Busy Life + Updates

I had been so busy lately for the past few weeks, but mostly with routine works. Nothing much interesting happenned, even if so I had forgotten what I had wanted to blog about.


Now there's one event which is our company trip that I wanted to post here but am still waiting for some of the photos to be available before I post it up.


William is still not talking, and acting very naughtily cute. He changes his behaviour like a on/off switch. One instant he's very good and co-operative, the next he's demanding and cranky. He's picky with food when at home but happily eat any foods prepared by my mom.

Anyway I realised for the past weeks, the traffic in Penang is getting worse by the days. No, not because of Puasa month, because it started happening even before Puasa started. Road hoggers & road bullies are everywhere! Some drivers are so clueless that when you had good intention to let them get pass you, it took them ages to move. Then there'll be many cars overtake them afterwards and they will stop for few seconds each time this happenned, and ended up getting us late to our destination. This just makes us think twice whenever wanting to give way to people. It is hard to find decent drivers nowadays...

Cute Moment

We need to be careful of what we are doing in front of our child, even when they are at very young age. William as of now is already 20 months old. He'll be 2 yrs old in another 4 months time, and by then off he goes to nursery. Just hope that he'll catch more good things rather than bad things while he's there.

Anyway, all these while whenever he wets the floor from his drinking water or milk, I used the nearest dry cloth I can find. And when he wets the floor in our room, the nearest grab was his clothes from the laundry basket. Sometimes he automatically used that help me dry up the floors too.

Yesterday, my mom told me that his cousin wets the floor from drinking water while playing. What William did was take off his pants and starts wiping the floor. After my mom changed his pants to a clean one, he takes it off and wipes the floor again when his cousin played with the drinking water the second time! I guess he must have thought that "wet floor = use own clothes". I will need to use a proper cleaning cloth from now on...

World Cup Craze - Not Me

World Cup 2010 has started and almost everywhere you can hear people talking about it. In restaurants, radio, TV, office, customers workplace etc. But there is one place where we will definately not talk about world cup and football, that is if we do not on the normal TV station at home :P
My hubby is definately not a football fan, so he don't watch football. The other guy in the family is just less than 2 yrs old, so he does not understand what the heck is football. Then left just my mother-in-law, who is glued to chinese and hokkien drama. So for us, lives goes on as per normal at home. But then it's a different story when we interact with the outside world. Everyone's eye is on the ball!

Tears of Artamon

Written by Sarah Ash, Tears of Artamon comprises of 3 books namely Lord of Snow and Shadows, Prisoner of the Iron Tower and Children of the Serpent Gate. My sister introduced these books to me as a companion to read during my monthly travelling to KL for meetings.

It took me a very long time to finish the first book though since I only read it the most for 1 hour in a month, as the story does not held on to me until the few final chapters. Now I'm into the second book and I actually tried to find time to read it whenever I had the chance. Even few minutes of reading is interesting enough, since William will come to seek for my attention almost every single moment. My hubby is also surprised why I tried to make time to read the book. I got another 2/3 of the book to complete before I can get my hand on the 3rd book.

Since I've yet to complete the whole stories yet, I can't really comment much but it is very engaging for me now. My only hope is that the ending in the 3rd book will not be a disappointing, since I'm practically hooked with it. Now to find ways to make William pre-occupied with something else...

Finally Weaned

After been breastfeeding my child for 18 months, I have now successfully weaned him off during the last weekend. Some feeling still lingers a little bit inside me, missing the bonding time and touch that we had when he breastfeed. But seeing him feeding on his own makes it feel ok, knowing that he is growing up. Hopefully he will not grow out of me too soon. Now I will sit beside him and hold him when he feed, just to make sure that he feels at ease. But I guess I did this for my emotional needs too.

I must now start to take care of what I eat, since I was getting used to eating alot and not gaining weight due to breastfeeding. My breast size had shrunk back to its original size, so its time to go bra-hunting again.

