A Very Enjoyable AND Relaxing Week

Spent my last full week at home in Muar mostly. Relaxing at home, sleep 12 hours, eat, chat on the net, meet some friends. Here are some proof of that:)

Met my mom's colleagues for dinner and had, of all things, lamb chops:P It was good, though not very Malaysian. I supposed any food that is not self-cooked will be missed

Food I'l miss from Muar:

It's quite strange actually. Waffles are the same everywhere and yet for some reason I only feel like eating them when I'm back at home. So, it has sort of become my ritual to eat them whenever I'm home. Strange indeed

Apologies to all my Muslim friends because these 2 pictures are not halal. Stewed Pork (Loh Bak in Hokkien). Added a few pieces of BBQ pork (Bak Gua in Hokkien) for one of my lunches at home.

Mee Siput (literally translated as Snail Noodle). Made of .. actually I have no idea what they're made of but I do not they taste dam good especially with good sambal. Crunchy and soggy at the same time when soaked with lots of sambal. Shit, mouth watering again. Bad idea to post this when I'm already in Edinburgh. Here's a picture guide on how to get the sambal going:
Take the pack of sambal and erm, take a photo of it:p

Open up the packet of Mee Siput.

Pour a healthy dose of sambal into it.

Mix it up until sambal and snail become evenly distributed or hand pain or mouth tak boleh tahan already.

Chui Kueh (literally meant Watery Cake). Again, I have no idea what the white stuff are made of but they taste dam good especially when it comes with the brown stuff (Chai Poh in Hokkien or Choi Po in Cantonese). Even better if you add a bit of the sambal from the Mee Siput's "dressing":P

Some nice Soya Drink (Tao Jiong in Cantonese) to quench one's thirst after all the spicy and oily food;)

Claypot Chicken rice. Looks good. Tastes pretty good as well

Used to like satay a lot until ate too much of it. Ate until vomited once. Stopped eating satay after that. What a pity. So lesson learnt, never eat too much of something even if you like it a it. The moment you eat until puke, you'll never like it again:P

Roti Tissue. Very special dish in M'sia. Cant find it in any other country I think.

Home for 18 years before I went off for studies in Malacca and subsequently Cyberjaya. Rarely went home after moving to Cyber:P A bit more consistent after starting work, twice a month but for weekends only. Very comfortable house

With a nice garden/fountain

Pretty big living room

Finally, on Saturday, my parent's cell group members had a BBQ party at Tampin. Pretty cool as well. Received a lot of well-wishes, gifts and ang pows:)

View of a nice-looking mountain from dad's house in Tampin. Quite nice. Edinburgh is 10x more beautiful.

Some short speech to celebate my departure, mum's birthday and dad's 1 year anniversary in Tampin:)

Almost every church member came. Very cool!

Had a cake for mum.

Led worship to thank and praise God for His blessings.

Received a lot of blessings and well-wishes from everyone. So blessed

Nice week before I went off to UK. So relaxing and rewarding. Time passed very fast though as I went to KL after the BBQ party.

A Legend Retires

Like or hate him, you cannot deny he's a great driver. Michael Schumacher, thank you for introducing Formula 1 to me in 1995. Been your fan ever since. Waited 4 years from 1996 till 1999 before your first driver's championship with Ferrari in 2000. What a battle with Hakkinen. Unforgettable! Here are some of the amazing statistics of Schummi's career, courtesy of itv:
Most world titles: 7 (1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004)

* Most consecutive titles: 5 (2000-2004)

* Most wins: 90

* Most wins in a single season: 13 (2004)

* Most consecutive wins in single season: 7 (2004)

* Most wins at the same race: 8 (French GP)

* Most wins from pole: 40

* Most wins with one team: 71

* Most pole positions: 68

* Most front-row starts: 114

* Most second place finishes: 43

* Most podium finishes: 153

* Most points scored: 1,354

* Most points finishes: 188

* Most points in a single season: 148 (from a maximum of 180, in 2004)

* Most fastest laps: 75

* Most races led: 139

* Most laps led: 5,059

* Most consecutive podiums: 19 (USA 2001-Japan 2002)

* Most consecutive points finishes: 24 (Hungary 2001-Malaysia 2003)

