Bumper Sticker and etc...

Yesterday on the way to QueensBay Mall, i saw a car with bumper sticker that reads "Hows my driving, please call 1-800-EAT-SHIT". Now that is a funny tag line which also makes me scope around what other funny bumper sticker that we can find.

I recalled many years back when bumper sticker was a hit with all the youngster, especially when certain hit movies reach our Malaysian shore and thus the era of that movie logo/theme will begin. One example is the Hong Kong's Storm Rider. I can't read chinese but it is easy to recognise the word "Fung Wan" as it can be seen in almost every motorbike in Penang back then. Of course one would need to be careful on what they stick. Now if someone went and stick a Titanic word, we would imagine their car or bike will end up in disaster. The more recent rave would be the Transformer movie, where we can see some of our good old proton car being turned into either autobot or decepticon unit.

There's alot of brand wannabe as well. The most obvious were the wira owners that removed their proton logo and replaced with mitsubishi instead. And we can't forget those that like to stick some tuning house logo or racing spare parts logo as well. Of course there are some that really install genuine parts in the vehicle, thus the owner is proud enough to stick around the brand of the parts installed to make known to everyone on the road.

I also noticed that some people are placing name tags onto their car as well. Now i can't be really sure whether they named their car, or the tag is referring to the owner of the car. If it really refer to the owner of the car, then i feel that it is abit silly to do so. First, it is easier for conmen or trickster to do their work since they knows your name. Second, it makes people easier to curse you should you mess up while driving :P

Friendster, facebook. ringo, hi five, netlog & blah blah blah

Currently there's lots of such website where you can maintain contacts as well as meeting new friends thru the net. I've registered myself to some of the services as well, but now there are too many that i can't even remember whether i did have an account.

The one that I had registered recently was facebook.com, and is basically hooked due to many of the games available that we can play. I even scored a very high score in Staries game recently, and was one of the top scorer list for the week, but my happiness was short lived as it was replaced with someone else hours later.

I had not gone to my neopets account for a very long time, i guess the addiction had worn off even though there are cool games that you can play there as well. Maybe due to there's little interaction between circle of friends that we can do. But again, i will feel guilty with each login to seeing my pet dying of hunger.

Liar Game

Hmmm.... what can i say about this show, except that it is very interesting and engaging, a must see in short especially you likes Death Note. Everything is all about mind games.

Based on the manga series of the same name, the story is about an honest college student, Kanzaki Nao, who receives a hundred million yen one day, along with a card saying she has been chosen to take part in the "Liar Game". The aim of the game is to trick the other players out of their hundred million dollars. At the end, the winner gets the hundred million and the loser is a hundred million yen in debt. Furthermore, organizer of the game is worse than a loan shark when attempting to retrieve money from those in debt.

The next day, she receives notification that her opponent is her former teacher, Fujisawa Kazuo. She goes to him, seeking help, but ends up getting tricked into handing her money over and will have to bear the hundred million yen in debt when the game ended. Desperate, she approaches the police for help, but they are unable to do anything. However, she is told of a mastermind swindler, Akiyama Shinichi, who is to be released from jail the next day. Desperate, she goes to him for help. Akiyama helps Nao to win back all the money, and just as they thought that everything had ended, second round of Liar Game starts.

The character of Kanzaki Nao is extremely innocent and naive. Now if everyone in the world has the same thinking as her, then we would have lived in paradise instead. But then in reality it is not, and this story just makes us wonder how can such a person survived. She had been tricked and laughed at, again again since small and yet she is still firm in her believes. Everyone just takes advantage of her due to her thinking. It may sound cruel, but sometimes i just wished the character would just grow up, or die so that everyone can goes on with their lives.

As for Akiyama, his character is extremely cool and cunning. Nobody knows about his plan till the last minute. Now it will be very dangerous to deal with this kind of person as we do not know what they are really thinking. At times, just when we thought it was too late, another hidden plan lies within to turnaround the tide. Ofcourse, if i reveals further it will spoil the whole show. Btw, don't be fooled by the picture of Akiyama above, his actual looks is more presentable in the whole show :P

Spaghetti, spaghetti and spaghetti

Most restaurants only served few types of spaghetti, the famous ones being creamy carbonara and balognese. Not to mention that we can only find limited variaties of pasta sauce in the supermarkets. So it was no wonder that all these while, i only makes balognese spaghetti, since it was the easiest to make using ready-made pasta sauce. It was not until i watched Bambino series that i realised we can always create our own pasta sauce to suit our own tastebuds, everything from scratch. I even manage to create my own recepies for my hubby to try out, which he likes very much. Too bad that i always forgot to take a snapshot of my creations to be posted here. Here's a few tips:

1. olive oil makes the best spaghetti sauce with its fragrant aroma, though it is slightly more expensive compared to normal cooking oil.