Inuyasha

I had now officially completed the whole series of this anime as at 27th April 2010, after watching the very first episode at almost 10 years ago! This was due to a huge gap 5 years for them to come up with remaining 26 episodes to complete the series. However, I feel the ending losses its climatic feeling after watching the heroes & heroins battling their archenemy throughout soooooooo many episodes (though there are some sub-enemy spawned from the main enemy).

In total there are 193 episodes inclusive of the recent 26. The story focuses on a girl named Kagome who is actually a reincarnated priestess from feudal age of 500 years ago. She went back to the feudal age time by chance and meet a half demon dog (dad is demon dog, mom is human) named Inuyasha, who was struck onto a tree with an arrow and was unconcious for the last 50 years. There she learned that the person who struck him was her original self as a priestess named Kikyo that died right after shooting Inuyasha with the said arrow. The story then reveals that Kikyo and Inuyasha were actually lovers that tried to kill each other due to huge misunderstanding caused by their archenemy, Naraku. By then Kagome and Inuyasha met Shippo, Sango and Miroku along their journey and joined forces in their mission to defeat Naraku.

Since Kagome looks exactly like Kikyo and being together thru thick and thin in their missions, Inuyasha starts to develop feelings to Kagome and likewise. Things then get complicated when Kikyo gets resurrected and Inuyasha tries to make amends with Kikyo.

My favourite character of the show is Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's older half-brother and is a full-blooded demon. He hated Inuyasha so much that he tries to kill Inuyasha on few occasions. But it was his cool and calm attitude that won many people over (not to mention very good looking too). He was more of a side character initially but then getting more involved in the show as the story moves on. There are many Sesshomaru's fans out there that create mini manga of his side story ;).

Trip to Langkawi Island

After absence of 2 years, we've finally manage to go for a small trip of 3 days 2 nights at Langkawi. Early preparations were made for flight and accomodations. Since my mother-in-law might feel out-of-place during the trip, we bring along someone close to her as her partner. This is also a chance to convince her to use a proper walking stick instead of an umbrella by telling her stories that we can't take it into the plane's cabin.

Though the trip is of 3 days, we only manage to visit Underwater World, Crocodile Farm and Wildlife Park only. Too bad the cable car was closed for maintenance as we were looking forward for it. But I doubt even if it's open, we can find the time to go there. Reasons being we need to really make lots of time for the elderly to stroll and shop. It really took them ages just to shop for one thing, worst still they can't decide what to get. Finding a good place to eat is another issue as what we wanted to eat ended up as what they do not want to eat. And when we reached the place where it serves food that they can eat, it also took them a long to decide what they wanted to eat!

However, it is still an enjoyable trip and William is really enjoying himself in the new place and environment, and we did get many good photos for memories. On and off, William does get abit cranky due to insufficient nap time between travels but all is well when he got the chance to sightseeing.

Suffolk House

In celebration of my belated birthday (*Blink*Blink*), I manage to "persuade" my hubby to go to Suffolk House for dinner last Saturday. We left William with my mom so that we can enjoy the romantic evening together ;)

Since Suffolk House is one of Penang heritage building (reportedly built by Sir Francis Light), there's plenty of signboard guiding you on how to go these from Masjid Negeri onward. But be careful though if you are going at night, it is quite dark and secluded, plus the road is abit windy. It was our first time going there, and my hubby is abit worried that we went to the wrong place. In front of the mansion there's a guardhouse. I felt abit insecure as to whether we're at the correct place as the security guard was looking at us when we walked close by. With all the signboard showing the closing time for tour of the mansion made it even worse. But since the guard never stop us, we just walk right in. The walkway is made from small pebbles, so it is abit difficult to walk for me as I was wearing high-heels.

It was a relief to see the restaurant as we entered the building. The lighting was slightly dimmed, making it look very classically romantic with European style decoration. I like the way they concealed the airconds in the room with wooden boxes and cleverly disguise it as side table for lamps to rest on. The restaurant only serve dinner sets where you just need to choose the main course. From the menu, you'll see a long listing of food upto 2 pages but there are only 5 types of main courses to choose from. So the rest of the food is made up of appetizers, soup and desert. The price ranges from RM90 to RM130, depending on the type of main course that you choose.

