So salty, it burns the mouth

In the morning, he told me, "I want you to eat Ramen with me." Ok said I, what's the big deal? It's just ramen. Well, it is just not any ramen, it is Ramen with mussels and the soup is so salty that my mouth felt like it was on fire for the rest of the day. Just awful, if I had known that, I wouldn't have agreed. In the afternoon, the alliance and us went to the may flower fair and play touch and go to win a blue boy toy. The winning team then has to treat the losing team to a bak kut teh meal. What sort of compensation is that?

Yummy Durians

After a whole day at the shopping center, there is no better way to end the day than by eating durians. Feel the creamy texture and be surprised by the various tastes on your tongue - slightly bitter, sourish, sweet, and tangy. One westerner exclaimed after spitting it out that it tastes like stinking rotten onions. But to most Malaysians, the taste is heavenly and some even just eat durians as their main meal. It sure beats eating fried rice, fish and chips, grilled chicken burger and ginger tea.

Gardens in Seoul

Gloria has always wanted to travel to Korea especially its capital Seoul and to walk in its beautiful gardens and parks but she is holding out for a 50% discount on the airfare to Korea. She smacks her lips thinking of all the Korean BBQ and hot pot she is going to eat there. All that is just a dream for her now. In reality, she is in the post office and has just purchased an express post A4 envelope which sets her back RM4 to send three documents to her nephew after making copies of them. For lunch, she can't decide what she will eat. She eyes the blueberry muffins in the bakery shop hungrily but decides she won't have them with a cup of latte as she is feeling fat lately. Her jeans is hugging her bottoms like a natural layer of skin. She then walks past a guy eating Famous Star from Carl Jr but a look at the price on the menu - RM8.35net caused her to shake her head in disbelief. It is just too expensive for a burger from a fast food joint. Then she smells the porky aromas wafting from people enjoying bowls of pork noodle with pork offal (liver and kidneys and yucky bits from pig's innards). She shuddered, she can't imagine herself eating those. So she goes home and ate her 3-seeds sprouted bread (sesame, sunflower and flax seeds) with virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and finishes off the meal with red tea (Hong Cha).

You go work, I go mall

Recently she came to know of a certain she who does not work. The person will leave the house every weekday with her husband. While the husband goes to work, she will go to nearby shopping centres and hang out the whole day until the husband gets off work. Sometimes the person will join the husband for lunch but most certainly the person will eat dinner with her husband at restaurants or roadside stalls before returning home. What the person does in the shopping centre, she does not know as the person does not cook so does not need to do grocery shopping and seldom wears any new clothes or new shoes so does not buy new clothing. Can't the person just stay home and watch TV3, 8TV, NTV7 or any other tv networks that are under the umbrella of Media Prima? The person also never put on any makeup, does not even go to any hair or nail salon. Nevermind about a haircut, as far as she can tell by looking at the person, the person does not even comb her hair. Even though her husband is a homemaker now he often says to her, "I want you to tell me off immediately if you ever see me looking sloppy." Now she has come close to doing that but always stop herself in time. Instead she told him that she has some cravings for oriental dishes like wattanhor and asked him to cook those for weekend lunch. She can't imagine having chap fan for dinner like the couple do everyday and having to eat with chopsticks. She feels so lucky that her husband agrees to be a homemaker. Thinking that to herself, she swung by her MIL's house to drop some soya tubes off and pick up the children's registration cards. On her way back, she noticed that traffic lights have been installed at the new junction near Mr. Siew's house.

Sour Vege Sour Puss

He woke up around 10.30am on this day but returned to dreamland until 12pm when he really needed to get up for food. Went out and ate Ipoh chicken rice without the rice. Was crossed when someone said he said something which he knew very well that he didn't say. Came back, had a few rounds of games on his PS3. Then it was time for dinner. Ate chicken rice again, this time with the rice and with sour spicy mustard veges as well. Watched the 1st arc of the 2nd season of a Japanese series. Was tricked into answering the door when he was washing his hair in the shower after his weekly exercises. Worked on some office stuffs for 3 hours and then it was time for bed.

Back to back movies

J called again this weekend. Apparently the association needed the members to sign some things at 2pm.
H: Ok, ok, come and pick me up then.
Off the three of them went and ate some golden pumpkin noodles before signing the things. Then it's back to H's place and watched "Wanted" followed by "Iron Man". J fell asleep during Iron Man. He definitely is not her type. Then they all went to the new mamak stall at esplanade near to the beach. The food was quite expensive.

