Deepavali 8 November 2007 Part 1 (Photos)

Deepavali 8 November 2007 Part 1

I woke up at 7am so that we could get out from Tracy’s apartment by 8am. Had a cup of Milo before left the apartment. She had her usual daily intake of nutritious drink.

‘Setia Jaya’ train station is located behind Tracy’s apartment and Taylors College Sunway campus.

We took the train from ‘Setia Jaya’ to KL Sentral and walked over to the monorail station to take the monorail to Titiwangsa. We sat at the front and I was able to take a shot of the driver from the back with his gear.

Upon arrival at Titiwangsa station before 10am, we went to buy our coach ticket to Genting Highlands. Our tickets were for 10.50am so we proceeded over to some shops to fill our stomach passing by Vistana Hotel.

We found a mamak stall/shop and decided to have ‘roti’. I ordered a roti canai with hot Milo while Tracy ordered a roti telur with ‘teh tarik’. The meal came to less that RM5.

Trip to Kuala Lumpur 7 November 2007

'Pho'


I left work at 415pm to go home to do my final packing for my trip to Kuala Lumpur. Had a light dinner after 6pm and my brother-in-law drove me to Terminal 2 to catch my 8.05pm flight to Kuala Lumpur.

When I was queuing up to check in for my flight, I saw my colleague John Saw with his friends, whom he introduced to me. They were on the same flight as me.

I knew that the flight was not going to be full so I boarded the plane almost after everyone else had started leaving the departure lounge.

I found a seat in the middle of the plane near the left aisle where the wings are located. There was no one beside me and the person sitting next to the window on the same row as me was a University Malaysia Sabah student (I assumed she is one since she’s wearing a UMS jacket).

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was one of the most terrible flights I had been on. Due to lots of clouds, the plane kept on shaking the whole night. If that was twenty years ago, I think I would have terrible bout of air sickness on board or upon arrival. But I was ok the whole trip and thank God for covering me. The UMS student kept on burping the whole night and she did not cover her mouth so it was kinda disgusting to me.

The plane left Kota Kinabalu on time and arrived in Kuala Lumpur on time.

After collecting my luggages, I had problem finding my friend’s car because I haven’t seen a ‘Persona’ in Kota Kinabalu before. My friend had to get out from the car to accompany me to the car. The 'Persona' is very comfortable and spacious but I cannot compare it to the Gen 2 because I have never ridden on it before. My friend bought the car for RM48K.

Had a good time catching up with this friend before we arrived at Mentari Court, Sunway where I was staying with Tracy Ten for the duration of my trip.

Tracy brought me to Taman Megah for supper after midnight. I was disappointed that the ‘Asam Laksa’ store had closed.

I was surveying through the stalls before I finally decided to have ‘pho’. ‘Pho’ is originated from Vietnam and it is a bowl of beef noodles. The people at the store sounded like Vietnamese when I was ordering the noodles.

The ‘pho’ was still not as authentic as the ones I always had in Australia but nonetheless it was still a satisfying meal for a growling stomach. It still lacked herbs and spices.

Went to bed after 2am on Deepavali 8 November 2007 after discussing with Tracy what we were going to do on Deepavali. We decided to go up to Genting Highlands for a day trip and after coming back to Kuala Lumpur, we would go and visit her ex vice principal Mr. Muniady’s open house at Jalan Kastam, near Klang.

Dinner at Upper Star 6 November 2007 (Photos)

Dinner at Upper Star 6 November 2007

Choo Siow Chin came to KK after spending a few days at Kundasang. She told Lily Tan she wanted to have Western food and Lily suggested Little Italy. But we ended up at Upper Star since we never try the food here before.

Upper Star is a pub opposite Hyatt Hotel in Kota Kinabalu with downstairs being al fresco while upstairs air-conditioned. Besides being a pub, this place also serves food at a very reasonable price.

We proceeded to upstairs and it’s a bit dark. The music is loud but since the seats are quite close to each other, having conversations is still ok.

Lily ordered chicken salad. Choo said she wanted to eat lamb chops and chicken cabonara so I didn’t order anything and shared the food with her. In fact three of us ended up sharing food together.

All the food was great for their price. The chicken cabonara was only a small plate but we can’t complain cos it’s less than RM10 a plate. There were three big pieces of lamb chops per serving with french fries and coleslaw. Our only complaint was that there was insufficient gravy accompanying the lamb chops.

When Sophia Tsen arrived, she also ordered lamb chops and had fun digging into them cos she was extremely hungry. She also shared some of the coleslaw and French fries with me.

Choo and Lily went over to Hyatt to buy some cakes. We all shared a piece of tiramisu and chocolate cake for dessert.

Lily treated all of us and the total bill came to less than RM50. Thank you Lily.

Homemade Sushi 4 November 2007 (Photos)

Homemade Sushi 4 November 2007

This was the second time I made sushi recently. The difference was this second time I was using sushi rice and Japanese rice vinegar. So the outcome was totally different from the first time and tasted so much better! Yum Yum!

Chloe and I brought the sushi to school/work respectively for breakfast for the next few days after I made the sushi.

Canaanland Celebration 4 November 2007

Annual Leave Approval 31 October 2007

This morning I applied for my leave for next week to go to Kuala Lumpur and it was approved. I am so happy.

When I told Lily Tan through Windows Live Messenger, she said she saluted me for my faith because I had bought my airtickets first before even applying for my leave.

Well, let’s do some analyses here. So far this year I had only taken 2 half day leave (both on Saturday) – one half for the Eve of Chinese New Year and the other half for my trip back to Sandakan during TYT’s long weekend. So I concluded:-

1. My bosses cannot reject me for taking my annual leave since I am still entitled to have 19 days of leave this year.

2. During the time when I am on leave, my bosses and family would have gone for their Mediterranean cruise.

Even if my bosses don’t approve my leave, I had thought of using both reasons above to help them change their minds but I didn’t need to use them. :)

I not only had bought my airtickets, I also had bought tickets to listen to Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) performing in ‘Dewan Filharmonik’ Petronas, Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur. So I need to be on leave!

Company Lunch at Seremban Seafood 31 October 2007

Today bosses treated us to lunch at Seremban Seafood. It is located at Lot No. 126, Ground and 1st Floor, Block O, Lorong Plaza Permai 5, Alamesra Plaza Permai, Kota Kinabalu. It is near the on going project 1 Borneo site.

Lady boss had ordered the food earlier so we were ushered to 1st Floor with air-conditioner. The Ground Floor looks like any normal coffee shops and only a few tables were occupied. 1st Floor is able to accomodate about 40 people.

First impression was that service was very slow since we were already half an hour late. But we still had to wait for the food to arrive.

Dishes we had were: Steamed corn fed chicken; kangkung stir fried with chillies; choy sim stir fried with garlic; poached prawns; yam ring with chicken and veges; steamed century eggs duck egg and chicken egg; and claypot fish. Dessert were watermelon and papaya.

There was a young waiter and he was utterly rude and careless. He not only spilled the sauce from the steamed chicken on my colleague, he didn’t even apologise! Before the fruits were served, he was trying to clean up the table and when he was near me, he touched my cup of chinese tea!

Overall, the food was ok but the service stinks! And the bill was quite expensive as well.