It's FRIDAY!!!

Parents left Penang to head to Hanoi for 4 days. Dropped them off at the airport early this morning. Manage to have breakfast with them at Coffee Beans.

Mum’s was quiet, probably excited and worried at the same time. Yesterday there was an earthquake at Laos, Vietnam which shook Hanoi abit. So mum’s abit worried. Hope everything will be fine when they are there.

So last night I was hanging around them together with the dogs while they were both doing their last minute packing. Carrying two luggages and a nap sack. Kind of a lot for the two of them. But mum said “one bag for goodies if they do buy things.” Then I reminded them, “Be careful of the meats you eat. Wouldn’t want to accidentally eat dog meat. Big Dude will not like you when you come back.” -Yea it can be disgusting that Vietnamese eat Dog Meat. The thought of it makes me really mad and disgusted.

So it’s me alone

Tonight will be going with Rosalind to A2 Gallery. I hope it’s going to be interesting. Received the invitation card, they showed 3 painting on the card. Somehow it looked dull compared to my mums.

Then after the gallery will be going for dinner and maybe meet up with Ed if he finishes early. Where to eat? Rosalind is responsible for that. So wait for my updates.

Big Dude's Lil Adventure

This is actually an old event which happened last year 12 Nov 2006.

This is a dog-gathering-meet up-forum-thing which I joined in to give Big Dude a lil’ adventure. My main aim was to get him to swim in the water and learn from the other dogs how to swim.

We were about the first ones to arrive. There were two huge and muscular black Labradors having their morning run on the beach. Kept far away from them as I was scared they might attack my Big Dude. Ed and Dad went to make friends with the owner. Apparently they just stay near by and the dog’s names were Frodo and Sam….hahahhaha names from Lord of the Rings-Hilang Macho terus!!

Big Dude on the other hand was excited yet scared with this Lil’ Adventure. As the dogs started to come, he got friskier and kept pulling to go near to the dogs only to smell their butts!

He was afraid of the water at first. After slowly calming him down and showing him the water was alright, he braved himself slowly to step his paw in the water. Other Golden Retrivers came and they were all in the water swimming except for Big dude with just his paws in the water. Then came up with a trick. He loves to fetch the ball. So I saw other people throwing in the balls in the water. So I did that, but threw very near Big Dude. It was hilarious to see how Big Dude cautiously took one step at a time to reach the ball. Every step he would stop and check how the situation is if he steps further in with the waves coming in. However at the end, Big Dude did not succeed in facing his fears to swim in the water. But he still has his natural instinct of how to swim as I naughtily dragged him to the deep side and he paddled his way nervously to shore.

The event was interesting and enjoyable. Met a lot of Doggie owners and Big Dude also manage to smell as many butts he could! I think Big Dude was the only dog who was not well behaved- the other dogs all well trained and obey the masters command. But I’m not disappointed as this is how my Big Dude is and I love him very much.

So here’s some pictures of the dogs that came. Huge, small and tiny- variety of sizes.

Meet miss pretty

Meet Miss Blacky

Golden Retriver. Well behaved. Good swimmers

Still a puppy

No! I don't want to go in the water! Please don't drag me...Help!!

Big Dude checking out the babe in the water instead of fetching his orange ball

Big Dude fetching the ball slowly and carefully

Big Dude pulling to go back to shore

Scared to move in the water
Big Dude chickens out to fetch the ball. See the other two swim!

Group Photo

Esther Reutens next art Exhibition

My mum's having her next Art Exhibition this Friday. However it won't be a solo one but combined with other artist. And fuess what paintings will be exhibited, Nude Painting. Yes you read that right. NUDE.

Mum's been busy this past month painting nude pictures. Her first few samples to the Art Gallery were rejected as the pictures were not revealing enough as mum had covered the private areas. So the Art Gallery guy showed my mum some samples and she was so shocked. According to her the painting they had were really reveling. This is what she said "Painting of naked guys with really huge and long penis" . Oh Boy....she had alot of changes to do to her samples.

