Dinner

The following dishes were served for dinner at home tonight.

Sweet & Sour Crab

Veges



Kurma Lamb



Another Serving of Kurma Lamb



Crab Claws with Prawn Crackers



Steamed Chicken with Chinese Sausages and Black Fungus

But I did not have dinner at home. I joined Sharon Lai, Monica Leong and Alice Hiew in inviting Andrew Tai & family and Kenny Lim & family for dinner at Wagamama Japanese Restaurant at Lintas Square to celebrate both gentlemen’s belated birthday.

I had a plate of California Sushi and Beef Udon.

Other orders include Menchikatsu (Breaded Dish with Minced Meat) Set, Kimchi Beef Set with Garlic Rice, Chicken Teriyaki Set with Garlic Rice and Saba Shioyaki (Grilled Mackerel) Set with Garlic Rice ...

Fried Octopus

Salmon Shio Set with Garlic Rice

Tori Katsu Set

Sushi

The birthday boys together with their son had the chance to blow a single candle each on a chocolate chip muffin.

Left: Different colour codes for different price for sushi plate
Right: Andrew's Birthday Gift



The amount of sushi plates (about 20) consumed by the next table

Always Ready

Since I started having the RM3 economy rice (smaller serving as compared to the Jawa economy rice of RM4) for lunch at work, my stomach is always hungry by the time I reach home after 6p.m. So instead of my usual internet surfing prior to shower and then dinner, I have been having dinner as soon as I come home while watching the Hong Kong TVB series Always Ready on ntv7.

Always Ready is about the Hong Kong Government Flying Service (GFS) and among the cast members are Cheng E-Kin, Bowie Lam, Charmaine Sheh, Shirley Yeung, Linda Chung, etc. I always like Bowie Lam playing any characters.

And I always find the foreigner who speaks quite good Cantonese a mystery like who is he, where is he from, etc. One night recently I managed to have all my questions answered through his website. His name is Gregory Charles Rivers. He hailed from a small town of Gympie, Queensland, Down Under.

Gregory resigned from TVB recently and is now the personal English tutor of actor Chow Yun Fatt for the Hollywood movie Dragonball.

Lunch at Restaurant Kim Fah, Inanam

Today one of my colleagues YKK who is an Assistant Resident Engineer for one of our project sites was coerced by the boss since last week into treating all office staff lunch after his engagement was confirmed by Public Works Department.

At 11a.m. YKK came to office and before he left, he passed to me his medical bill. He was having fever and went to see the doctor but the doctor did not give him medical leave.

My colleague NE and I went to the restaurant in the boss’s car. The rest of my colleagues went into two other cars. The office boy could not join us since the food is not ‘halal’.

When we arrived at the restaurant, YKK had already arrived and ordered the food (feast, as the boss called it). He brought along his Taiwanese wife to join us for lunch as well. Eventhough I was sitting next to her, I did not talk to her because my Mandarin is still not up to par for holding a decent conversation not related to work. I did not intend to make a fool out of myself.

The menu was as follows.

1. Fish Maw Soup – Can really see and taste the pieces of fish maw.

2. Crispy Skin Chicken – A lot of people do not eat the skin so I ate more of the skin than the flesh. The chicken was quite crispy but I had eaten crispier elsewhere.

3. Fish in Thai Sauce. So so only. I had one teeny weeny piece.

4. Duck in Plum Sauce. Very tasty.

5. Dry Buttered Prawns. Serving was really big but in the end we still managed to finish everything. The prawns were towards the big size range. I had five.

6. Pig Trotters. I only ate veges in this dish as I do not take pig trotters.

7. Yam Ring. Very tasty. Almost as good as Gaya Seafood Restaurant.

8. Veges. Very tasty as well.

The conversation throughout lunch was vouchers spending at 1 Borneo Hypermall. Not everyone has finished using theirs and the deadline is tomorrow except for French Connection outlet (which is still under renovation). Someone has promised the boss that the deadline for the vouchers can be extended but this same person told other people the deadline cannot be extended. So we are wondering whether this person will keep to her promise or not.

Overall the food was fantastic. I think the food in this restaurant must be quite expensive and so YKK would have to fork out a few hundred $ to treat the eleven of us.

(Chatted with CL in Yahoo Messenger for a while after bosses left at 4p.m. I am happy that you got a free trip to Bangkok. Enjoy yourself when the time comes.)

YOUR AGE BY EATING OUT

(I received this through email today. Thanks to LLS for forwarding to me)

Don't tell me your age; you probably would tell a falsehood anyway - but your waiter may know!

YOUR AGE BY DINER & RESTAURANT MATH

This is pretty neat

DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!

It takes less than a minute. Work this out as you read.

Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!

This is not one of those waste of time things, it's fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to go out to eat. (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1758... If you haven't, add 1757.

6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number. (i. e. How many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week.)

The next two numbers are

YOUR AGE ! ------ (Oh YES, it is!)

THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2008) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS

Better Production Rate

I had seven hours of sleep last night. The weather was quite cool and therefore I managed to sleep through without waking up until the alarm on the mobile phone went off.

I was very glad that I was able to finish filing some documents that I have accumulated for so many weeks this morning before the boss arrived.

Sometimes when my production rate is at the lowest, I really have to motivate or push myself.

Yesterday the maid cooked noodles for lunch and I brought some leftovers to work today to have for lunch after heating up in the microwave.

