MaRvELgAL. Drunk When Sober.

I had such a blast last weekend when I was back in KL.

First stop, Friday night upon arrival – CHAR KUEY TEOW at Ming Tien, Damansara. The Char Kuey Teow is so so la, I know can get better ones anywhere, but anywhere is fine since anywhere is better than Singapore’s Char Kuey Teow which is basically noodles with sugar water. Have I ever mentioned that Ming Tien has the best Hokkien noodles ar? Damn syiok. Had a plate of that also. And grilled sambal stingray with sugarcane juice.

Saturday morning woke up at 9am which to me was a miracle. But I had a mission. Went downstairs, grabbed my dad’s electric guitar and started jamming with dad and sister and 2 amps plus piano. Dad was on bass and I was the lead. Mostly strumming and humming the solos, hahahahaha. We played lots of Beatles, Maroon 5, Rod Stewart, My Chemical Romance, Scorpions, Muse and Guns N Roses. The real deal, not Guitar Hero material. Dad printed a whole stack of music with chords already, very prepared. We jammed about half a day, very enjoyable.

On piano, I have pretty much conquered Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, now trying to perfect Johannes Brahm’s Intermezzo in a Major, Op. 118 No. 2. Tough piece to play but lovely to hear. Here is the track if you are interested: http://alturl.com/x545. I’m wondering if I will ever perfect the piece. Not very confident though. Although piano had an overhaul, some lower keys couldn’t be fixed, so it was still out of tune. Most apparent one was my C# and C.

Afterwards, we drove to Ulu Yam for best Loh Mee and really best lor. It was at this old Chinese kampung area, quite hidden, in a shop that also doubles as a house. I have never ever eaten such nice Loh Mee before in my entire life, just the right portion of sourish taste and vinegar and noodles cooked perfectly, with ice guava juice. Then, we drove up to Genting in the hopes of, always, wanting to win money. First of, me and my sister played at the arcade, did some dance dance revolution, some silent hill shooting, some more crap shooting then some music games which I RULED. Sister wanted to play that Para Para dancing game but machine was not found. After about spending RM50 on arcade machines, we then went to meet my parents at the casino hall. Dad was on his usual jackpot slot machine and mum was at table. We all played on for a few more hours, we left poorer than when we arrived. So there.

On Sunday, we spent the entire afternoon lazing around, and about 6 o clock, we had BBQ to celebrate Father’s Day. Burnt some chicken wings, squids, fish, broccoli, abalone mushrooms, prawns and sweet potatoes. Mum boiled dessert too, some herbal stuff to prevent ‘heatiness’ after all the food. Later at night, went out for supper at mamak.

It was a really good weekend. I love my family. We are very close and I think nothing will ever change that. I am grateful.

Just when I had this uber urge to blog a few days ago, Blogsome server died for a while. I couldn’t access my blog and the admin page. I got so nervous man. On one hand I thought, fuck!, I’m losing all my history and personality, my identity is gone!! On the other hand I thought, well, this may be a sign to get a new space and a new blog design.

So I lost all my train of thoughts.

I think I really want a new blog design cos I’m pretty bored with this one. I’ll pick a dark, sombre mood this time. Not this nice, pinky, sunshine mood.

These few days have been hard for me. I think I had a pretty rough year so far, and so far, it’s only February. That kinda sucks. Been coughing for 2 weeks, but slowly getting better. Things at work are… really bad. I won’t tell much here. But honest to God, nothing can be worst than what I’m facing right now. Think of the worst times you ever had in your working life, and multiply that by 83084237. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth hanging on. Maybe I should just give up and go away. What’s the point? I really don’t know. I’m unable to concentrate on anything else. I don’t even know who to trust anymore. For instance, other offices requested me for a simple information. In any other normal days before this, I’d obliged. I wouldn’t think twice . But these days, I have to ask first. It doesn’t really matter if I sound stupid.

The only thing that is keeping me sane right now is my Cibet. Cibet is my Pet Society pet. I wake up, I think about her. I login to Facebook just to play with her. I know it sounds really weird, but it’s true. Small little things like getting 500 coins, then gambling it away and getting really good unique items in Mystery Boxes and even having dirty and unhappy pets at the Cafe, makes me so happy. I am just drowned into the world of Pet Society.

When newspapers and TVs were announcing that times are bad, the economy is bad, this is going to be terrible crisis worse than 97, bla bla bla… I was like ya ya, it’s the end of the world, who cares? Boy was I naive. It didn’t strike me as to how bad the situation was, until a few friends of mine got retrenched, offices are closing down and the scariest part was, even my company was not spared and has fired a few. That hit me, like a huge fucking brick on my face. So it does affect me after all. So I’m not that invincible after all. So life really sucks after all, because of a few greedy asswipes.

That means, I have to be careful of spending, because you just won’t know what will happen. Seriously. One day you are happy you have a job, the next day your company will take it away just like that. I’m not afraid of being retrenched actually. I’m just afraid of being controlled how I live my life because of money, or the lack of it afterwards.