2. after draining the spaghetti, crack some eggs into the spaghetti and quickly stir it. The hot spaghetti will cook the eggs. This gives more "umph" to the taste.

3. bacon is the best ingredients for creating your own spaghetti sauce. Simplest way was to fry it with 1 tblsp of olive oil until it is crispy.

4. throw in lots of parmesan cheese for the taste. If you don't like cheese, you may replace with some salt instead.

5. go veggie with broccoli, mushroom and asparagus.

Notice that the same guy acts in Gokusen season I, but i think he is more

good looking in Gokusen with nicer hairstyle

Girl from Hell (Jigoku Shoujo)

Animax channel is a good media to introduce animes to the public. Usually i would use it to gauge whether it's worthwhile to buy or not by watching one or two episodes when time permitted.



As for Girl From Hell, Animax actually runs the show for quite sometime but i did not bother to really watch it then. It was the japanese live-action series that really made me interested in watching the whole show. But i can seriously tell you, better watch the live-action series before watching the anime, else you may get disappointed with the series instead. It does not have much impact when compared to the anime version plus some scenes are based on the anime instead, but most of the stories really make you hate the villain very much that they really deserved to be sent to hell.



As for the anime version, some stories are quite disturbing as those sent to hell are actually victims of circumstances. Some grudge holder are soooo stupid that you felt that you wanted to slap them.



Anyway, the story is about a website called hell correspondence, and this website is only available during midnight. Anyone with a grudges can access the website at midnight and enter the name of the person you hate. Once the request had been accepted, hell girl named Enma Ai will visit the person who submitted the request and pass to him/her a straw doll with a red string tied around the neck. If the requestor really want to send the person that they hate to hell, they would just untie the red string. However, once the person is sent to hell, the requestor's soul will go to hell also once they are dead, and their soul would forever roam in hell.



The soundtrack for both live-action and anime was very nice. Infact, the singer (OLIVIA) who sang the ending song for live-action series also sang for Nana anime series as well. Hmm... now tempted to buy her CD instead.

Dog-gy Hit & Run

Last weekend, I heard from my mother-in-law that there was a hit-and-run case with a dog just near our house the night before. Her description was (from neighbouring witness) a big car came very fast, hit the back leg of the dog and then speed off without stopping. There were bloods everywhere on the road and the dog was lying by the road side, still alive but unable to move. Soon after, it was raining and the dog was left alone there.

The same morning when we heard of the case, the dog somehow manage to drag itself to opposite of our house. It was is a pitiful sight, and an aunty tried to feed it with some bread but it did not want to eat. Everyone that saw the dog felt very pity towards the dog, but unable to do anything as it tries to bite anyone who tries to touch it. There was no tag with the dog, and it seems that it's owner (if any) did not come to find his/her dog since it should have been missing for 1 whole night. My hubby tried to touch it, but again it tries to bite back. We went back to our house to look for "guni" sack so that can wrap around the hand for shielding. My hubby was hoping to bring the dog to a vet, and if possible, to heal it and keep it as our own if no one claims the dog. While we were searching for the sack, another car drove by (which is our neighbour) and hit the dog again. Apparently the driver did not see the dog at all and the dog was howling like mad in pain. Luckily, family member of driver that bang the dog a second time have SPCA number at hand, and called for assistance. But my husband feel it is better to bring the dog to a vet, as SPCA is most likely to put it to sleep in such cases.

Minutes later, SPCA came and took the dog away. When we asked the SPCA staff of what will happen to the dog, they said there is no choice but to put it to sleep. The staff says that dog is broken leg are very hard to heal, and that since there is no tag, they are unable to locate for its owner. Furthermore the cost to fix a broken leg is in thousands. We felt very helpless when heard that.

Few reminders for all pet owners and animal lovers:
1. Ensure that animal tag is always with your pets
2. Keep a good watch of your pets
3. Keep the SPCA number close. The number for Penang state is 04-2816559
4. Drive carefully and watch out for animals

Trip to Bukit Tinggi (Berjaya Hills)

This was my second trip to Bukit Tinggi Resort, which is now known as Berjaya Hills. My first trip was 5 years ago which was quite memorable. However, we did not manage to take any photo during the first trip due to faulty camera. This time was a chance to shoot whatever we had missed out. Furthermore there were supposed to be new attractions since we last went as there were still some on-going development during our first trip which appeared to be none!.