So if any of you all who are interested to go and see her paintings, this Friday will be the opening.
She has 3 paintings exhibited which is (tittle) Violet, Pink Lady and Marbelrella

Venue: A2 Art Gallery (along Bangkok Lane)
Opening Ceremony Time: 8 pm

***Any other days the A2 Gallery is opened from 11 am to 6pm and closed on Tuesday.

Mum hard at work

New Camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100

I have been actually aiming to buy myself a digital camera sometime next year. But the funny thing just happened.

Last weekend my Dad suddenly said "Is Gurney having the Camera Fair. I want to go and see".
So Sunday afternoon, me and my mum followed him to Gurney. While walking to the escalator I asked my dad, "Dad why you want to look for a camera, you already have the SLR one"
Dad replied, "I want to look for a small digital camera so that I can bring to Hanoi. Don't want to carry the big camera for traveling." Then there was silence from me as I was overjoyed by it but wasn't sure if he would really buy one. Hahahahahahahha...........

So Dad asked me if I knew which camera's are good. All I could think of was Rosalinds Lumix camera which she uses. It was her dream camera and I have seen it and it does look good with the features it has. So I suggested Lumix to my dad. First stop we went to Sony to see the latest model. Sales guy manage to impress my dad...but me at the side kept bugging him "Dad go check out Lumix"

So then after about 10 minutes at the Sony counter, dad decided to look at the Lumix. The sales guy there suggested to my dad the latest Lumix Model. He showed us a number of features of the camera and tried his best to compare with the Sony. Dad was impress. I was so happy. Then suddenly dad said to the salesman, "Ok you give me your best price" and next thing I knew the guy wrote the bill for RM 1499.

OMG................... my dad actually bought the camera on the spot without thinking. I was jumping for joy and quickly sms-ed Ed about it. Not a bad deal I guess. They gave us 2GB memory stick, 2 chargeable batteries, tripod, leather casing, neck strap and 2 bath towels. Now I need Rosalinds help one day on how to use the features as the manual book is too general. new Toy for Me!!!!

So here's the features

Panasonic DMC-FX100 specifications

Sensor	• 1/1.72" Type CCD • 12.4 million pixels total • 12.2 million effective pixels
Image sizes	• 4:3: 4000x3000, 3264x2448, 2560x1920, 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 640x480 • 3:2: 4000x2672, 3264x2176, 2560x1712, 2048x1360 • 16:9: 4000x2248, 3264x1840, 2560x1440, 1920x1080
Movie clips	• 4:3: 640x480/320x240, 30fps/10fps • 16:9: 1280x720 15fps, 848x480, 30fps/10fps
File formats	• Still: JPEG Exif v2.21 • Still with sound: JPEG + Quicktime • Movie: QuickTime Motion JPEG
Lens	• 6.0-21.4mm (28-100 35 mm equiv) 3.6x optical zoom • F2.8 / F9.0 (Wide), F5.6 / F18 (Tele)
Image stabilization	MEGA O.I.S. (Mode1/ Mode2)
Conversion lenses	No
Digital zoom	Up to 4x
Focus	• Auto Focus System, Normal/Macro (Dial)
AF area modes	• 1 point • 1 point high speed • 3 point high speed • 9 point • Spot
AF assist lamp	Yes
Focus distance	• Normal: 50cm - ∞ • Macro: 5cm -∞ (Wide), 30cm - ∞ (Tele)
Metering	• Intelligent Multiple • Center Weighted • Spot
ISO sensitivity	• Auto ISO • Auto ISO 1600 - 6400 (High sensitivity mode) • ISO 80 • ISO 100 • ISO 200 • ISO 400 • ISO 800 • ISO 1250 • ISO 1600
Exposure compensation	• +/- 2EV • 1/3EV steps
Exposure bracketing	1/3 EV-1EV, 3 frames
Shutter speed	• 8-1/2000 sec • 15, 30, 60sec (Starry Sky Mode)
Aperture	F2.8 / F9.0 (Wide), F5.6 / F18 (Tele)
Modes	• Intelligent ISO • Normal Picture • Simple • Macro • Playback • Scene • Motion Picture • Print
Scene modes	• Portrait • Soft Skin • Self-Portrait • Scenery • Sports • Night Portrait • Night Scenery • Food • Party • Candlelight • Baby 1 • Baby 2 • Pet • Sunset • High sensitivity • Hi-Speed burst • Starry Sky • Fireworks • Beach • Snow • Aerial photo
White balance	• Auto • Daylight • Cloudy • Shade • Halogen • White Set
White balance fine tune	• +/-10steps, except for auto set • Selectable in Portrait, Soft Skin, Self-Portrait, Sports, Baby, Pet, High Sensitivity and Highspeed Burst modes
Self timer	2 or 10 sec
Continuous shooting	• 2fps, 5 images (Standard compression) • 2fps, 3 images (Fine compression)
Image parameters	• Contrast • Sharpness • Saturation • Noise Reduction • 3 levels (Low, standard, high)
Flash	• Auto • Auto with Red-eye Reduction • Slow Sync with Red-eye Reduction • Forced On • Forced Off
Viewfinder	No
LCD monitor	• 2.5" Polycrystalline TFT LCD Display • 207k pixels
Connectivity	• DC input • AV output (NTSC/PAL) • USB
Print compliance	• DPOF • Pictbridge
Storage	• SD/SDHC/MMC card • Internal memory
Power	• Li-ion battery (3.7v, 1150mAh) • Charger included • AC adaptor (optional)
Weight (no batt)	148g (5.3 oz)
Dimensions	96.7 x 54 x 24.5mm (3.8 x 2.1 x 1 in)