Ok, let me recount back what I had eaten there.

1. Freshly baked bread with butter. My hubby suspected that they bake the bread themselves. I'm not very sure but it does look and taste special, and especially hot and fresh.

2. Sun-dried tomato rolled pastry. It is superbly small that they serve it with only a ceramic spoon and you just pop the whole thing into your mouth.

3. Fish pie. Very very juicy and tasty.

4. Watercress and lotus root salad. I'm a bit skeptical since watercress is bitter when taken raw but the salad dressing really compliments the whole thing. I just love it.

5. Garlic soup and bread. Now you don't see any spoon on the table, so how are we going to taste the soup? If you notice carefully, the soup is served in a narrow cup. So you just pick it up and drink it as if you were drinking tea! How unique! The soup is abit too sweet for my liking but my hubby loved it.

6. Tomato sorbet with plum powder. Excuse my photo as I only took it after I've eaten it halfway. Just double up the portion from what you see here. The taste is refreshingly cool.

7. Finally the main course. My hubby ordered grilled cod fish and I ordered sausage wrapped with chicken thigh that comes with mushroom sauce and almond flakes. My hubby comment it right out that it looks very nice and regretted not ordering it when he saw the chicken. The waitress that served us can't help but laugh when he said that. Both of us are extremely full even before finishing the main course.

8. Coffee or tea. Both of us opt for tea.

9. Then the desert. Instead of one, we are served with 3 types of desert. There were hazelnut cake, ice-cream with somekind of pastry (I'm not sure what it's called but it is very good. My hubby called it modified cornflakes :P) and creme brulee. I really loved the top crispy layer of the creme brulee but the hazelnut cake is abit let down.

The staff is very attentive, service is very fast and the food is nice. We hardly need to wait for the food to come as we finishes each course. It just took us about an hour to complete the whole course, but we were extremely full from all these foods. I'm already considered as one of the big eater among my friends but then I had to pass almost half of my main course to my hubby to finish it up. You really need to make sure your stomach is big enough to fill in all these if you're not the kind of person who likes to waste any food.

My Poor Nose

It had been week since something bit my nose, of which I'm not sure what bit me, when or where it bit me since I had no recollection of something painful on my nose. Anyway, I discovered something was wrong last Monday afternoon, and got infected two days later. Till now it has not been fully recovered yet. I need to use big chunk of make-up to cover it, but it is still noticeable (boo.. hoo.. hoo..). The more I look myself at the mirror, the more I notice my nose resemble the nose of Snow White's evil stepmother when she disguises herself as an old woman holding the poison apple.

Akibahara@Deep

Located somewhere in Japan is Akibahara district, a special place for otaku. It is my husband's dream to be able to visit that place one day, not to mention mine too. Cosplays, cool gadgets, toys, figurines, games, and manga...

Akibahara@Deep is a japanese drama that revolves around a group of six otaku that forms a team to "troubleshoot" problems occurring in Akibahara. Needless to day, the name of the group is Akibahara@Deep, or @Deep for short. They also refers themselves as Akiba (short for Akibahara) Troubleshooter.

This drama consists of only 11 episodes and one special (the making and interviews with casts and members). The first episode shows how the group is formed with 4 members, and then additional 2 more members in the second episode. All the members are funny in their own way, and this is slowly revealed in each episode. Even the villians and other supporting characters are very quirky as well. The last episode is especially funny with lots of Draganball and Gundam elements ;).

Here's a sample clip available in YouTube. Enjoy...

Billy Goat

On my way to work this morning, as I stopped at the Sungai Dua T-junction traffic light, guess what I saw? Few goats grazing grasses beside the road. There's one goat look especially big and plump. Hmm... I think I'll get some mutton for lunch today.

Cream of Mushroom

All these while, I always bought canned mushroom soup whenever we wanted to have mushroom soup at home. The most common is ofcourse from Campbell, and I would buy another small can of button mushroom, chop into small pieces and add it in to make it more enjoyable. However, after few occasions, I noticed that I'm always thrist for water afterward. Not to mention that it is at times quite salty.

