect for drums as a music instrument. It is very challenging to get a consistent sound from your foot, one beat from one drumstick on your right hand, and yet another beat from another drumstick on your left hand on the cymbals. A drummer is a true masters of multi-tasking… John went through his history on how he became a drummer, some good exercises for drummers, and also showed off some of his talent. My favourite was his drum rendition of the song “Meat” created by Toni Iommi (Black Sabbath guitarist) featuring the singer Skin (vocalist of Skunk Anansie). Search for it on youtube if you have never heard of this song..

The floor opened for QA, and Asians being Asians are always a bit afraid to ask questions. Event organizers, Bentley Music started giving out Ziljian drumsticks to anyone who asked questions and suddenly the questions came bursting out from everyone. A memorable question is a hot chick whose question was “John, can I have your drumsticks?” Mixed responses about this…. Not forgetting the most important part in any Asian event, the drum clinic ended with a LUCKY DRAW!!! 2 lucky attendees went home with huge-ass bling Ziljian cymbals (sponsors of this event) which if they didn’t play the drums, I really struggle to think what they would do with it.. Hanging it on the wall might give one a blazing headache.

After the clinic, I managed to pay a visit to my American Cherry Pie (Fender Electric Guitar).Stared and ogled at the 8K guitar for a while but I need to dull my rock star dreams to another day.

Visit Bentley Music http://www.bentleymusic.com/ for more clinics in the future or be a fan of their facebook page.

Featured on The Borneo Post - St Teresa Alumni

2010-05-26T13:49:00.013+08:00

I was estactic when I got an SMS on Sunday, saying my picture was in the papers! Some background on why..

St Teresa Kuching (my alma mater) is celebrating its 125th Anniversary Reunion on the 24th July. I was supposed to be galivanting through the jungles of South America at that time so decided to turn down the invitation.

With a wave of change in my life and through much encouragement from close friends, plans have changed and I decided to do a weekend trip back to my hometown, Kuching!

One of the Borneo Post editors knows that I am attending this reunion decided to give me a chance to share some of my memories during my 11 years in St Teresa. A little

excerpt of what I said here...

"For Joyce Shia, it was the simple fun with her classmates that she remembers her school by...

'There are many fond memories I have during my 11 years in St Teresa. What we did as a past time back then was simple like skipping rope made out of brown rubber bands...."

Link to the Borneo Post

Link to the Borneo Post (Part 2)

Welcome to the year 2010

2010-02-08T22:51:00.005+08:00

It is a bit late, but welcome to the year 2010.. With a new year comes new resolutions and new goals, though unattainable, but top 5 targets must be set !
1. To play and own(?) an electric guitar. My current Fender acoustic guitar sits abandoned in my store room.. (sigh, collect NY is a sponsor of this idea as his wife owns a music store. First visit is after CNY holidays, stay tuned!

2. To attend moonshine in March.. For those here this Thursday, Reza Salleh is perfoming in Laundry which I will sadly miss as I'm flying back home, but I will be there for March moonshine!

3. To attend a freakin concert... How bummed was I when Beyonce cancelled and WY had already bought me 2 tickets ! Placebo is coming mid March, so... maybe?

4. To reduce my alcohol intake.. To those who know me, do you really think this will happen? Aehaeahehae.

5. To acheive the top 4 goals...