Kedai Makanan Teik Seng

Picture of the 'chu char' place

This is one of Ed's and Ian's favourite 'Chu Char' shop to eat. There were times when they both could visit the place 1-2 times a week. But I must say every trip there is satisfying. The place opens for lunch and dinner. However if you plan to come, do come early as the place gets full during the peak hours. The shop is located in one of the lanes found along Chulia Street. It's the road opposite Love Lane. I have eaten here so many times but never took notice of the road name. Picture on right shows the kitchen. Man with the tall hat is the chief cook.

So last Sunday after church, Ed made a date to meet up with Ian and Stella for lunch. I guess you can know who chose the place.....Ian. Me and Ed arrived there early. We were the 3rd customer. However we had to wait for an hour before Ian and Stella came. We had some communication breakdown on the meet up time....hahahha. But the wait was good as I got to see the different dishes coming out from the kitchen.

So let me tell you what is good here. Well for one thing, they have a signature dish here which every table would order. It's the Char Sui (black char pork). It's charred in oil and sweet soya sauce. The pork meat contains fats in it which can be very guilty on those who are trying to loose weight. But then again, who can resist in not wanting to eat this dish. Two thumbs up for this dish.

Char Sui Pork. After eating the amount of oil on the plate could fill a small saucepan for chilli

Then there is the Assam Prawn dish which would be another recommendation from me. The prawns are marinated in Assam Jawa to give that assam taste. Of course there's soya sauce, sugar and other secret ingredients which would never be revealed to me. It was so good that I sucked and chewed on the prawn head...so juicy!

Besides the two dishes we also ordered a Sambal Kacang Botol and a Assam Curry Fish. The curry was good. Kacang botol was good but I would suggest to them to cut down on the salt as it was abit salty. Probably from the sambal.

Our last dish was a dish which I saw them bring out to another table. It was Nestum Chicken. Well it looked good, but the taste wise was disappointing. The chicken was deep fried with Nestum, curry leave and chilly padi. But somehow it was not tasty enough. So this dish I would not recommend.

Assam Prawn. Look how black it is. Coated well with the assam marination..MMmmm

Left: Sambal Kacang Botol Right: Assam Fish Curry

Nestum Chicken which I would not recommend

Ian had a good time eating his prawns to the extend he even had some sauce on his cheeks. What a baby. Double thumbs up from him! and the below picture the damage done to our food.

Happy Belated Birthday Gal

Happy Birthday to you Stella Neoh.

