Christmas 2008

Christmas is always one of my favourite festive of the year. With holidays, great sales, family reunions, presents exchange, and most of all, FOOD for Christmas!! yumm ~~~

This year, I celebrated Christmas back at home with my beloved family and relatives. Nothing extraordinary though, but as always, it's about catching up with each other and simply homely themed.

On Christmas day, my cousins decided to prepare a Christmas feast at their new home in Puchong ^^ A Christmas celebration cum mini house warming for the new house. My cousins are like superwomans loh. On that day after our service and lunch session at church, they baru started to buy the necessary ingredients and started to prepare around 3 pm. Not to mention almost half of my cousin family were sicked and still recovering from fever and flu! And there we go, a wholesome and yummilicious feast for the day of Christ birth. 

The line up for the feast ~~ fresh from oven ^^

From left, Shepherd Pie (with choices of beef and chicken fillings), pasta celeries with olive oil and herbs, and fresh veggie salad with custom Penang style salad dressings ^^

The beef Shepherd Pie with chessy toppings and gravy flowing fillings. I took 5 rounds of it. It was my favourite !!

Roast chicken with herbs. 

This year we did not get Turkey as the market price for Turkey sky rocketed to around RM40 per kg if not mistaken. Last time where got to so expensive wan. Definitely will cost us a bomb if we were going to prepary Roast Turkey for 30 people loh. So yeah, we bought and roasted 4 chickens instead =)

Pasta salad with green onions and ham tossed with olive oil and herbs.

And fresh veggie salad with Penang style dressing (according to my Penang cousins lah).

Noticed the container with the silver spoon? That's the mayonesse dressing, special as it is tossed with celery and some X-factor stuff (forgot the other ingredients actually =P) that made it tasted like sour cream that fit just right and nice! You should try it too ^^

Last but not least, all the way from Penang, Tom Yum style fried bee hoon.

A hot selling item of the night, extraordinarily popular among the ladies!!

As the year 2009 is coming to an end, I wish everyone Happy New Year 2009!!

Hope you had a good 2008 and wish you a great year ahead =)

Cheers ~~

Merry Happy Christmas ^^

Merry Christmas People !!

Hope you all have a great time out there ^o^

This year I'm celebrating Xmas at home, with my family and relatives =)

May all your wishes come true.. hehe...

God bless you and have a great time!!

Fellow Diners, Beware!!

*note: unusual content ahead. proceed at your own risk. adviced to read it without full stomach.

Life is full of surprises. 
I've learnt that very well recently.

It occured to me during a normal working day.

I was having dinner with my fellow colleagues in a local Chinese restaurant.

We always go to that restaurant as the food there are quite good and reasonably priced.

The restaurant is also quite famous for being 'efficient' as food is served promptly (within 5-8 minutes) as well.

So, as our food is served, we happily makan and makan lah.

As we are half way through our meal,

Suddenly, one of my colleague paused and pointed to her plate.

"Ewwwwwwwww...... Lipas......"

O.o

O.O

o.O

That's our first reaction.

Without second thought, I quickly re-check what I have on my plate and scanned for anything 'alien'.

None... Phew... 

I looked at my colleague's plate and found that there is this little dead roach (cooked till roasted with soy sauce) was lying there. 

I was like "wtf... if I were to be less cautious, I might ended up gobbling down that piece of thing, thinking it as just another chunk of protein'....

Of course, we raised our hand and anxiously waiting to see the restaurant's staff reaction when they discovered that little extra dish. The waiter (some foreign worker) came by. He looked at it, took my 'victimised' colleague's plate, and headed to the kitchen (the little roach is left on the table, not on the plate).

... ... ...

Then he came back with another plate of white rice.

WTF. Is that the way to handle this situation?

Getting upset, we quickly summoned another restaurant staff (a chinese lady).

She came by. We showed her.

She did not look as shocked as I expected.

Rather, she kept quiet and looked at us.

And asked, 

"So what do you want to do? Get a new one for you guys?"

(What the heck? Not even a word of apology?)

We were quite 'de-appetized' by this incident already. 

So we said we don't want a new one, and asked her to take away the dish.

Logically, the restaurant should either replace a 'clean' dish or cancell the order payment to 'compensate' for this kind of incident. Come on, if this restaurant were to be a registered class type, people would have caused a ruckus on sucn thing, to the extreme of going public and defame the restaurant until gulung tikar. 