It took us about 7 hours ride from Penang to reach Berjaya Hills inclusive of stops for breakfast at AutoCity, lunch in Ipoh, few rest stops along the way, many cars in highway, heavy rain, lost in Sg Buloh area etc... Since we reached there quite late, we only manage to visit the french village and ate dinner at one of the restaurant there as well. There's French Castle nearby but it is closed for public due to some "private event" which makes us very disappointed.

No longer an ugly duckling

The next morning, we left for Japanese Garden & Botanical Garden. The landscaping and scenaries were breathtaking. The old folks that travels with us was unable to enjoy the track much due to their wobbly legs. Luckily we took some video of the scenaries so that they can watch it when we get back.



Our final stop was the Rabbit farm. The rabbits had reduced tremendously since we first went there, and the place for feeding petting was partitioned into one small area. We suspect it could be due to the unbearable torture that the rabbits had to endure from children that we had seen during our first trip (pulling the ear, swinging & throwing the rabbit here & there...). It was a shame that the Rabbit farm was reduced in such a state, else it would be a nice place for families to enjoy themselves, just that we need to ban all those "naughty" children.

Tearjerker

Some people would stay away from these type of shows. But then everyone need a good cry once awhile, at least this is what I believe in order to appreciate what we have in life. However, i only have 2 drama in collection that basically had me crying through the whole show: God, Give me more time and One litre of Tears. Most people had watched these dramas before. I only manage to watch it a year back though it had been released for many years already. I watched these 2 dramas back-to-back for 2 weeks, and everyone at the office was wondering why my eye was so red the next morning. Just so happen i was in the mode of watching tearjerker after so many months of not watching any show of such genre. The most that i had was few drops (barely noticeable) from watching animes cause you will most probably laugh the next few moments.

One litre of Tears actually makes me cry more than God, Give me more time. The former drama was based on actual life story. You can even see her real-life photo and extract of her diary at the end of each episode. There's book of the same title available in bookstores as well. The story is so engaging that i spent the whole day of my medical leave watching the whole series (i really did get sick!!)

Gokusen - 1 & 2

For those who liked GTO, would have like this series as well. It is a comedy that tells a story about a young lady named Yamaguchi Kumiko from Yakuza (japanese mob) family who strives to be a successful teacher. As her parents died when she was young, she's the next person in line to become the head of the Yakuza group in Tokyo. Equip with gangsterism manner and combat skill, she is different from other teachers in school. However, she struggles to keep her identity a secret as to prevent her from being fired.

After graduation, she is assigned to a private school and become a class teacher to a class full of bad students. The students in her class always try to bully her to make her resign but without success due to her life experience. Furthermore, instead of wearning normal office wear to work, she is instructed by the school to wear tracksuit as to allow her easily run away from her class should anything happen. Throughout the series, we'll see how she manage her relationships between the students and teachers in the school, as well as turning her students towards better understanding of life itself.

There's also an anime of the same title, but the storyline differs abit though the main plot is the same. The anime gives the feeling of better fighting sequence due to expressions of characters drawn when they hit each other. Furthermore, it is more funny compared to live action series due to the ability to exaggerate certain funny situations where this cannot be done in live action. In all, both are recommended show.

The anime version

Mooncake Celebration

This year our celebration of mid-autumn festival in the office was of much larger scale compared to previous years. For the past years, we only had mooncake together with some chinese tea during tea-break. This year alone, in view of farewell celebration of our interns, we called for pizza delivery for lunch together with mooncakes as well. One of our colleague even brought along lanterns and candle for the celebration, but no one had matches or cigaratte lighter to light the candle. We ended up having celebration of lantern of no lights :)

The rows of pizza ordered

Raspberry Cheese Mooncake

Tiramisu Mooncake

Chocolate Pecan Mooncake

Green Tea Mooncake

The "fancy" packaging. Note the lantern by the side.

Change of HairStyle

I had kept my hair long for many years already. I think the last hair-cut i got was more than 1/2 year ago, where i just snipped a few inches off. For the past few weeks, my hair had been bugging me cos it was too long. Whenever i sit or sleep, my hair surely caught into something (usually is the gap between the chair's joint section), causing me unable to get up properly as it was pulling my head instead. When i tied my hair into a bun, it felt so heavy and my stupid hair-band cannot even hold it for too long. I even had to separate my hair into 3 parts each time i washed it.