Now my hubby loves mushroom soup alot. And he said the best he had so far was from TGIF. It was very thick and creamy and have lots and lots of fresh mushrooms. He then gave me a challenge to make homecooked cream of mushroom for him. But that was many months ago, in which I did search for simple recepi from the Internet but just do not have the time to really study and experiment with it.

Just recently, I finally had time to source for the necessary ingredients and it ended up quite an expensive meal to cook due to the fresh white button mushrooms that I bought. No wonder TGIF serve with oyster mushroom instead, which are very very much cheaper. But my husband likes the one that I cooked, he even rated it better than the one he had at TGIF :D

Company Dinner @ E&O

Let's do it this way:

Purpose: Company Dinner

Location: E&O Hotel

Food Theme: Japanese and Chinese Fusion Buffet

Date & Time: 10th February 2010, 7.00pm

Price: RM 74.75 per person (including tax & service charges, but ofcourse company is paying :P)

There's lots and lots of food, and lots of lots of people. This is the second time I've eaten there but this trip is the most crowdest. The ambience was spoilt with sooooo many people and soooo many noise. It feels like eating in hawker stalls. Luckily the food is nice. But........ those with cameras did not take any photo of the spread of foods on the buffet aisles.

Hmmm... fresh oysters, salmons, roasted duck, fried baby crabs, grilled seafood, lamb and beef, unagi, temaki, udon etc. Needless to ask, my fav is oysters and salmons. The restaurant kept on topping up the food, so you never runs out of fresh oysters. The choice of fruits and deserts are plenty as well. There is a 3-tier fountain of melted chocolate at the fruit bar, and you can dip simply anything there. Most popular is marshmallow... yum yum.

Since William is tagging along for dinner, I can't really concentrate much on eating all the foods available. Need to be very picky on what I wanted to eat. Really need to thank the rest for entertaining William while I'm eating.

Eat biscuits first...

Not fair! Mom get to eat oyster but I only get to eat biscuits :(

Shocking Food Industry

My husband had been telling me few days back that this movie is a must watch. The title is Food Inc. But instead of a movie, it is more of a documentary. And it tells what actually went behind the scenes of our modern food industry. This ranges from fast food to bottled drinks to can and packaged food, even vegetables.


This movie shows to an extent where in US, it is cheaper to get unhealthy food rather than healthy food. It also shows how does science makes our livestock such as chicken and cows grow bigger and faster. You can really see the difference of how the chicken looks like 30 years ago at full grown size (it take about 3 months then) compared to current chicken size at just 7 weeks. From the time the chicks at hatched from egg to slaugher-house, they never seen daylight. The movie also shows how pigs are slaughtered in the meat plant is extremely shocking.


Woven between the show is a very sad story about a two-and-a-half year old boy who died from eating hamburger contaminated with e-coli 0157:h7. Being a mother myself, I was so concerned about my own son when I saw that clip. There's photo and video footage of the boy who looked so happy and healthy, and you could not imagine just how he could die just after 12 days from eating the contaminated hamburger. It came to a stage where his kidney failed and he could not drink any water when he was hospitalized, and he kept on begging for water and his family just couldn't do anything about it. Just hearing that the only word that came out from his mouth is water and imagining a little boy had to suffer this until he died just makes me cry.

To read further about the show review, you can go to this site: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=105152916


After watching the show, I became hesitant on what to feed my family. I think in Malaysia's source of food is still quite safe but as time goes on with people striving to make more money, faster and cheaper, it will soon become like what is shown in this show. Organic food is always the better choice, but at a higher cost. Do go watch this show. It is an eye-opening.