I think even we have been really 'tolerant' for this situation and did not alarm any other diners around the restaurant. The place was quite full house during the incident by the way.

And so we called for the bill, expecting to only pay for those "healthily served" dish. 

Dim ji when I check the amount, we were charged full, including the 'tainted' dish. 

whaaddaafakkkkk...... not even a apology, and we have to pay in full like nothing happened???

We were furious and demanded for not paying the dish served with the roach. The waiter that handled the bill was giving us the kurang ajar look, and I saw the reaction of the restaurant boss when his mah jai informed him of our demand.

Mana tau that restaurant boss just show his long black face and reluctantly instructed his staff to proceed with our demand. So we ended up paying for the 'clean' food and left the restaurant with anger, dissapointment and frustration.

I am so regret that we did not make a scene for that situation. I think even a 3 year old would know how to handle this situation better. I think at least an apology for the blunder will be enough, and there is no need to give free meal or unreasonable compensation to remedy this matter. 

Lesson leart: To beware and watch what you eat while you dine outside. Life is indeed full of surprises.

Post blogging note: I chose not to disclose the restaurant name as I just want to alert everybody as the title quoted. I think there is no need to create public dispute on somebody. Just be carefull in everything.

A year has gone by

I've just read one of my friends blog about her recent stay in UK. It made me recalled something that I tresured in my life.

Come to think of it, it's been more than one year since I came back from UK. Though I was there for around 4 months, till now the memory of England still resonate in my mind strongly. There are still many things that I missed about UK.

~I missed the summer in Sheffield. It was only 3 weeks of hot sun during summer in the city. Other than that, it was nice and cool, just like Fraser Hill in Malaysia.

~I missed walking around the city and never have to sweat a bit even though I have been walking around for hours, as the weather is just too nice to let the body to sweat it out.

~I missed enjoying chocolates in UK. Holding the dark chocolates on my hand and no need to worry about it getting melted, as the weather is just too good to be true. Really.

~I missed the beer session with my buddies. As quoted by many, alcohols are cheaper than mineral water in UK, and no, I did not get drunk in UK. Never happened.

~I missed the summer sales in UK. Even non-shopaholics like me also can't resist the offer of getting branded goods like Topman at price that is cheaper than Marks and Spencer (or maybe Topshop is commonly a different class of brand compared with M&S?).

~I missed walking around the street alone and not afraid of being robbed and assaulted.

~I missed hanging out the local casinos daily and contributing nothing to it, but earning freebies and some real good stuffs in return =)

~I missed clubbing in UK. Missed the weekly entrance offer to Embrace, where I can get free entrance with 5 pounds worth of voucher for drinks. So it's like spending zero to have fun *huge grin* Where to get such thing in Malaysia?

~I missed travelling around UK. The classic beauty of old England in Cambridge, watched a game in Old Trafford, hang around London and experienced the office rush in underground subways, visited the scenic Scottland, and step around the streets of Manchester, and many many more.

And the list will continue on and on...

Well, those are just shreds of memento that I wanted to share to you all. The picture collection at the right side of my blog will tell more of my time in UK. Maybe if I'm free, I will post something up that relates to my stay in UK.

SCUBA Diving @ Redang Island

SCUBA Diving
Finally a dream comes true ^^

Before we take the plunge into the deep blue sea... photo session time..!!


3 guys + 3 gals + one random sun glassed diver trying to camwhore as well :P

left to right: Zhenyi, Han Fong, Audrey, Serene, Hsien Hui, Bryan (our dive instructor) and myself

During the briefing session before we start the dive.

Notice we all are wearing the same type of belt?
They area actually the weight belts that help us sink into the water during diving ^^

Every one of us have to carry around 1-3 kgs in order to sink into water to dive (so you can imagine how tiring for us to carry those weights around while preparing for the dive session)

Only Serene so pandai not to wear it first .. smart smart...

Revising the sign language to use during diving session. It's definitely important to remember how to communicate with each other while under water. The sign we are showing in the pic is actually a sign of sighting of Butterfly Fish under water (hence the butterfly hand sign) hahahahaa... Even the creatures underwater also have different sign language for us to learn.. Interesting eh?

Pointing towards our diving site (can't remember what's the name ady though)
Yeap, there are actually alot of dive sites around the not too big Redang Island :)

Pic with Bro Zhenyi!

