Dinner at Five Sails, Magellan Sutera Harbour Resort

On Friday 14 November 2008 I received the following sms from Standard Chartered Bank.

StanChart: Get 50% off Dinner Buffet @ Five Sails Magellan Sutera with your StanChart Credit Card! Valid 17 Nov 08 at 7-10.30pm. Call 088 318888. T&C apply

During lunchtime, I sprung into action and called the restaurant to enquire. Then I sms Sophia Tsen to see whether she was interested to join me and she replied in the affirmative. I called the restaurant again to book a table for two in the air-conditioner section.

Since we love food so much what better way to dine than in the each other’s company with half the price! I hope I will get more of these offers in the future. Haha

Sophia even dressed up for the occasion by putting on her make-up, wearing a mini dress she bought in Singapore recently and wearing heels as well. Thanks Sophia for the gift from Singapore.

We enjoyed the appetiser and salads more as compared to the hot dishes. But the lamb with snow pea, chawan mushi and specially ordered teppanyaki were quite good as well.

We ate and chatted until 10p.m. and we were the second last table to leave.

Mixture of Appetisers - Sliced Ham, Shoba, Potato Salad, Mushrooms

(L) Breaded Mussel with a Dash of Caviar & (R) Salmon Mousse

Smoked Salmon with Cheese and Aubergine Terrine

Chilled Mussels with Wasabi Mayonnaise, Sushi


Hot dishes - Croqutte, Veges Tempura, Lamb with Snow Pea,
Beef Patty with Tomato, Fried Calamari

Teppanyaki - Beef & Mussels with Shitake Mushrooms, Onions and Veges

Chicken Taco

Chawan Mushi

More Chilled Mussels with Wasabi Mayonnaise & Thousand Island Salad Dressing

Honeydew Pudding

His Shekinah Glory

God manifested His awesome presence as we worshipped Him tonight. His Shekinah Glory fell upon us. In His presence we are transformed from glory to glory. None would remain the same in His presence.

Do not seek for healing but the Healer.

Do not seek for prosperity but the God who prospers.

Do not seek for blessing but the God who blesses.

The side effects of the presence of God are healing, prosperity, blessing and many more.

All praise, glory and honour to His Name!

Dinner at Garden Seafood Restaurant, Tg. Aru

Tonight cousin Seekan treated all of us for dinner on the eve of his departure back to London tomorrow.

The menu is as follows.

1. Poached Prawns.

2. Sweet and Sour Fish.

3. Wet Butter Crabs.

4. ‘Kangkung’ in ‘Belacan’.

5. Stir Fried Deer Meat with Ginger and Shallots.

6. ‘Kung Po’ Mussels with Cashew Nuts.

7. Steamed Elephant Trunk Shellfish.

8. Deep Fried Mantis Prawns.

Everything was finished as dinner did not begin until 8.15p.m.

Inland Revenue Department (IRD)

A week ago I received a phone call from an officer from IRD informing me that they would be coming to the office to audit the company payroll for last year and this year up to last month.

So from then onwards I had been busy making sure everything single piece of payroll was in order, in case any that did not have signature. I found some and told the respective persons to sign them.

Yesterday the officer called up to say that they would be coming in the afternoon instead of the morning as stated in the letter since they had a meeting in the morning.

Three officers (one woman and two men, all Malays) came at 2.45p.m. The lady was the one who asked all the questions while the men were just sitting there like ‘decoration’.

The normal practice of working out staff monthly income tax is to deduct the Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF) amount from the gross salary before looking at the Income Tax Table. But my company’s practice is using the gross amount without deducting the EPF amount.

Therefore each month each individual employee is paying more than the required amount of tax. We all prefer it this way because that means we would not have to fork out as much by the end of the year when we lodge in the income tax form.

The officers were happy to find out we practice this way. They only stayed for half an hour and had to go to two other places before the end of the working day.

I was extremely relieved after they left. I did not do anything wrong. Just having them around gave me the jitter.