Ajisen Ramen at Gurney Plaza

Ajisen Ramen was found at Kumamoto, Japan in 1968. Currently Ajisen Ramen already have 400 plus chain in worldwide. Ajisen Ramen targeted to open 1000 and above food chain worldwide. Ajisen Ramen is “World Ramen”.

This is a 3-4 months old Restaurant found at Gurney Plaza. It's found on the ground floor just next to Nando's. Yesterday was my second time eating there. The place is usually packed for lunch and dinner. Majority of the poeple there are all Chinese. You wouldn't see a malay person there was the Restaurant sells pork (non-Hallal).

Ajisen Ramen shop. Look properly and you would see Purple Cynthia in there posing.

There were four of us waiting to pig out last night. Each of us ordered 4 different types of Ramen. If I can recall all the names right, Jean (Spicy Char Sui Ramen), Cynthia (Non Katsu Ramen), Ed (Paiku Ramen) and I (Ton Toro Ramen). As side orders we ordered the special Taufu and the Japanese Dumplings (I forgot the name!).

The Ramen noodle itself it nice and smooth. To tell you the truth it looks exactly like the Spaghetti Pasta. From what I have tried, I think each Ramen dish uses the same soup which is whitish looking. Then the variety of taste only comes from the meat they put in your soup.

The first time I came I tried Ed’s Ramen which was some Pork ribs Ramen (name can’t recall). I did not like it as it had a very strong pork taste. So I was stayed away from any pork ribs ramen on my next visit.

My order yesterday was good. No strong pork taste. According to Jean my dish Ton Toro Ramen, meant meat from the Pigs Cheeks. Hahhahaha no wonder it tasted so good. No fats at all. Portions there are quiet reasonable. Halfway eating I was so full.

Ton Toro Ramen, meat from the pigs cheeks which I ordered.

The other Ramen from the rest, I guess it was all good for everyone. No complaints. Everyone was quiet slurping their Ramen.

Paiku Ramen which Ed ordered

Non Katsu Ramen which Cynthia ordered

Spicy Char Sui Ramen which Jean ordered

Aside from the Ramen, one of my favourite side dish was the Cold Tofu Dish. It is served cold and the gravy sauce like has some sour-ness to it. Can’t really say what are the ingredients, but it’s superbly good. I think there’s some pounded up sesame seeds in it. Highly recommended to those who can eat a cold dish.

Cold Tofu Dish

Then there is another side dish which is good. It’s called the Japanese Dumpling. It’s tasty I must say. I once had a bad experience with this Japanese dumpling I tried somewhere else. It was awful. So when they orderd this I was skeptical in eating it as I remembered how it tasted like the last time….but phew no…it’s 100% better. This dumpling is served with vinegar like sauce which you dip in. Wonderful.

Japanese Dumpling. Serves 5 pieces but here's missing 1 piece which went to Ed's stomach.

However an improvement for this Restaurant would be to cut down on the salt content in their Ramen soup. It's abit on the salty side. All else thumbs up for this Restaurant.

Cafe Kheng Pin

For lunch we decided to hop over to this coffee shop found along Penang Road and at the corner of Jln Bawasih. Dad recommended to try the the Lor Bak, Char Koay Teow and Chicken Rice.

Coffee Shop was packed with people. We were lucky to get a place to sit. There were about 7 stalls selling which were; Chicken Rice, Char Koay Teow, Koay Teow Th'ng, Lor Bak, Wan Tan Mee, Chinese Satay and Century Egg Porridge. The Char Koay Teow and the Lor Bak stalls were in the Rasa Rasa book.

Ed ordered the Chicken rice, Lil Panda jean ordered the Char Koay Teow and I had the Wan Tan Mee. For side orders I ordered 10 sticks of Pork Satay and Lor Bak.

The Lor Bak stall apart from the common fried stuffs they had something different, 2 types of fried squid. One was the whole squid fried (size of your middle finger) and fried tentacles of the squids. I ordered the prawn fritter, lor bak, fish, taufu and the whole squid. The Lor Bak dish came first so we ate it. It was good. Fish and prawns were fresh. Taste was excellent. The squid on the other hand wasn't wow. The fried batter covering the squid was broken away and the squid was left all nakedly white in front of us.