Final march on the white sandy beach before entering the blue blue water world

All geared up for diving action ^^

___________________________________________________

After almost 1 hour of underwater...

It was definitely beyond words to experience the underwater sea world for the first time. Too bad I don't have a underwater camera to snap down those priceless moments. We saw sting rays as big as a kitchen kuali, and as small as our palms, swim along with green turtles, passed by schools of yellow sea basses... and of course, visited tonnes of clown fish (Nemo fish!) areas a.k.a anemoni chorals (remember how Nemo try to pronouce the word 'anemoni' before starting his fish school :P) and many other beautiful and magnificient things under the sea.

One word to describe it all: Fanstatic ^^

Now that I am a qualified Open Water Diver, there's so many adventures and underwater experience to unveil and explore!!

You should try it too. To dive does not require you to be a good swimmer. As long as you are not afraid of being underwater, you will surely can dive just like a fish under the water ^^

Redang Island

Redang Island,

the wide sandy beach,

with sands as white as Double A paper,

with water as clear as bottled RO water,

compared to PD,

it's as if comparing between heaven and hell...

This post is supposed to be.. supposed to be... up a few months ago.

But heck, blame the work and life that are always full of events.

Zhenyi and I, along with his college mates and buddies, went to Redang Island for our SCUBA Open Water Diving under the certification of PADI. Being a beach lover, it was my fourth time going there. Yet each time the vacation in Redang will be different (with different gang of people), so each time will always be a different experience ^^

I shall let the photos do the talking :)


Impersonating Kung Fu Panda ^^
(from left: Hsien Yew, myself, Audrey, Serene, Hsien Hui, Han Foong and Zhenyi in the front)

Being in Redang, snapping pictures is the full time itinenary!
Who can resist the beatiful sandy beach with breathtaking view haha.


High School Musical wannabes!!

The high jump was definitely not something achievable with a few attempts.
That's why I think the movie was named as HIGH School Musical -_-'''


Attempting to high jump for the previous photos.

Audrey's pose is really cute... Hsien Yew, erm dunno why he's sitting... and me and Zhenyi, looks like going to smack to each other after the jump... thus my freak out look O.o


Snap shot in front of our resort.


Another one in front of our resort, Redang Bay Resort.


In the mood for ~Meteor Garden~
Love the sceneries in Redang :)


BEWARE!!
Viewer discretion required...!

The following photos contain the following elements:
- America Next Top Model
- I Want to be a Model
- Man Hunt
- Amazing Race Asia
- Survivor
- Temptation Island

View at your own risk.

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Ok ok ahhaaha that's all for the Redang Island post.
Stay tune for my diving post!

B-Box Talent

I'm really impressed with this.

Wonder is this part of human evolution?

Or we humans are still searching our own limits...

CIPS 1 Away Day 2008

One fine day, my department people were too stressed up with work and before we all started to go kuku, we decided to run AWAY from our clients and hide in Bukit Tinggi.... 

Hence this runaway trip was named as "CIPS 1 Away Day".

..........................................................................................

...(a black raven flying by squacking distantly).........

hahaa.. jk jk.. we auditors are not so kuku and random yet..... (the organisers please don't flame me k?)

Actually our department does have an annual event, which is organised by our deparment leaders so that the whole department can be out of any jobs during 2 selected working days in a year and do things other than audit work in a place far far away. Hence it is called CIPS 1 Away Day.

Some good stuff rite?

So here we are, in Bukit Tinggi Berjaya Hills Resort, which is located in the French Village area as well. On the first day morning, Ju, Jessica, Jenny (3Js) and myself drive up to Bukit Tinggi. Me and the 3Js were kinda afraid that we can't make it to our destination, not because the driver have problems (Ju was the driver and she's the typical Johore driver *cough* *cough*). Our main concern is driving Ju's Kelisa all the way up to the steep hill of Bukit Tinggi (even though it is much 'lower' compared to Genting). The hills are really steep and the car were practically crawling up, as we can hear the car 'screeching and clawing' the road when we are going uphill. We were almost prepared to step out of the car and push it uphill should the car just suddenly die half way.

In the end, we still made it and we were not late. Hands up to Ju!!

After we registered ourself to the organisers, we hang around to take pictures of the newly rennovated resort, which is somehow resembles a French castle.

With the SDI (Tractors) team, Ju, Jenny, Jocelyn, Karen, Alicia, and Pei Ling.