Before

While working at office last Wednesday, I made a sudden decision to change my hairstyle. I told everyone at my office that I will be taking leave in the afternoon, and asked one of my colleague to take a snapshot of my hair as a momento. After lunch, I walked to hair saloon at Queensbay mall to "treat" my hair. Even the hairstylist complaint i had too much hair. Perhaps that's why they were charging me quite a sum for the total change. Till now, i have not got used to the "new" look yet (about 4 inches shorter, and from straight to curl). My hubby kept saying "No comment" whenever i asked him about it. Perhaps I'll wait for few more weeks to see whether this is really suitable for my look.


After

Trick - 1,2,3

Just completed the whole 3 seasons of japanese series called Trick plus 2 movies of the said show. It's a very funny series full of magical tricks and mysteries You can also learn some of the common magic tricks used by magician to impress your friends :P. It's really a recommended show. Here's the extract of the show's story at the back of the cover of season 1:

"Although 23-year-old Naoko Yamada (Yukie Namaka) considers herself a beautiful and talented magician, she is continously fired and constantly hounded by her landlady for the rent being late.

One day as she is searching though the newspaper for the new job, she comes across an ad os a physics professor, Jiro Ueda (Hiroshi Abe), a non-believer of all things magical, offering money to anyone who can prove to him that magic is real.

Desperately needing the money, Naoko accepts the challenge, which is how she comes to meet Professor Ueda. Falling prey to her simple magic tricks, Ueda is impressed, and enlists the reluctant Naoko to help him uncover the tricks behind a local cult. Soon, they are debunking spiritualists. Eventually Ueda develops a reputation for solving supernatural cases, but his secret weapon is Yamada, who hates the work but needs the money."

Yukie Namada's acting was abit stiff during the first few episodes for first season, and was improving as the shows move on. It is always funny where all the characters throughout the whole 3 series always giving her character a nickname "flat-chest". In fact, she also got the same nickname for her character that she acted in another Japanese series called Gokusen. But let's save Gokusen for another time...

Singapore Trip - Day 4

Today is the last day we'll be in Singapore. We started the day by having breakfast at Chinatown. I suspect Singaporean likes sweet stuff, cos even their 1/2 boiled eggs are served with pepper and dark soy sauce (sweet). My husband had very hard time accomodating with the change of flavour, as we usually takes it with light soy sauce instead (salty). After the "weird-tasting" breakfast, we head down to some stores to buy souvenirs.

We tried to go to DHL hot-air balloon ride but it was raining the whole day. So we ended up shopping at Bugis Junction instead. It was really disappointing for both of us not having to go on the ride. Hopefully the ride will still be available few years down the road, should we plan to go to Singapore again. We left Singapore at around 3pm to catch our flights back to Penang.

In all, it was quite an fun trip. Too bad the trip was abit too short and we did not manage to go to all places that we had planned earlier.

Singapore Trip - Day 3

We went to Jurong Bird Park in the morning. I'm not sure why, but few of my friends laughed at me when they learned I went to the Bird park. We reached there around 11am and managed to catch the morning show. It was drizzling earlier on, causing the environment to be very hot and humid after the show, thus making us feel very unpleasant to walk around the park. We stopped by air-conditioned places to catch some breather any chance we got.

Super hungry birds

There's a place where visitors can feed the birds and snap some nice photos while feeding the birds. Infact, the birds just followed you everywhere you go with the feeding on your hand. In other area, it was difficult to see any bird at all, as there were too many bushes/trees around, and the birds like to hide in these places.

Next we went the Zoo, and reached there around 4pm by taking a long journey in a bus from the MRT station. The white tigers there was magnificent. There's a polar bear as well, but the bear seemed abit "cuckoo" in the head as it keep walking the same path, round and round the whole time. Perhaps it is lonely as there's no other mate at all.

Mr "famous" guy in candy and toothpaste ad

We did not go for the night safari as was planning to meet my friend that is currently staying in Singapore for dinner. She brought us to Bukit Timah for indian food, which i feel is quite nice. I guess we must have been to the wrong places to eat all these while.