Dinner with family

Mr Tan works for a multinational company that allows him to occasionally work from home. His office is near to Menara MIDF on Jalan Raja Chulan and he goes to work by car via the SMART tunnel. On Friday, he left for work at around 3.30pm, took a detour to pick up his spouse and daughter from his MIL's house and drank a cup of latte at Starbucks before his meeting started. After work, he and his family ate dinner at Marco Polo Restaurant, Wisma Lim Foo Yong before going home. They had 4 dishes - one roast duck leg, spare ribs with pineapple and capsicum, taufu taukan, stir-fried sang yu, ginger and spring onion, for a fixed price of RM68. The deal also included tea, rice and soup of the day which was water cress soup. It was raining heavily on their way home but they reached home safely. Due to the rain, they had to leave the car at MIL's. Being able to work from home allows Mr Tan to spend more time with his family. He even have time to play the whole Tum Tum Island game from scratch again with his children.

Shopping Centres

Capital Square or better known as CapSquare houses one of the latest shopping centre in the heart of Kuala Lumpur amidst its office buildings (such as Menara Multi-Purpose where Alliance Bank has its head office) and residences. It is situated next to Wilayah Complex and is within walking distance to the Dang Wangi LRT station where it costs only RM1.30 to get to Suria KLCC for another round of shopping. When hunger strikes, just pop over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel or walk a short distance to Hotel Nikko for a meal. For financial needs, Menara Citibank is just next to Hotel Nikko. Back to CapSquare, coffee lovers can enjoy a cup of coffee at Starbucks or Coffee Bean and book lovers can discover newly published book like A Crime So Monstrous by E. Benjamin Skinner or oldies like Teach Your Child How to Think by Edward de Bono at Times. At this point in time, it is not another One Utama yet. In time, will Kluang Station with its Chicken Chop and Nasi Lemak Mutton Curry be found here? What it is not likely to have are restaurants that serve dishes like those from Restaurant Kam Heong (near Menara MPPJ) - braised duck TeoChew style and braised pork knuckle. Also it does not have a games specialty shop that sells PS3 games like Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2. And don't expect it to function like a local The Store.

Working from home means

getting faster to work
not getting stuck in traffic congestion
getting work done faster
better concentration
no interruption from just-happened-to-walk-by co-workers
no background noise drifting in from the water cooler area
eating lunch with loved ones
watching the cat takes its long after lunch nap
having time to clean the house after works
discovering that the cooking gas has run out
helping gf do a report on corticosteroid cream and eczema

Better late amlaksa than never

The wife left for work at around 7.45am. Even before then, he had already started on the routine schedule - picked up the kiddy cousins and sent the children to school. Then he did the Tuesday grocery shopping at CFEP, started cleaning the house, and he even bought yong taufu as takeaways to be a treat for the children as the children love this dish and there is no way he is making yong taufu on his own as it involves too much work. Dishing up complex meals is not his forte. Before he knew it, half the day was gone and he had to go and pick up one of the children at 3pm. The wife came home early but dinner was not ready. In the end, they settled for a late dinner at about 9pm as the wife wanted to eat assam laksa and both of them took a while to cook that. The effort was worth it as the assam laksa was comparable to Ah Loy's.

Antonym

He read the book "How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie years ago. It was first published in 1937 but the contents can still be applied in this modern age. Recently he noticed another book that has a somewhat reverse title, "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People: A Memoir". Unlike the former, this new book first published in 2002 is not a self-help book.

Sunday came and gone

She went and hand delivered the assignment given by the association at 3.30pm. Stopped by a road side stall to eat pumpkin noodle. At night, she tried to finish some admin work she started earlier in vain. At least she finished clearing out some of the tricks and items pending since mid summer. That would have to do for now.

Just another Saturday

J called her again telling her that the association is having another meeting at 2pm today and urged her to attend this time so she said yes. She attended the meeting without having taken any lunch and listened to all the testimonials with a growling stomach. The undertaker was there to present a letter of thanks from the family of the affected. At the end of the session, everyone was invited to sign the book of condolence. It was a sad day indeed.

Spring Cleaning

Now is not exactly spring but he has started cleaning his home in preparation of celebrating the new year. He spent nearly the whole day sorting out his things. He has the time to do so because his boss in the office has asked everyone to start clearing their annual leaves and he has taken today and the following Monday off. Hopefully he'll make good progress for the next three days.

