I Could Cook Like Them Too

I love to watch the celebrity chefs’ shows on astro and imagine myself whipping up great dishes effortlessly like them too. Finding myself renting a room in a condominium together with some students and having an ill-equipped kitchen does not really encourage my cooking talents to bloom.

At home mother reigns supreme in her kitchen and the only tasks she felt worthy to pass over to me were washing dishes and cleaning vegetables. I told her I was not learning anything just standing there watching. Occasionally she would passed over the wok chan to me and let me stir the food a bit but that too she was too eager to snatch out from my hands. I guess she must be feeling agitated and powerless in a kitchen without her wok chan


Back to the celebrity chefs, I noticed that the cooking shows nowadays were so different from the past. They did not give recipes anymore. You want it, get it from their blogs.

My favourite celebrity chefs on astro are:

Jamie Oliver, the naked chef

Jamie never washed his vegetables and meat. He took the food out from the grocery bags, out from their wrappers and start chopping and peeling away. Eewww ... we can't do it here. we will probably have ka liu ingredient in our dishes; grubs and caterpillars and night soil, etc.

and

Nigella Lawson - the domestic goddes

she was such a hot gorgeous looking mum before she begun her recipe repertoire in the TV series Nigella Express. In the 13-part series, seen on BBC2, Miss Lawson cooks up rocky road marshmallow crunch bars, doughnut French bread, buttermilk chicken drumsticks, fried lamb chops and caramel covered croissants.

anyway, fat or no fat, she is still my favourite chef. the conclusion of the story is .... i want my own kitchen. hahaha .... hope this message get across the board.

My Diamond Ring

diamond ring from tomei


I never truly able to comprehend the estasy of owning a pretty diamond ring until i have one myself. now all i can say is ... "yohooo ...!" (^ O ^)

last week ky had to literally drag me along to shop for our rings in the midst of my frenzy marking period. but i was really glad he did so.

we had visited several jewellery shops, and got to know some really nice sales persons that were genuine to offer their help and expertise and also some not very nice ones that were only too eager to make profit from us.

anyway, ky had bought this pretty diamond ring for me and i love it to bits. It was a bit pricey and cut a deep, big hole in his wallet. but he insisted that i should have this ring. i was truly touched to receive something so nice from ky. he wanted me to have all the good things he could afford. he has read up all about diamonds and did his homework at nights before he bought this ring for me.

the diamond shines and sparkles prettily. i was told that the cut is above excellent, the ideal cut that give the stone its intense brillance and fire. i wasn't allowed to wear it when i have to go out alone, and only wear for short periods at home. Understandably, it was expensive and ky didn't want me to lose it before our ROM.

Love Vision

Love Vision Fair in BU - 13 January 2008
Photographs from some of their albums
I like the sepia tone photos in some of their work. it looked very classic and timeless
oppps .... it's time to lost some weight for both of us and get rid of the dark circles and eye bags!

More samples from Love Vision

they have their own penthouse in ss2

We were jalan-jalan and shopping in BU last Sunday. We had decided earlier that we would visit the KL Bridal Fair 2008 next week in Mid Valley on the 18 Jan. There I hope to get some CNY clothes and also look around at D&P for suitable rings. ky heard D&P offered 20% discount for its members.

Anyway, back to the earlier story in BU. Love Vision Bridal House was organizing a 3-days promotion and we dropped by just out of curiosity, we thought we were just going to ask some questions but instead we ended up sitting there more than one hour.

There was this lucky draw thing, rolling dices and see how much discount we can get.
We rolled the dices and got 11 points, meaning rm 588 discount. The original package was rm2988, after discount was rm2400. ky did not believe there was such a good deal, the photoshoot pictures were very very good and the deal seemed too good to be true.

However, we did manage to get away without signing anything … at that time we were too tired and we need time to think. When we get back home and considered the deal again, we decided to go back to the fair again. This time we bring along our list of questions.

After more than two hours of negotiating and grilling the SA, we finally signed it. Pheew … now all we can do is to cross our fingers and hope everything would turn out to be alright.

My role as a future loupor

The man i love most bestowed me with the honorific title "loupor" that would make any woman heart sings with joy.

Lately, he even made a loupor song and sang it to me whenever i was in the kitchen washing up his dirty nescafe cups and breakfast bowls.

"that is what a loupor is for,
to wash and cook and take care of the house,
iron my shirts and make my bed,
rain and shine my loupor works with smile on her face,
that is what my loupor is for ...." ????

Christmas @ Sunway Piramid

It had been years since i been to sunway piramid. i think it was during my uni years. anyway, it has been renovated and it is huge. i wish i can do some new year clothes shopping here but ky was not too keen.

i guess our shopping styles are too different. i can walk around for hours without having any clues what i wanted to buy but nevertheless still come out with things in the end. whereas ky wanted to be focused, and get what he has planned earlier. he won't be sidetracked by things displayed in the windows. but as for me, i always make small detours and ended up buying other things else. that was why at times he was so mad at me. but he always tell me he was not.


We just finished watching the movie "aliens vs predators 2" at sunway piramid. it didn't have a very good ending. i thought the predator would once again claim victory against the aliens like in the first movie. however, the human atomic bomb finished the whole drama and that's the end.

actually, christmas had passed. this pictures was taken on the weekend after the christmas. they just leave it there until new year is over before they put up the cny decorations.

ky is so happy rubbing noses with the reindeer. no electric pass through though ... :)

snow couples ...

Hahaha ... :P

Koh Tong - Winter Solstice Festival (The Celebration of Spring)

It was Koh Tong, or known as Winter Solstice Festival. on saturday. Most households would have tong yuen and pak cham kai as food offering for altar of the household deities. It was celebrated in a simple manners.