After dinner, we went for some sight-seeing in areas around City Hall. Singapore National Library was super huge, more than 10 stories if not mistaken, and the land area stretches the whole road. Even our camera cannot fit the whole front area of the library. From there, we stopped by the parliment, clarke quay and merlion for more photo shooting. Here, we saw 2 beggers in Singapore for the first time. It seems that the rate of encounter in Singapore tourist area was relatively low :)

The huge National Library

Night scene of Clarke Quay

Singapore Trip - Day 2

We started the day at about 10am. After getting ready, we head down to Harbourfront Centre MRT in order to get to Sentosa Island. After asking around for where the cable car station is located, we continued on to purchase the necessary admission tickets and proceed with our destination. There are some nice views of the sea and harbour during the ride. Some development works were being done in Sentosa Island as well, probably to cater for new resorts and attractions.

Our first stop at Sentosa was the Butterfly Farm. Though it is big, it was abit disappointing as there were very little butterflies. The Butterfly Farm in Penang was definately better, and cheaper as well :P There is a live scorpion where we can hold with our hands for photo shooting. Alot of people was scared to touch it.

I braved myself by letting it stayed at the back of my palm for photo shooting :)

It started to rain then in Sentosa when we proceeded to Underwater World. There were lots of marine life and the dugong was very memorable. We were conned into purchasing some photos for SG$15 a piece. Next we proceeded to pink dolphine show (yes, the dolphines are really pink in color naturally, not dyed). The show was too short, only lasted for 30 minutes, perhaps due to the rain. We did not carry any umbrella with us, and uses plastic bags to temporarily shield our head instead. After a few stops at other attractions in Sentosa, we went back to the main island and stopped by at Vivo city for some window-shopping. Again, my hubby was sad as cannot found any toys that he wanted and complaining KL shopping was better.

We continued on to Suntec City at night for more toys hunting. We managed to find 2 shops there selling toys and collectibles, and my hubby was very excited to see some of the rare toys and bought two of them back. He was smiling all the way back to the hotel, and played all night long with his new treasures. For me, i was relieved as he no longer bugged me to bring him places to buy toys.

Singapore Trip - Day 1

This is my first time going to Singapore. As for my hubby, this was his 2nd trip. His first trip was when he was about 6-7 yrs old. So you can say that both of us are quite blur about the whole trip. We prepared 1 week ahead deciding which places to go, how to get there, checking out the maps, deciding on the routes etc.

We reached JB Senai airport at around 1.30pm, and took the Causeway Link bus (RM8) to go to Kotaraya station. From there, we took SBS bus no 170 (RM1.10), stopped at JB customs to scan our passport, board the same bus again which drove us to Singapore customs. There we stopped again to stamp our passports and scanned our luggage. There was someone behind us trying to smuggle some lobster, and was stopped by the immigration officer. We quickly came out (worry the officer may associate us with the smuggler) to board the same bus again and head to Kranji MRT station.

We managed to borrow 2 EzLink cards from our friends that frequents Singapore alot. Singapore had a neat way of interconnecting their public transport. You can use the same card for MRT and bus transportation for cashless transactions. The rate is cheaper when using the card as well. Our local public transport should learn from this. From the Kranji station, we stopped at Tanjung Pagar station and walked to Duxton hotel, the place where we're going to stay for 3 nights. It took us about 10 minutes walk to reach the hotel by following the map. Along the way, we admire some of the nice building structures. Surprisingly, Singapore is not as hot as Penang, and it was actually pleasant to walk. There were little cars on the road and no rubbish at sight. We also notice there are alot of Latio on the road as well. Malaysia had just launched the model few months back, and we hardly see it on the road. By the time we reached the hotel, it was almost 4pm. After resting for awhile, we went out and took some photos along the walkway. Then we notice that the MRT station is just right in front of us. Stupid map! Should have not follow it exactly. In all, it was just 3 minutes walk from the hotel to the MRT station.

The hotel that we stayed

The view of the lobby

Our destination for today was Bugis Junction (had very late lunch there), Bugis Street, Sim Lim Square and few shopping malls at Orchard Road. We notice that Singaporean eat their ice-creams clamped between 2 wafer biscuits. We used to have that in Penang when we were small, but now is replaced in cone instead. Our legs were aching from all the walking due to lack of exercise. I even had blisters :( My husband was hoping to get some nice toys at Forum Shopping Centre but was disappointed instead, though i manage to get some nice souvenirs from Takashimaya. We had dinner back at Tanjung Pagar foodcourt, but the food was terrible. Should have ordered the sandwich instead.