Noticed that everybody is wearing horizontal stripes? That was our dress code for the first day of the event. Some others' apparels somehow reminded me that we were a bunch of runaway jail mates having holiday break in Bukit Tinggi :P

The resort also provided us the free pass ticket to all the nearby tourist attractions, so we don't have to pay any entrance fee at all (really good stuff right?)

Hence we headed to the Japanese Garden.

Trying to communicate with my fellow kindred (my name in Chinese sounds like coil fish in Mandarin, therefore Japanese coils are my kindreds). Noticed the fishes are all around me? They somehow attracted to me, serious man, not that I have fish feeds on my hands... Maybe I have some special power to summon fishes??... *scratching my chin and started thinking about what hero name I should use now*

With Jenny's friends in the Japanese Garden.

See... I told ya so...see all these fishes swimming towards me when I trying to take this picture. (maybe Tim Kring should get me a role in the next season of Heroes)

After meeting up with my kindreds in Japanese Garden, we headed to the rabbit park, where we can play and pet with the bunnies. 

Petting a cute little snow rabbit with grey ears. Some rabbits are really afraid of humans, but most of them just let us do what they want with them.

This cute little bunny is one shy rabbit. 

It just don't want to come out from it's hole.

The fur looks just like a plush toy.

Talk about rabbits and bunnies, do you know why Playboy use rabbits as their trademark logo? A few years ago, when I brought my house rabbit for some injections, the vet shared this question and he said that this is because rabbits are sexually active animals. All they do is just sexing and sexing and sexing (be it after meal, before meal, after sleep, before sleep, etc). That's why Playboy use rabbit as their trademark symbol. 

So that means the rabbit park is like a red light street for rabbits?????

 
Back in the resort, Karen and myself besides the fountain.

After lunch, me and Karen were wandering around the French village. We found the clock tower at the end of the street and decided to walk all the way up there as we need to exercise coz we were too stuffed with the lunch buffet. Picture taken at the peak of the clock tower.

After a short break, we went for a jungle trekking around the Botanical Garden. The jungle treking was quite treachearous, as in if you are not carefull enough, you might end up falling off and rolling down the jungle hills and ended up in those jungle areas similar to the Predator movie scenes. The jungle have no clear tracks to follow with,  and we were only given a bearing to move around the area. I think it was really challenging and fun, even though we were stuck in the jungle for almost 3 hours. I did not manage to take pictures as it was kinda dangerous to pose and snap photos during the trekking.

After cleaning up, we headed out for dinner. After dinner, we had some leisure time to play Taboo and Pictionary. When the clock hits 10pm, the department leaders started to bring in liquors. Time for booze!!

Before hitting the alcohol, picture taken with my batchmates, Ju, Jessica and Gerald.

With IGB team, the all time crazy people!

It's not something you can do in normal daily life, as in to sit down and drink with your department leaders, which is you bosses and ur bosses punya big boss as well. We really have the chance to cheers and yam sing with them and also play penalty drink game with them. Luckily, there's nobody got drunk and there's no auditor gone wild that night.

 

2nd day, with IGB team members, before checking out.

With Isya, Taisei team colleague.

Though the Away Day was only for 2 days 1 night, I appreciate the opportunity to bond with my department colleagues and also have some great time out with my work mates. Looking forward to our next year's Away Day!!

SHU Graduation 2008

It's been a while since I post something in my blog.
Some said my blog is turning into a quarterly review thingey.
Others thought that I've become boring and no fun =.='''

So, here comes the entries that I should have posted since dinosaur months ago...

My GRADUATION.. :)

Shall we let the pictures do the talking?


Sated in the front row with Chin Ying.


Seated next to Lip Sy, the top scorer of my class.


The other front row girl, Sook Yee.


Picture taken by bro.
My family was also seated in the front row of the guests area.


With Jessie and Jenny.


At the outside of the hotel after the ceremony.


Family Potrait!!
Happified mum and dad as well as Zhenyi.


My batch mates with my graduation bear!!
With Jimmy, Sze Wen, June Ann, Wai Ting, and WT's friend (can't recall her name...)
The graduation bear was from my cousins.
Hand made with customised graduation hood and mortar board.


With Katherine, Kenneth and Chee Mun.


With Paul, Carmen, Phui Mun, Mei Yee, etc.

So, farewell to sweet honeymoon study life.
Welcome to hell working life.