After lunch, the auditor called up and told me she just emailed me the Fixed Assets Schedule. From the Schedule I extracted out the Computer and Office Equipment details that I needed to fill in the Survey Form. I had finally completed the form. Tomorrow I will call the officer from the Statistics Department to collect the form from me.

This afternoon the boss was attending a meeting outside and therefore I had the time to catch up on my accounting work. At least I am not as far behind as before.

The weather is so hot today as compared to yesterday.

Minimum Production Rate

Yesterday the boss was away for a meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Everyone’s production rate was at a minimum including me, maybe a side effect of spending our vouchers at 1 Borneo Hypermall during the weekend and therefore insufficient rest. *wink*

The office boy helped me to deliver some goodies to STAR for Paul Lok and his friends which I bought at Servay Hypermarket on Sunday afternoon after my retail therapy at 1 Borneo Hypermall. I bought them Tenom Coffee, Coconut Jam, Lollies, Biscuits, Dry Guava, Durian Cake, etc (some local products which are unavailable in Hong Kong). I had wanted to deliver to them personally on Sunday night but the pouring and non-stop rain prevented me from doing so.

1 Borneo Hypermall

Retail Therapy at 1 Borneo Hypermall Part 2

Yesterday I had one piece of the prawn noodles brought over from Hong Kong by Paul Lok for breakfast. Before he came over, he did mention that the ones being sold loosely taste better than the ones sold in boxes. He bought two dozens pieces for me. True enough, when I started to eat them, the noodles tasted even better than the ones my brother bought in Hong Kong last year. I did not know the noodles can taste even more delicious. Haha!

I went to 1 Borneo Hypermall again to spend the remaining of my RM200 worth of vouchers which I exchanged with my colleague. I saw a few people I know before I even had the chance to touch foot inside Tune Store.

Once again I went to the clothing department to see whether I could find any clothes I like. I found three I like from Nicole. I brought them all into the fitting room to try but I did not like one of them. As soon as I took off the clothes I had tried, to my horror, I saw one by one small red dots appeared on my neck. It was such an ugly sight. To make it worst, I was wearing an open neck blouse. My skin is very sensitive and therefore the rashes must have appeared because the clothes are not clean. Argh! (After putting some cream on the small red dots last night and tonight, the rashes are subsiding).

I wanted to get more footwear and was trying on so many pairs of shoes from NYC (the same brand I bought last week). All throughout my life, I always have problems finding the footwear that I like to wear. As my legs can only fit size 3 footwear, more often than not, the footwear has to choose me instead of the other way round. I also try not to wear high heels too often since I have a back problem. At least I managed to get two pairs of footwear from NYC.

At the kitchen department, I managed to find two pairs of scissors for kitchen use. Mum always complained that the scissors I bought would turn blunt very quickly. I hope this time the scissors would last longer since they are supposed to be made in Japan.

I learnt a hard lesson from last week’s retail therapy. This time I put all the things I want to get at the cashier first and went out from this outlet to window shopping at other outlets.

After walking around for a while, I finally got to the Second Floor where Daiso Japan outlet is.

Everything for sale such as stationery, gift boxes, kitchen stuff, household stuff, etc in this outlet is RM5 each. But some of the goods are made in China, not Japan. There were a lot of people in this outlet. I bought these from this outlet.

Butter Knife & a Small Plate to put Japanese Soya Sauce on one side and Wasabi on another (instead of using two small plates)

These gift boxes for sale at Daiso Japan Outlet reminded me of the company I worked for in Sydney.

At first I wanted to come home for lunch but my stomach dictated otherwise. I ended up choosing Penang Village. I was struggling to choose between ‘Asam Laksa’ or ‘Penang Prawn Mee’. My colleague had recommended the latter so I chose the latter. This eatery was only half full when I walked in. I tried to take some photos of the menu but the dim lighting did not enhance the photos and I did not want to use the flash. So the exercise was totally redundant.

The soup for the Penang Prawn Mee was one of the best I ever had. It was so concentrated. But the noodles and the prawns were ok only. I almost finished drinking the whole bowl of soup. I was glad I did not order any drinks because the soup really filled me up. *burp*

After lunch I went back to Tune Store to get all my goodies before leaving. As I walked out from the hypermall, there were more people arriving by cars. The cars had to practically queue up to get into the carpark.

I enjoyed the retail therapy this time round because I had more time to walk around.

Starbucks Coffee Kiosk

Golden Screen Cinemas - Movies On Show

Gifts Outlet

Tune Hotel

Security Guard Guarding ???

Construction Still in Progress

2007 OT

Finally two days ago at 4p.m. I managed to complete the Statistics Department Survey Form. Actually I started doing it last Tuesday but had to put it aside because other work took over the priority.

Last year altogether my colleagues and I clocked up 1000 hours of OT. But then the figure is not really correct because I did not make any claim from January to March. One colleague clocked up the most – 68.4% while I came in second at 19.8% of the total. The rest of the colleagues clocked up only 11.8%.

It would be interesting to see how many hours of OT I will end up having this year as this month alone, I will have approximately 50 hours.

This morning I emailed the auditors to ask for the breakdown of the depreciation for Office and Computer Equipment since they lumped both together in last year's audited accounts. After obtaining this information, then I will have completed the Survey Form.

A Decade Ago

A decade ago today at exactly 6a.m. you changed your earthly address.

I miss you ever since and will forever miss you until the day I change my address to join you.

Thank you for making a lasting impact in my life …