Lunch at Cottage

Since Queensbay mall had opened, we had rarely drove out for lunch as the food here are abundant. However, last friday, we feel that it was time to go to a new place for lunch. Furthermore, with the PORR, it is easier and faster to go to Georgetown for lunch. Our destination was The Little Cottage. We parked at New World foodcourt, and walked to the restaurant located in Burma road.


As we sat down, the waiter only gave us set lunch menu. There's a couple of foreigner sat beside us as well, but they were presented with ala-carte menu and set lunch menu. Perhaps our face were written with "SET LUNCH ONLY", or the waiter knows that being Malaysian, we only goes for set lunch. I don't really mind, since all of us really went there for set lunch :)


It was a 5-course set lunch, which are soup, small bun & butter that comes with the soup (they do count this as a course), main course, desert and coffee/tea. I ordered rib-eye steak as my main course. The gravy tasted quite nice, but the steak was overcooked. However, my colleagues commented that their chicken and lamb was quite good. The ambience was quite nice, service is fast, and if you are not picky about food, this place should be alright. Just don't order the steak.

Crazy Shopping

My office is just a minute away from the latest shopping mall in Penang, Queensbay mall. Thus, whenever we heard of latest sales and discounts, we'll be one of the few person to go and grab whatever we can. Heck, even our trainee follow us in the shopping craze, being a filial son attending to his mother's request. Recently, there's a very cheap offer for certain items in Jaya Jusco. But we were only eyeing two main item: body shampoo and milk. After gathering everyone's shopping list, we head to Jaya Jusco during lunch time. The most outrageous purchase was shokubutsu body shampoo: 24 packs and milk: 22 cartons.


Even the cashier was very surprised at our purchase. We had to explain to her it's very cheap :P. Paying was quite troublesome as each person is limited to 2 pack and 2 cartons per receipt. We even purposely drove a car to Queensbay main entrance to carry back all the stuff that we bought, and there's no space in the car left to drive us back to the office. As we walked back to the office, everyone smiled with full satisfaction...

Baby's Full Moon Celebration

Chinese people now mostly still celebrates new born baby's first full moon. They usually presents friends and relatives with traditional pulut rice or nasi kunyit, hard boiled eggs where the shell are dyed in red, and angku kuih as well. Some people even "modernized" the event by replacing these dishes with food vouchers, roast chicken, cakes, biscuits etc. However, the most popular choices are still the traditional dishes.
Most people nowadays do not know that the angku kuih represents the gender of the new born baby. Traditionally, there are 3 types of angku. The first is the one that we usually saw as offerings for paying, that shaped like a red turtle ("ang" is red while "ku" turtle in hokkien). To know whether the baby is a girl, there will be some peach-shaped angku accompanying the normal angku, while for baby boy, it is a round-shaped angku. Though there are in different shapes stuffing of all these angku is the same :P. Angku is nice to eat as it is. My favourite is to keep the angku in fridge for one day, then pan-fried it.
My mother-in-law says that there's another way to determine the gender of the new born baby, that is whether the rice is normal nasi pulut or nasi kunyit, but can't really remember which is which as nowadays lots of ppl like to mix these up based on preferences

Public Safety - No Longer Safe

In the newspapers recently, there are many articles that seems to complain about our policemen's efficiency and attitudes when handling cases. I had my share with the bad case of how our public safety works during my trip to Cameron Highlands earlier. My hubby also shares with me his bad experience(s) with policemens last time (seems like then and now, there's no diff at all).
When people talks about the public safety here, everyone also has their own complaints. Even today my colleague complained about policemen's bad attitudes when dealing with publics while making reports. Instead of showing their concerns to the case, they criticizes the victim, making them feels more miserable.
The police chief says one bad apple, does not mean the whole depts are the same. It's not that we want to stereotypes all policemens to be the bad apple, but so far, I have not encounter any "good" apple yet. My mother-in-law spoke of a "funny" situation where there was an on-going burglary in one of our neighbour's house. The house owner went out for dinner, and when they came back, they notice someone was in the house ransacking their stuff. They quickly called the police for help. The policemen came with their big guns. They asked the owner to open the door with their key, which they did. Then the policemen asked the house owner to go inside the house first, and they will follow later. The house owner was shocked, and said "you have guns, you should go in first lah...". How can the policemen with weapons, ask a normal civilian without any means to protect themselves, to go inside the house first and encounter the robber. It seems they are using the house owner as a shield to protect themselves instead.
However, we must also remember that it is also our own responsibilities to make our environment safe. We can't always rely on our public safety officers here. They may be underpaid, understaffed, or whatever "under" (who knows oh). There used to be tv ads to promote the public's awareness and relationship with the police force when i was small. Maybe it's time for them to start the ads again to gain public's trust and to buck-up themselves in order to prove to us that they are indeed reliable.