* Most consecutive seasons with a win: 15

* Most ‘clean sweeps’ (pole, win, fastest lap): 22

* Largest points gap between champion and runner-up: 67 (2002)

* Earliest title winner: 2002 (in July, with 6 races remaining)

* Longest spell with one team: 11 seasons (Ferrari – 1996-2006)

* Most time between first and last race wins: 13 years, 11 months and 3 days

* Never outqualified in 1992, 1993 or 1994

* Only driver to have finished every race on the podium: 2002

Que Sera Sera

(Warning, the video above contains very long credits at the end:P)
Que Sera Sera

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother
What will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me:

Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
What will be, will be.

When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart
What lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows
Day after day?
Here's what my sweetheart said:

Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own.
They ask their mother,
What will I be?
Will I be handsome?
Will I be rich?
I tell them tenderly:

Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
What will be, will be.
Que sera, sera.

The only reason why I put this song up (other than it being such a lovely classic) is because a friend just made a pretty remark about this song last night. She said that the line "The future's not ours to see." sounds pretty much like "The future's no eyes to see." This is only funny if you know cantonese since "no eyes to see", though not very correct gramatically basically means mo ngan tai, a statement us Chinese like to make whenever we wanna express our disappointment, when we decided to give up on someone/something. Hahaha. Same song, twist the lyrics a bit and the meaning comes out rather differently, doesnt it?

Which brings me to a rather interesting observation. Many times, you do realise that optimism or pessimism is more often than not just a matter of perspective. Yes, age-old analogy of cup half-full vs half-empty springs to mind. It's common sense, I know. But how often do we really apply the correct perspective in our surroundings.

Quick example, whenever a subordinate does well, an optismistic boss would tell people "See, my employee's doing his job WELL! Pretty proud of him/her!" whereas the pessimistic fella would say "See, my employee's JUST doing his/her job. Let's see how long he/she will last before making a mistake". Simple example but I think you see my point. Same situation, different perspective but what a world of difference it will make.

And so the next you're hit with a dilemna or you're talking to a highly pessimistic person, why not take a step back and try to look at things from a more positive perpective. It might not change the situation but it will make you feel better inside. Worse comes to worse, just remember
Que Sera Sera,
Whatever will be will be,
PAUSE!
The future's not ours to see (a carefree positive attitude)
or
The future's no eyes to see (a give-up on the future attitude)
CONTINUE!
Que Sera Sera,
What will be, will be.

Super Sunday!

After Super Saturday, Sunday could only get better:P My Shell friends decided to give me a super duper 13-hour farewell:)) (Ok, to be honest, I was the event organiser as I seemed to have suddenly developed the talents for it. But the ideas did mostly come from them:P)

The day started at 9.30am where me and Leng Chye left home, then we went to pick up Ann and Peng Peng. Then we went for dim sum (my special request). Sorry, I'm a very lousy camera owner. Too early in the morning, so forgot to take photos. Too busy eating anyway. I'm sure if you wanna see photos of char siew pau, siew mai and what nots, there are better photos online anyway:P Special mention: Ann Yeen ordered the shop's specialty for me: Siew Mai Wong (King of Siew Mai). It tasted very very good. Wish I could have more:P

Peng Peng (Golden Heart) and Ann (Fat Fair Lady)

After dimsum, it was off to Sunway Pyramid. The photo above was taken to prove that we started pretty early in the day:P

We watched Nacho Libre. The movie was unforgetttable but all for the wrong reasons:P The storyline was so bad that it disturbingly stays in your mind after you come out from the cinema. It's about a priest who wants to be a wrestler, who also falls in love with a beautiful nun. Aiyo ma!! Sorry to LC, Ann and Peng Peng who had to endure my choice of show. Well, it was the only show at that time, so really no choice la:P Kesian Peng Peng who had to endure shopping with Ann before the show as well:


Kesian Ann cause she was ill-advised to pass her shopping bag to us:

As usual, Klang Valley people would stop by Starbucks. We were for about 1/2 - 1 hour waiting for 2 more fellas, Steven and Ben.