Dragon Ball Kai

For all dragon ball fans, this is a re-mastered HD version of Dragon Ball Z and it does seem shorter as well due to most fillers are being removed out. Rumours has it that the original Dragon Ball Z episodes of 291 will be cut short to only 100, besides following closely to its original comics. As of now, I've watched upto episode 33 and Goku is already now fighting with Ginryu in Planet Namek!. One interesting fact is that it includes re-recording of voice from its original casts, so every characters still sounds the same :)


The opening and ending sequence of the series had been changed as well, and you can clearly see that its characters are drawn with more vibrant colours and actions. But I still miss the original sequence since it is cuter, being nostalgic and all. The show is still running in Japan and we'll need to slowly wait for the complete series.

Terminal 1 - Bayan Bay

This place is very new, opened less than a year. From the brochure and signage, it says that 'Beside Eastin Hotel' but you will never find it there. It is in fact located in the new shoplots called Bay Avenue, somewhere in the middle block of inner road.

I won't know this place exist if not for our annual Christmas gift exchange. When we first walked in, I was impressed with its interior design. The owner does spend a lot in its renovation. They were preparing menu for new year eve celebration, and from the food selection and offer package, it looks interesting. But I would see how our lunch fares first before decide to book a place for new year dinner.

The waitresses wores cute pink bunny dresses and waiter wores pilot uniform and I liked this concept very much. But the service rate is a bit slow as the waitresses need to serve 2 floors by climbing up and down the stairs. And since the stairs is in circular design and in small steps, they will need to be careful when going down while balancing the trays. During our lunch course these, we had heard at least 3 times of fork or spoon fell down the stairs while the waitress is going down. They should do a service lift instead so that it is easier for the carry the food and utensils up and down like what we seen in other restaurants of more than one floor.

We ordered set lunch that came with soup, main course, desert and a drink. Since our table is quite long and there were 15 of us, the food came to us in batches. I think the chef did not prepare enough soup as the texture and taste is really different between the 1st batch and 2nd batch. I was lucky to have gotten the 1st batch, but the second bacth was sooooo diluted. Everyone who had that complaint and ended up taking more salts and pepper to make the soup more edible.

The first batch of soup

Next is the main course and again it came is batches. This is where the nightmare began. One colleague ordered cod fish, but the fish was so stale that he can't even take the first bite and ordered for a change. The replacement came after a long waiting time, but the cod fish got even worse. We can smell it when he cut the meat open. He gave up and change the food to spaghetti instead, hoping that it won't go wrong. Luckily it didn't. Another colleague ordered tuna fish, same as me but her meal came first. It was so dry and hard on the surface but it was not properly cooked from the inside. She ended up changing her meal to spring chicken and it fared a little better than the fish. My meal came then and similarly it was dry and hard but it was thoroughly cooked though. The mistake came from the large cut of meat. They had to cook it for so long to ensure that it was cooked from the inside that the outer part of the meat became very very dry.

The dreaded Cod Fish

The waitress kept apologizing to us when we complaint about the food. Furthermore, it tooked them 3 hours to serve us all the food. Most of us gave up asking for change as everyone was extremely hungry by then. Well, they can forget about asking us to get a table for new year dinner. Heck, I did not even bother trying to take more photos of their food.

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010

Oooo... this is my first blog of the year 2010, but I still got some posts of places I ate in 2009 which I had yet to post. I guess it will be 'makanan hari ini dalam sejarah' (todays food in history) then.

Went to a friend's party last night to celebrate the new year. But it seems that this year the party is conquered by babies. Everybody went ooh and ahh, cooing and playing with babies. My William missed out the countdown as he's already fast asleep by then. Everybody were shouting and wishing each other but his eyes is still closed shut with his head on my shoulder. It must be a tiring night for him, playing with his new friends and showing off his penguin walk.

Btw, this afternoon we had a small family gathering as well at Redbox KTV in Gurney. There were so many cars and we had a very difficult time finding parking spot. Again the KTV session is filled with children songs. Ahhhh... guess I can now officially called my time as the children age. And the year 2010 will be just that.

Now that I think of it, I did not went to cinema at all during year 2009. How I miss those free and easy times. Will need to wait for another few more years to gain some little freedom. But I also can't complain much since I also have a new joy in my life.