Trip to Cameron Highlands and the "Dangerous" event

I went to Cameron Highlands with some of my colleagues early May 2007, since most of use had never been there before. The four of us (all ladies) drove all the way up there from Penang via the new road exited from Simpang Pulai. We started our journey from my home at about 8.15am, ate breakfast at Autocity in Juru and reacjed Cameron at about 12.30pm. We managed to check in early at the hotel and proceed to sight-seeing after placing our bags in our rooms. Cameron was not as cold as we had thought it would be, at times i feel the temperature is almost the same as Penang. However, it is indeeda wonderfule place for taking photos, as the scenaries were exceptionally beautiful. Ofcourse, another plus was the cheap greens and strawberries that you can find almost anywhere in Cameron. We had our fair share of purchasing the greens, honey and strawberries.

We did encounter one event which i think we would remember for a very long time, not to mention that this event really makes me very disappointed at how our crime prevention in Malaysia works. Here's how the story goes...
I was driving the four of us were planning to go to Time Tunnel on our way back to hotel from Brinchang. We saw a big signboard on the right side of the road, indicating 150m to our destination. Moments later, we saw another small signboard at the left side of the road, followed by a left turn which had a very big gate opened. Thinking it is the way to go to our destination, we make a left turn. We then notice that it was a dead end, and make a U-turn in order to exit the area. Then we saw one malay guy was closing the gate which leads to the main road. We drove up behind the guy, thinking that he will open the gate for us. Instead, the malay guy proceed to close the gate and even lock the gate with a padlock and kept the key. We told him that we need to go out, and he scolded us that we cannot make a u-turn here. Without listening to our explanations, he went inside his house, lock the door and close all the windows. We honked the guy few times but he never come out from his house.
There were a little girl playing in that area, which i think is also staying in that area as well, were trying to open the gate for us. When she notice that it had been locked with a padlock, she ran to the guy's house and asked him to open the gate. Again, the guy did not come out. We quickly called the emergency line (112) using our handphone. I told the lady operator that we were locked inside by one guy and gave our whereabout in Cameron Highlands, but the operator is unable to connect us to the Police station in Cameron Highlands. The lady says that the number is not updated in their system!!. Furthermore, the lady asked me whether Cameron Highlands and Genting Highlands is it the same area. It took the operator more than 5 minutes to finally get us thru the Police station. If the guy was serious at hurting us, it would have take less than that to do so, and our emergency line took us more than 5 minutes.
In the meantime, 2 of my colleague (Jennifer & WaiLin) came out from the car and went to the gate, trying to call people from the opposite of the road to help us. They were waving their hands high and low, but people who saw us from the opposite road ignored us. As i was talking to a policeman on the line, a lady staying in that area came out to see what happenned. She signalled us indicating that the guy was crazy and then called the guy to open the gate for us. Finally the guy opened the gate and we quickly drove out and parked at the side of the main road waiting for the police. All these events is about 10 minutes.
We waited for more than 1/2 hour by the road side but the police still never come. I called the police again, and they said it is on their way. Then we notice that the crazy guy was observing our car. After that, he took a long wood and was walking towards us. We quickly drove our car to the opposite shops where there were lots of people buying things. I then called the police again, saying that we do not want to wait anymore, then only a car approached us with 3 guy inside and it was the police car. The total waiting time was about 45 minutes. Again, if the situation were really dangerous, what would happenned to us then. We told the officers on what happenned. They then went to the place to investigate while we waited. The policemen came out moments later, and told us that they were unable to find the guy, and that they managed to talk to other people and they did not know what had happenned. Obviously they did not talk to the childrens running around there as well. The policemen suggested us to make a report at the police station for cover purposes, in case anything happenned to us later. We followed their car to the police station, and the trip is less than 5 minutes (and it took them more than 45 mins to reach us).
At the police station, there is one fat policeman who is supposed to take our report, but he seems unwilling to do so and kept saying it is our fault. We tried to explain to him, but it seems he cannot understand what we are trying to say (his english command is very poor and our malay command is also poor, like chicken talking to duck). He then send me to talk to his superior (En Sabri) and i explained everything him. The superior english was quite good and understands what i was saying. In the end, we did manage to complete our report but we were unable to receive a copy of it as they says it is their off day. A policeman (Sgt Wan) did call me later at night to clarify the issue and says that the guy that locked us in maybe crazy, and that he will checkout for us the next morning. We did not receive any more news after that. So you think they really do their work after that, or simply take our report just to silence us? God knows.