Hehehe, after 100 emails to and flow, finally only 6 fellas turn up out of a potential 15-16. Hahaha, it reflects badly on my popularity in Shell. But the rest actually were either in Europe, in Penang, had to work or had to have their ass assessed (erm, work assessment to become staff in Shell). Most likely they also couldnt be bothered also la:P Well, in retrospect, 6 fellas is actually just nice as you'll see later;)

In betweens, there's always time to pose with lovely ladies. Sorry guys, green dress's married, the other one, matter of time saja:P Move along nothing to see here anymore:))

Ben and Steven didnt have lunch yet. So it was on to KFC for some "finger-**cking good" "chicken" where Ann, who's just bagged the Shell IT Annual Dinner Fair Lady award tried to do some marketing for KFC Metz:


Haha. I know it's been pretty routine up till now. Well, things got more fun pretty soon as we sauntered up to Pyramid Megalanes for two games of bowling. To spice things up (Ann and Steven's idea), we split ourselves into two teams (Ann, LC and Ben vs Steven, Peng Peng and Alan). The teaming was random. Through sheer coincidence, we realised the teams' overall skills were pretty evenly matched. Losers have to pay for karaoke later (or so we said):P So, it became a very tense competition with a lot of underhand tactics. As usual, due to too much excitement, I forgot to take photos again:)). But trust me, any possible tricks that could distract opponents were employed to harrass our opponents. The natural targets were Ann and Peng Peng of course as since the beginning of time memorial, guys were always better at kacau-ing girls than vice versa. I know in modern times, things have changed a bit but some societal values remain unchanged:))

Anyway, back to the competition, it was pretty tense I tell you. We played two games, each game, the winners were only decided right at the last bowl. It was that close. First game was warm up for everyone. I scored 99 I think, our team got 275. The opponents, 260. Yes! A 15-point lead. Steven was the hero scoring 100+. 2nd game was even more tense. Suddenly everyone's game picked up a lot. One team striked, the other would spare their frame. Cat and mouse all the way to the end. Suddenly my game improved leaps and bounds too. Accurate and concentrate. Spared 3-4 frames in a row. The lead was ding-dong-ing between both teams. And finally, the score? 313-309, we won by just 4 points! Last frame was by Ann and she spared hers to give her 1 more chance to bowl. Luckily she didnt do enough to win:P In the end, we still won with 19 points overall. But dam tense. Good game! Gonna miss bowling so much!

Worthy opponents but still losers in the end:P You would notice by now that most of us strike a certain pose with our thumb and fore finger everytime we take photo. Yup, fair lady's classic pose:))

We are the champions!!

Bowling finished at 5pm. Karaoke supposed to commence at 7pm. So drop by the video arcade for a while. There's this Initial-D arcade that's pretty interesting. Apparently one can get a sim card and fill it with one's race info (car, wins, points). Everytime you race, you slot the card into a reader, then all your info will be shown on the race monitor. When you win, it'll be updated. Cool! We spent quite some time playing this rather childish but addictive game where you need to fill up jigsaw puzzles and spot differences between photos. All 6 of us crowd around the screen to help Steven finish the game. Very worth it since all 6 could play using 1-2 tokens only:))

Finally, the highlight of the day was here:P Makan and singing... we are really that crazy:)) Tak larat wanna write some more also. Just let the photos and captions speak for themselves:

People definitely don go to Redbox for the food. So the less said about it, the better;)

Karaoke time also need to pose!

As the night goes on, everyone becomes more entrenched in the songs

I still remain a bit cool until...



Hehehe, some tender moments as well:


Of course those moments don last long:

It was great fun! Night had to end somehow and it did at 11pm:) Yup, from 9.30am to 11pm.
Way past some people's bedtime already:

Reached home at 1am for the 3rd night straight. Wah.... I think this farewell paling keng already! Thanks guys!! Longest post in my blog so far also I think:))

Setia

Today is Malaysia's 49th Independence Day (31st August 1957). Though there are many things to complain about this country, there are more things to rejoice and shout about. I'm grateful to be born in this special country where people dont kill each other just because you look "one kind" at them (manglish for glaring). Would like to take this opportunity to wish all Malaysians Happy Merdeka. Hope in 3-4 years time when I'm back, we'll be a more developed country but with our integrity and values still intact:) Introduce my favourite national song as well. So nostalgic now:



Setia

Demi negara yang tercinta
Di curahkan bakti penuh setia
Demi raja yang disanjung tinggi
Kesetiaan tak berbelah bagi

Kepada pemimpin kepada rakyat
Khidmat diberi penuh taat
Sama bekerja sama berusaha
Setia berkhidmat untuk semua

Rela berkorban apa saja
Amanah bangsa tetap dijaga
Kami berikrar penuh setia
Untuk agama, bangsa dan negara

Super Saturday!

