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...