Just another day

Errand day again. The same old round except for eating at a new place, "Restoran Ayam Kampung Tuan Faridah" and dropping by the lawyer's office to sign some documents. Will have to wait for more than one month for the whole process to be through but made the full payment for legal fees. Son was shouting over and over again, "I dragon I dragon," after watching a dragon cartoon. Corrected him, "It is I am a dragon, not I dragon." So common for children to speak without the verb to be. Will need to teach them patiently.

Bookworm

After school, he wandered to the mall and went to the bookstore. He wasn't looking for a specific book, he was there just to browse. His love for books borders on addiction and he spent a little more than 3 hours in the shop. While he was there, he overheard someone saying, "Obama berjaya menjadi Presiden Amerika Syarikat!", and asked himself, how would this affect his life in Malaysia. He left when he remembered the maid has asked him to buy some lemongrass for her and to get it home to her before dinner time. Actually throughout the day, an unsolved math equation during school: "2 times (square root of x) minus square root of (2x+1) = 1" kept appearing in his mind over and over again. He wondered who he could ask to help him solve it. On the way out of the mall, he noticed a laptop advertisement asking, "Are you mobile enough to work anywhere?". "My mum is, her blackberry never leaves her side", he burst out suddenly, startling the people around him, who thought he was crazy to be talking aloud to himself.

Supermarket sweep

He has to shop for grocery today as it is Tuesday and there is a special 10% cash rebate just on Tuesday. On other days, it is just 5% cash rebate. Recently, his wife applied for a supplementary card for him just so that they could get to enjoy this savings. A few days before, he made a long list of things that he has to get for the household. He estimated that it would take him at least 2 hours to get all the things on his list. Just 1 hour into his shopping, his phone rang and it was his son, Wen Kok's primary school teacher. The teacher told him that his son is not feeling well and wants to go home. So can he please go over and pick him up as soon as he can? Well, his shopping is not done yet but his son is his priority. He rushed around the supermarket and basically just grabbed the things on his list. Paid up and went to get his son. Miraculously, his son felt much better in his car and they went to have lunch together at Esquire Kitchen. At home, when he was putting away the things he bought into the cabinets, he discovered that in his hurry, he has bought a new 750ml bottle of shampoo at an expensive price of RM30 when there is still a full bottle, unused in the cupboard. There are times that the bottle of shampoo is sold at a cheaper price of RM19. The wife is not going to like this.

No eye see mall rat

Win Keong's parents work hard to give him a good life so most of the time they are not around at home to be with him. They once said to him, "We want you to concentrate on doing your best in everything that you do, don't worry about anything else, especially the money, we'll take care of it". Feeling bored staying at home with just the maid, he often goes to the mall to hang out. He just loves to wander around the mall and to look at new innovative products. He seldom buys anything because he does not want his parents to find out about this habit of his. One day, a friend of his father who has a shop at the mall that Win Keong frequents, met up with his father and casually mentioned to his father about seeing Win Keong there almost everyday. Normally, one would expect the father to blow up or to advise his son to spend more time on his studies but no, the father just kept this piece of information to himself and did nothing.

Sleeping the day away

For the third consecutive morning, she woke up to the ringing of the telephone. It was J again.
J: "There's another association meeting tonight at 8.30, will you be going?"
H: "No, I won't."
She then put down the phone and returned to dreamland. She practically slept the whole day, getting out of bed once or twice for meals only. In the evening, the neighbours were having friends over and making a ruckus. She went over to have a word with them about the noise. She noticed that the friends were playing PS3. "Little Big Planet" and "FIFA 09" were amongst some of the titles lying around in their living room. She had no idea what the games were about and glanced around. Her eyes stopped on a book, "I’m not sick, just a bit unwell", written by a local girl. Instead of getting into an argument with the neighbour about the noise, she ended up borrowing the book from her. Getting home, she got into bed again.

Another day lost?

J called her again.
J: "Are you going to the association session at 3pm?"
H: "No, I don't think so, gotta finish my tv series".
So she stayed indoor all day and finished her tv series marathon. Just went out once during the afternoon to take her nephew for a hair cut.

A day lost?

She wanted to sleep in but had to get out of bed when her phone started ringing.
J: "Hello H, I called you at the office and they told me that you are having a day off. Do you remember you owe Bee Yin Han a lot of money and you promised her that you will return her money by today? I'm just calling you to remind you of this. We can go see her together and then have lunch."
H (Still feeling sleepy): "Ok. I'll swing by to pick you up around 11am."
So she got ready, went and picked J up. Then both of them went to see Bee and paid up. After that, the three of them ate lunch at a restaurant in a tall people-oriented building. She reached home at about 2pm because she had to drop J off. She then spent the rest of her second day off work catching up on a TV series that she didn't have time to watch during her work days. Soon she developed a headache from watching 6 hours of TV non-stop and had to get a takeaway for dinner. Winter was imminent - the fourth season in a year but yet living in a country near the equator, the weather was as hot as it can be. She went to bed at night with a throbbing head.