Hmmm...weekends arent the way they used to be recently:P. Slept at 1am on Friday after cell group and had to wake up at 7am cause going for karting at Elite's track:) Brought my housemate this time. This time around, we were able to race the short track as well as the long track. The long track layout at Elite is quite good, as exciting and fun as Sepang. Wow, quite a
number of fast corners which just take your breath away:) Dam, if only can go for just one more time:( This is one sport which I desperately wanna learn and master:)

That's me (dark blue shirt and light blue jeans)

With housemate, Leng Chye

Fellow mat Remp-its:P

Went home after lunch at USJ. Slept for 2 hours, then went out to meet MMU mates for dinner. Hahaha. I actually lost my way on the way to my friend's place in SS3, PJ cause havent been there for more than 2 years. Tried to be smart and took a shortcut. Mana tau, end up in SS1 instead and couldnt get myself out of it. Went round and round and round but always end up at the same junction. Finally got myself on the LDP again, had to make an illegal U-turn to get back on track:P I tell you, feeling lost in PJ isnt a nice thing and to be honest, I've not felt that lost for a while:P Over-confidence I guess:)) Thinking I've got all the roads in Klang Valley covered. Well, humble-pie eaten, time for some real chow.

Had some great butter cheese crabs at Wong Poh Restaurant at Bukit Mayang Mas (near Dataran Prima). Very grateful, to Miss Senior Consultant Debbie Wong for such a well-researched recommendation. She took the effort to ask her colleagues for good seafood places around PJ and it was choice well-made:) RM120 for 4 crabs, 1 meat, 1 vegetables and 1 tofu, 4 persons' meal. That's pretty reasonable for a PJ seafood restaurant.

Yummy butter cheese crab! The sauce was absolutely spot-on. Even better when taken with the fried buns served.

After dinner, it was on to The Curve at Mutiara Damansara. Took a while to decide where to lepak. Finally decided on a classy Indian restaurant called Colonial Times, it's somewhere on the first floor of the Street section (should be at the Asian Courtyard). The prices are very reasonable for drinks (between RM8 to RM14 for non-alcoholic drinks, cheaper than some of those Halo cafes out there). Ambience was classy and great, really worth every single cent you've paid. There's a live band that plays latin music and when they're resting, they'll lower a bigscreen and show football matches if any. Didnt order any food obviously, so cant commend on the food. Would love to go back again to that place for some relaxing music and maybe try the food this time around.

Nice facade!



Could see that these musicians really enjoy their work with the big smiles they have on their faces!

Standing: Vik Tor and Debbie. Sitting: Me and Joe. Too bad Aaron, Bala, Siong, Rajiv and Kumaran couldnt make it this time.

My Last Cell Group Meeting in Kajang

Had my final meeting with my cell group members at Moi Moi's place on Friday. It was pouring cats and dogs, so getting there was quite a challenge. But it was worth it. Played a simple game of rock-scissors-paper for our ice-breaker. I led our worship session for one last time and then had a simple chit-chat with everyone. After that, went to Jalan Sam Peng (off Jalan Loke Yew, near the Shell petrol station) for some nice nasi lemak and chee-cheong-fan. Quite a lot people though it was like 11.30pm already. Nice!

With the Chin family, Wai Meng, John-John, Sarina and Gillian

With Moi Moi, Judy and the Chins

Ann, potential Mrs Malaysia 2007:P

My two favourite Xi Lais, Judy and Ann. Got them around, food no problem:P

One big happy family:)

Chinese-style nasi lemak, cannot do without fried eggs and chicken curry;)

Chee-Cheong-Fan! Kecek Kecek (only the dudes who have stayed with me in Kepong would know what kecek kecek means:P)