Pound Sterling

This evening after work, I went to Marina Court Condominium to fetch cousin Seekan and his gf Marie to check-in into Pacific Sutera Hotel.

When we arrived at the counter, there were three foreigners in front of us and four ladies supposed to be serving at the counter. We waited for about ten minutes until one of the concierges came over and told me to to line up at one of the counters. But the lady in front of that counter told me to wait. Frankly speaking I think the service needs improvement eventhough we were not in a hurry.

One of the ladies directed us to the counter at the far right. After the check-in procedures were done, the lady showed me a piece of paper which I had to sign. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the hotel had reserved the room one night short. I told the Reservation Department Monday to Wednesday night. The person attending my booking call must have heard Monday to Wednesday.

Next the lady asked for credit card. Seekan asked me whether I wanted to pay since the booking was under my name. I told him I can if only he will reimburse me the same amount in Pound Sterling. Haha He quickly took out his credit card and passed it to the lady. He was then asked to key in the credit card pin number.

The room allocated to them is on the 9^th Floor overlooking the golf course. No doubt the ocean view would be nicer but that would mean more $.

Panty and Nappy

This morning as the office boy TI was going out for his errands, he told me he needed money for two things. All I heard of through his mumblings were panty and nappy. So I bursted out laughing non-stop before I could tell him and NE. Then we all laughed together.

TI was actually saying painting (paint would be the correct word) and netting.

Christmas is Just Around the Corner

I always tell myself I want a nice Christmas tree with beautiful decorations when I have a house. Well, I have the latter in 2002 but still there is no tree in sight.

At this time each year, I would be comtemplating on the former but still have not gotten my rear moving to actually get one. *sigh*

Hi Sirs

I forgot about the following incident which happened last Sunday on my way to Canaanland Celebration until I stopped at the Tuaran Road-Damai-Sports Complex junction this morning when the traffic lights turned red.

As I was about to stop at the same spot last Sunday, I saw that the car on the next lane was a police car. In most normal circumstances when I stop at any traffic junctions, I never like to glance over to see who are inside the car next to me. But since that was a police car, I thought I had a quick peek.

I discovered that an Indian policeman who was the passenger was actually looking at me. I smiled at him. He nodded and smiled back at me.

After that I pretended to look ahead but could not resist to take another peek. This time round I discovered the driver who was a Malay policeman was also looking at me. I nodded and smiled back. Likewise the Malay policeman returned the same gestures. Both of them looked happy.

Coincidentally this incident happened on the last day of my probation licence and had never happened before in the course of my two years driving.

Since I just mentioned my probation licence, I thought I will digress a bit.

I still have not taken down the P (probation) stickers from the car windscreens yet.

I discover that there is pro and con of still having the P sticker.

Pro - Most drivers generally are more patient.

Con - But some drivers would always be big bullies. When they see the sticker, they automatically assume that they can do anything. For instance, a few days ago a driver was waiting to come out to Kolombong Road and upon seeing the car quickly came out in front of me when I was only two car length away. I would have knocked on the car if I was accelerating.

Thank you Lord

This morning I discovered I had red eye on my left eye when I was brushing my teeth.

I prayed and asked God to heal the eye so that I could attend Canaanland Celebration. I tried to put on some eyedrops but discovered that there was not much left.

One and a half hours after I woke up, I had a final look at the mirror before I went out and found out that the red eye had gone.

Thank you Lord for healing me.

Assistant at Work

One of my colleagues KYF who is based at the project site started work again middle of last month after one month break in between projects.

But eventhough Letter of Award had been issued to the contractor for the project he is looking after, there is still no physical work on site as to date. As a result, KYF has been spending most of his time in the office.

I am thankful to have him helping me with a bit of my work. Each time when I thank him after helping me, he would say I do not need to do that since he’s getting paid for it. Well, manners is manners.

There are people in the office that I have never heard the word thank you being utter out from their mouth at all. Maybe it is not in their vocabulary.