Lor Bak with the nakedly white squid

Then came my Wan Tan Mee. It was good and up to my standard since I can be quite fussy when it comes to the type of black Soya Sauce they use. This was perfect tasting. The Wan Tan was also soft and juicy and had a reasonable amount of meat fillings in it.

Wan Tan Mee which was good

While waiting for Lil Panda's Char Koay Teow I was boasting to Jean that I spoke in Hokkien to place the order. I said, "Aunty, Char Koay Teow chi ley, chiak, mai hum, hair nui" Jean was impressed. But 5 minutes later the funny thing happened. The aunty came up to me and spoke in English, about my order again. Cis.....looks like she didn' t understand my hokkien after all. There goes my "kembang-ness" as Ed and Jean laughed.

Char Koay Teow which tasted so so by Jean

Pork Satay arrived and I kept quite not telling Jean that it was pork until she ate a stick then only I told her (jean hates pork). But cis again, she knew it was pork. Satay was ok only. Not wonderful. It was marinated the usual serai way and served with the peanut sauce. I still prefer my Satay Babi man at Bangkok lane.

Pork Satay. Nothing much to brag about

The Chicken Rice, Ed was disappointed as it wasn't up to his expectation. It looked good but taste wise he didn't like it. But alot of people were ordering it.

Ed looking all disappointed with his Chicken Rice

So, we recomend you to try this place one day for the Wan Tan Mee and the Lor Bak. We shall be back again to try the Porridge and Koay Teow Th'ng.

The damage on the table done by Jean. Look at that cheeky smile of hers.

Jusco Members Day Sale Madness

Went for Jusco's Members Day Sale today and boy was the place really packed and noisy. There were so many people shopping, fitting rooms were having long queues, Cashier counters were having never ending queues and it was as noisy as a Night market. Perhaps worst than it.

The cashier counter

I came with mum as a teman. Thought she might be busy shopping but she could not stand the sound, so my shopping was cut short. Only manage to get myself a casual black skirt and a colour shirt for only RM 51.00.

Wanna know what was making the place so Noisy? Ok, at certain times they will announce a price reduction on a certain item. The promoters incharge are equiped with a loud speaker. So when the time hits....the alarm goes on and they will start announcing the price reduction. You can hear them shouting out loud "mari mari, 80% discount", "Mari mari lelong lelong"" Mari mari stock baru" Take for example the ladies handbag. They had discounts up to 80% at certain "lelong" times. People actually go crazy. You will see handbags flying from the front to the back. Hands in the air and people all squashed around the rack. And when you hear "mari mari stock baru", that's when the promoter is actually walking in with a big box of new handbags which he practically 'pours' the bags out from the box and over the peoples head aiming straight to the rack. During this time bags go flying and people start rushing to grab the bags. But you wanna know the funny thing about this....you see majority of guys in the crowd...hahahhaha. They actually get bullied by their girls to help snatch a bag of gold!

This is a picture of the handbag area. If you look properly you can see a brown box about to pour out the handbags.

And as usual, I did come across some brainless idiots who are uncivilized and inconsiderate. I was lining up at a fitting room place. There were these two lady's in front of me with about 20 pieces of clothes to try on or more. They had it all in a basket. I was so irritated with them that I nearly wanted to tell them off and show them the sign on the fitting room door that writes "5 garments per fitting". But I decided to walk away and line up at another place where the people followed the rules. I kesian the rest behind them. I peaked at them at times. They had their faces black and long waiting for these two ladies to come out...hehehhehe. I think those two ladies took around 30 minutes to finally come out from the fitting room. My gosh, damn those ladies, brainless idots.

Then at the grocery area they also had lelongs. There was a counter having lelongs on maggie mee, powder milk, milo, toothpaste etc. However the items were limited to 2 units per customer receipt. I saw alot of people buying cream crackers. Saw a trolley all filled up with just cream crakers. Madness!!!!