Long weekend

It was the beginning of an extended weekend as she took two days off work. For the past week, her schedule has been very taxing. Today was also the 17th anniversary of her getting into the company. Since morning, she relaxed at home and watched a comedy about how easy it was to misunderstand one another. The things that were unsaid but understood by the speaker were perceived differently by the receiver causing the two to appear at different places for their rendezvous. She made a note to herself to remember this and to be more specific in her communications with others. She couldn't finish the show in peace as she had to make several trips to the washroom. It must be due to something that she ate the previous day but she couldn't pinpoint the cause. She hoped to enjoy her remaining days off leisurely.

Only One

Role swap

Wen Kok knew that there was something different with his family when he started schooling. He noticed that his friends' mothers sent them to schools and were always around to attend to them while their fathers went to work. It was the other way round in his household. His father stayed at home to see to their needs whereas his mother went to work in an office. His father even took them along after school to shop for grocery, pay all the bills - utilities, insurance, legal fees, and even bought them clothes when necessary. His mother worked hard. She tried her best to leave her office on the dot at 6 in the evening but occasionally she had to work late until 9 at night. He wondered whether this kind of alternative arrangement would start a domino effect in society and that more of his friends would see their fathers as homemakers instead of their mothers.

Happy Deepavali!

On festive days, children should treat parents to a meal be it lunch or dinner, especially when the children have grown up and are no longer living with their parents. And also on festive days, one should not eat too much of the same dish and if one is eating out, please make sure that one does not order too large a portion of a dish. For example, order half a chicken instead of a whole chicken for a table of four.

More or less?

The proverb "Many hands make light work" means "Large tasks become small when divided among several people" (source: Bartleby.com - The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition). This is true for many cases. For example, when collecting funds for charity, assembling components of furniture, and finishing a huge meal with many dishes - it is better to have more people in your company. However, there is another saying: "Too many cooks spoil the broth". In your life, which one is more applicable to you?

This is just raw

Overheard in the sea of Japan.

Salmon: I want to play and swim with you always.
Tuna: I know but my school expects me to swim with them.
Salmon: Please don't give me resistance too.
Tuna: Don't say that, I do want to play with you.
Salmon: I'll swim with your school then, just to be with you.

So far yet so fast

Hansel and Gretel's trail of crumbs

Son, make way for Pac-Man!

It was a nice afternoon when I decided to treat my son to a very scrumptious meal at a nearby hotel that was having a promotion for people holding city cards. When we reached there, we were shown to a table with a nice pool view and cool breeze as the inner icebox was fully occupied. We went to get our food and whoosh! something zoomed past us and nearly knocked my boy over. I have to grab my boy out of its way. Hah, the thing can't be blamed as it was Pac-Man! What does Pac-Man know - except to eat, eat and eat. Despite that, my son and I enjoyed our day together and our food.

Truly Inspector Gadget

Inspector Gadget armed with his baby and PSP went to the local mall to get a Nokia E71 to feed his gadget monster. Lighter by RM1699, on the way home, he ran into John and Andy. Wanting to be friendly, he stopped to make small talk. Waving goodbye, he said to Andy, "Send my regards to your girlfriend, Mary". Andy looked uncomfortable. Oops, Mary is not Andy's girlfriend, she is Andy's ex-wife who left him for another. Andy's current girlfriend is John's sister, Anne. So it was an awkward moment for all three of them. What a silly mistake. He must work on his absent-mindedness, must remember to think before speaking and to concentrate on what he is speaking about. What a day!

Hao qi hai si mao

What exactly does "Curiosity Killed the Cat" mean? According to The Phrase Finder website, it means "Inquisitiveness can lead one into dangerous situations".

On the other hand, "Curiosity Kills the Cat" is the English title for a Chinese movie in which Carina Lau won best actress in the Golden Rooster Awards (2007). Note: The best actress award for that year was shared between Carina Lau and Yan Bingyan.

Humans are curious creatures. We are curious about the '"real" person behind blog persona. Bloggers are curious about the "real" person who left comments on their blogs. Will curiousity kills us then as it killed the cat?