But what difference does it make anyway? Even now, I am already controlling my lifestyle because I know I need to be careful of spending. Just grocery shopping the other day, I’ve become somewhat like an ‘aunty’. I have started to compare prices, find the cheapest but still fulfill its duty. Like handwash soap for example, I’d usually go for the good looking brands with nice colourful bottled ones because that is just how I shop. An impulsive shopper, he said. That day, I went for a house brand, the cheapest. Gawd awful looking bottle and probably smell like apple even when it states it’s lemon. Between this and the branded one, the price difference was only less than a dollar. Still I went for the house brand because it was cheaper.

That said, I think my family doesn’t realize that the economic crisis is really bad. Because I came home today and I saw a brand new flat screen HDTV in our living room, my dad has a brand new phone, my brother has a brand new phone and my mum is planning for a holiday in either Bangkok or Hong Kong next month. Either that or they are filthy rich and pretending to be poor in front of me.

It is Lent season now. This I only know when it was announced on the radio. I told everyone "it’s Lent season now". They asked me, what is Lent? I said it’s when us Catholics would sacrifice doing our favourite things or eating our favourite food or basically just be sad all the way till Easter. I think it’s not very hard to do based on current circumstances. I’d have definitely booked a place in heaven.

I just watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday. No wonder this movie is such a huge buzz right now. I fully agree it deserves the Oscar for Best Movie. It’s even better than that overhyped American Beauty. Just in case you are still wondering, it’s not a Bollywood movie. In fact, it has educated me a lot about the slums in India. Overall, it is actually a sad movie. But it will be a movie you will never ever forget after watching it. I’m not sure though, if the movie truly depicts the real situation in Mumbai and the slums, if it was exaggerated or made up. I should google more about it.

28th Oct 2008

(I just realized that I haven’t finished posting about my Beijing trip… tiuuu.)

I’m far too lazy to detail every damn thing so am going to try doing this, when pictures can speak a thousand words, I’ll just mumble a few sentences.

We took Tiger Airways btw, costs only S$160 from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh. The budget terminal here is not so bad, not as bad as the LCCT in KLIA. Clean and just alright for an airport to function. Not much complains here.

Me, mum, dad and boyfriend.

Yeah, shortcut to all those crappy airplane pictures you’ve seen a thousand times.

We started off exploring nearby our hotel area.

…I will be in Ho Chi Minh city, yeahooooo!!!

I will be going there for holidays and shopping and eating for 5 days. Uber excited. Although it’s my 2nd trip there, but this time I will get to travel to Mekong river, temples and pagodas and an underground tunnel (if MrGuardman plan properly hehehehehehehehehe). K lah, don’t wanna give pressure to the fler, anymore than I already did. I’m going with my boyfriend and my parents too.

Can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait!!!!!!!

Last weekend was a blast. I can’t remember when was the last time we had a really good family dinner.

I asked my parents to pick somewhere good to eat last weekend, my treat, I said. Money is not an issue, so don’t worry, I said. We exhausted our ideas, we didn’t know where to eat and what to eat. We’ve tried almost everything good actually. Japanese, Italian, hotel buffet, fine dining, Chinese… we’ve tried it all.

First, to church. Here’s my recent haircut and my sister camwhoring with me in the car:

And after church, finally, after much deliberation, my dad suggested to eat here:

It’s along Jalan Kemajuan, Section 13, at PJ. He said he has always been intrigued by the number of customers and the number of cars this place has never failed to attract. What the hell, let’s just give it a try.

The moment you step into the restaurant, you’d see rows and rows of tanks. You can see all kinds of water creatures here, some I’ve never even seen before, let alone eat them! It’s quite scary lor.

Anyway, you get to pick any sea creatures out of these tanks, choose the method to cook, and the chef will prepare them for you.

First item on our table, oysters:

And here’s a close shot just for fun.

It’s taken with my Sony Ericsson W960i. Macro. But not really good hor?

The oysters were really fresh and tasted like oysters, so nothing special here. My sister finally got to taste a fresh oyster for the first time in her life. I…. don’t think she like it kuar hahaha!! Cos oysters without Tabasco is like, having fries without salt.

Next on our picked sea creature is Scotland clams:

No kilts on, folks. It tasted like squid, chewy, and the only thing interesting was the really tasty dried curry way it was cooked.

And then we had Soon Hock fish!

…..

Damn nice I tell ya, this is like the best fish I have ever eaten, so freshhhhhhhhhh and nice ‘tight’ meat, steamed with soy sauce yum yum.

But of course the meal of the night was Australian lobster:

I think this is the first time I’ve ever eaten a real, authentic, lobster. This one weighed about 2.something kg. Just enough to feed the 5 of us. And it was cooked in Superior sauce. Mmmmmm, felt like a king for a moment. A bit regret actually, should have asked them to cook in 2 styles, the other method, baked with cheese. Haih.

We only had 1 vegetable dish… I forgot the name.

But I certainly did not forget THE BILL.

Prepared to be shocked.

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