Then another funny thing was even the bakery there participated in this lelong business. They had stacks of freshly baked buns up for sale and loads of pizza's on sale for only RM 4.99 (a RM1 reduction) I manage to take a picture but it was not good enough as I was abit shy to go infront of the promoters to snap shot them. Hahahahahha.

Picture of the backery madness. See the guy with the white hat, he was the person incharge of lelong-ing the pizza's

So all in all, I must say this is an experience you must not miss.

To my gilrfriends: The next Jusco sale you interested to teman me? Mum was a bad teman and I know Ed would be bored stiff.

My Hand is Aching

Today I decided to join my collegues for Badminton after work. I cannot remember the last time I ever played Badminton. All I can remember is playing at my Nanny's house with Fiona and the front gate as the netting.
So I reached the place at around 6.30pm. Could have been earlier but I took the wrong road. There was about 8-10 badminton courts there but my factory only booked 4 courts for us. There was 5 of us and I was the odd one out, so I sat down and watched them 4 play first. Halfway through I was thinking, this is going to be boring. Then one of the colleague stopped to let me play. Woohooo...how sweet of her.
At first I was feeling abit shy cos I wasn't too sure if I still remembered how to hit the shuttle cock. But thank goodness didn't make a fool of myself. I still had my "experience" from the childhood days.
At around 7pm more people came in and now we had to play real badminton game with the countings and all. After each set we have to let the next group play. Bummer....but am proud that I manage to sweat. Now have to suffer away with my aching arm.

Savory Onion Pancake with Egg Fillings

Today after work I suddenly got in the mood of cooking up something. So after my walk on the field I decided to make a savory pancake for breakfast.

I'll try and briefly explain the ingredients and method of making this.

2 big onions
2 cloves of garlic
Sage
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Salt
Pepper
3 eggs + 4 eggs
Milk
Salad Cream

First step, grab yourself your sunglasses to wear as you'll be cutting onions.

Get your most fashionable sun glasses

Then blend the onions and garlic and put to a bowl.

Blended onions and garlic

Boil your eggs, depends how much egg fillings you want. Here I boiled 10 eggs as I want going to feed an army.

Boil the eggs

Now to make the pancake mix. Take 4 cups of flour in a bowl mixer. Make a hole in the middle and break 3 eggs into it. Add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and a dash of sage spice. Add in salt and pepper to taste. With a whisk spoon stir and beat the ingredients until it comes into a thick mixture. Pour in milk to dilute the mixture and slowly add in your blended onions and garlic mix. Keep on stirring, adding in the milk until you get a not so watery texture. Something like a lassi drink texture.

This is the texture of the pancake mix before beating it with a whisk

This is the correct pancake mix texture which is ready to cook

Put your pancake mixture aside and head on to make your egg fillings. With the boiled eggs take of the shell and give it a mash with some lemon juice, salad cream, salt and pepper to taste. The egg fillings are suppose to taste like those egg sandwich you eat but with a pinch of sourness.

Once the egg filling is ready, it is now time to cook your pancake mix. Prepare a non stick pan, heat it up and have a bowl of butter nearby. Once the pan is hot put in abit of butter to coat the pan. Then pour in a bit of the pancake mix on the pan. You have to use the other hand to turn the pan around so that the pancake mix will nicely cover the pan and form a nice circle pancake. You need to be fast here. Repeat the steps until you finish all of your pancake mixture.

Use a non stick pan

This is how it looks when your cooking the pancake

On a table place your egg fillings and cooked pancakes to cool. Then take a circle pancake, cut it into two and nicely line the egg fillings near the end. You would the need to fold the half pancake into a popiah like shape. How much egg fillings you want in each popiah shaped pancakes depends on you. However a tip: try to put alot of egg fillings in your popiah as less fillings gives your pancake not much taste.

Take note of the blue container, that is the chopped up egg filling

Hard at working folding the pancakes and the egg fillings

And walla.....you have your Savory Onion Pancake with Egg fillings fit to serve Queen Elizabeth.

Lovely to eat when freshly made