Honk if you are a Malaysian

I just completed this book few weeks back. From the reviews stated in the book cover and newspaper, it was a recommended read with lots of jokes and comments that we can relate to in our daily Malaysian life. But i feel that it's a bit waste of money (buying the book) and time for reading about things that we already know. Some of the chapters are too dry though some of the author's comments are quite memorable. What i like most of the book is in the last chapter where she writes about the political problem between Mahathir and Badawi, and about unfinished bridge that supposed to link between Malaysia & S'pore. The author did not directly point into such problem, but that chapter really put her storytelling skill into light.

My Cooking Adventure

My mother-in-law was not in last Sunday, so my hubby gave me an assignment to cook healthy meal for the whole day. On Saturday night i was scratching my head on what to cook, furthermore the only things that i know to cook confidently was maggi mee. Luckily i bought some cooking books last time, so it was time to put it into good use. Finally i decided the menu as follows:
1. scramble egg, toast and sausages for breakfast (make it american breakfast style...)
2. stir fried big prawns with cili padi (my mother's recipe :P)
3. cabbage soup with pork
4. fish fillet (fried lah of course)
5. stir fried green capsicum with straw mushrooms & chicken
Since i don't have much ingredients at hand, i ensure the portion is enough for both lunch and dinner (since for dinner i can just heat it up and no need to cook somemore.. haha..) Somemore i got help from my parents to buy some of the stuff that i need, since i nvr go to market b4 to know what is fresh & cheap.
For breakfast is easier to do lah, since just toast the breads and fry the sausages. For scrambled eggs, i cannot find any milk so i replaced with plain water instead (luckily my cooking instinct can work) and manage to get the same style & taste as what we see in Coffee Bean breakfast set :P. My husband give me an excellent pass!
Come to lunch, it was almost a tragedy!!. Only the prawns dish came out as what i had expected, and luckily taste just as nice. As for the soup, too little seasoning, the fish too much salt and bcome salty, green capsicum and mushroom was ok, just the chicken meat was cut of unequal portion, thus some is tender while some is hard :( My husband just complained on the chicken and soup (maybe he like salty fish??) and gave me an acceptable pass. My parents called me up to check on the cooking status, and laugh at me when they heard the results. My father was very supportive, and said he would like to eat what i cooked :) Really need to brush up my cooking skills already, so that can make my parents proud.

Malaysia and the Club of Doom

I would strongly suggest you to get this book. This book was written by a Muslim guy, and what he wrote about Islam and Malaysia is truly a wide-opening experience for me (thought i'm not sure what the other Muslims would feel if they were to read this book). Even the author himself suggested the mixed feelings that people would get when reading this book. Anyway, to start off he commented that Malaysia is heading towards doomsday due to misinterpretation of Islam among the muslims. Do read on the issues about dogs, tudung (headscarf) and islamic banking. He also criticizes on government with religion involved. One disappointment that i have is how could a book being published and sold widely in bookstores, could have so many spelling mistakes.

Rude taxi driver

With the launch of Visit Malaysia Year 2007, we would have thought that the service levels must have or at least improved in Malaysia to promote tourism. But this is not so during my trip to KL last weekend. We had just reached KL Sentral and engaged a taxi to bring us to our hotel thru the ticket counter. When we bought the ticket, we showed the sales person our luggage to determine whether extra charge is needed, and there are none as we only had one small hand-carry luggage. As we walked out from the building, the taxi driver approached us, look at the ticket and said the amount is not enough. He told us to store the luggage in the car boot and to pay him the cost of doing so. When we told him that the sales counter did not imply such need and we would want to hand-carry it, to our surprise he shouted saying that the sales counter do not knowing anything and insisting to store the luggage in the boot. We don't mind paying the extra charge, but the taxi driver should not treat his customer rudely. Another thing is that, during the whole trip to the hotel, the taxi driver kept honking at the other drivers and motorcyclist on the road. Can you imagine what kind of impressions this would give to visitors and tourist to our country? Bad bad service. And i was looking for a complaint form to fill in...