Tong yuen with gula melaka
in-the-makingky mum's preparing pak cham kai and sang choy for the sembahyang.

After that we make our journey to segamat to visit my parents.

Gunung Ledang, johor - the place where the mystical bunian princess lives

Going back home has a very nice feeling ...

my father bought this for us - the famous segamat durian

on sunday, we met up with my cousin - yoke fong, for yumcha session. segamat town, only moderate in size, offers suprisingly number of cafes with good food and drinks at affordable prices.

nanyang white kopi - only costs rm1.70
kopi peng and wholemeal bread with kaya and butter. we would never miss them each time we come back to segamat.

As monday both of us have to work, we have to travel back on sunday evening itself. mum cooked an early dinner and insisted we ate before we left. the traffic jam started at 6.44pm immediately after we passed air keroh, melaka.
it started to rain at 7.14pm, the crawl continue ....

started to feel a little desperate for a toilet stop ......

.... the never ending line of cars heading to seremban and kl

..... 7.46pm ..... getting very desperate ..... we have not reached seremban yet.

ohmigod .... we didn't realize we are running on a near empty gas tank!

finally we found a petrol station after driving for more than 20km.

god has mercy on us ... we finally reached home around 9pm. it has been a long and tiring weekend.

Planning for A Chinese Wedding

For those who have gone through it they knew how messy and busy the whole affair can be. For those who has not gone through this yet, you will know how it feels when your time come. i don't need to explain.

king yeung and I had a lot of things in our minds. Mostly about money and how to get which things done first, one at a time.

Here are the things we have done so far:
1) the first hurdle - talk to our parents about it. they are perfectly happy with our choices of life's partner.
2) open a join account together and faithfully put in money into it every month.
3) asking around for tips from married friends.
4) bought a file - it is time to do some serious research and planning.

shopping for the wedding rings will come soon after we received our bonuses.

honestly, there are so much of things to do and we do not know where to begin. friends who dropped by to read our blog are welcome to give some advices.

In-line Skating

Remember the time when roller skating was a craze during our school days and everybody talked about it? Still remember the kind of old skates which need to be held with shoes laces and protective gears were literally unheard of?

The pictures of this old pair of roller skates invokes a lot of childhood memories.

At that time, king yeung and I too had wanted to learn skating (we have the same desire even though we were 300km apart and do not know the existence of each other yet). However our parents did not allow us to participate in this dangerous sport and thereafter our dreams buried and forgotten.

Perbadanan Putrajaya Complex

However, during our last trip to Putrajaya, we had stopped at the Perbadanan Putrajaya Complex, just opposite of Istana Kehakiman and we noticed how big and spacious the area is. At that time we saw some cyclists cycled by and we thought how fun that would be if we could travel along the Boulevard in the same manner.


We decided to get ourselves a pair of roller blades each and hence the search for the perfect roller blades started for us. We found them at BU and ky bought them as a gift for me ... hurrah!!

the first time we tried it out both of us had terrible falls and bruises that lasted us for many weeks. after many trials and errors, we finally learn to skate without holding onto the the railing. a victorious day for us ... :)

King Yeung and his roller blades

It is tiring activity and both of us sweat like mad.

KY again....

Me ..... but why only one picture? good question ... that is the only best shot from KY the jelly fingers

something interesting going on here ...

last weekend we went back to segamat and we saw this car parked in front of maybank. we try to capture the photo with king yeung's handphone when we stopped at the traffic light but the result turned out to be dissappointing because it was too far away. however, the next morning when we went to the bank again , there we saw it still parked there.


king yeung's car just two cars away.

i don't think maybank can ask the tow truck to tow away this car. the driver even put out the parking tickets for the whole day. i think he wanted to leave it there for many many days until his message gets across the people inside the building.

A visit to Batu Caves

This is a not-so-updated event but i decided to blog it anyway. During the hari raya holiday, king yeung and i went to Batu Caves on one of our leisure excursions on weekends and holidays.

Each time when I drive to Taman Melati in Wangsa Maju from PJ using MRR II, I will definitely pass by Batu caves and the impressive 42.7m high golden statue of Lord Murugan loom majestically from far.

I remembered paying this historical site a visit during a school trip and i was wonderfully suprised when I saw the statue for the first time. It was only completed in 2006 after three years of construction. The first time i saw it was when King Yeung drove me to Taman Melati to look for a room to rent in Septemeber.

That morning when we were supposed to go to Batu Caves was dark and the clouds were pregnant with rain. When we reached there, part of the lime stones hills were already covered with fine, white mist and light drizzle had started.

We went anyway, especially when I told king yeung that there were hundreds of long-tailed macaque monkeys roaming in the caves and hundreds of koi fishes filled to its brim in the pond. We were excited with the thoughts of getting close to the animals and we had brought along a packet of peanuts to feed them too.

Anyway, it was quite a big disappointment when we discovered the monkeys were no longer there; maybe they were chased away because they always harassed the visitors, and the koi fishes were not there too, as they were renovating the ponds.

We just took some pictures, stop to admire a huge white python snake, a monstrous chameleon and an arrogant old monkey tied to a post at the entrance of the cave as we waited for the heavy rain to subside.

The way down the 272 steps were wet and slippery and we huddled close under the umbrella and make our way down slowly. But still we were wet. At the bottom of the steps water had risen to about 3-4 inches and we had to take off our shoes and socks and rolled up our jeans. From there we walked bare-footed back to the car.

We were wet and cold and we ended the excursion with a nice and hot tomyam meal in 1U. yummy … ^-^


Batu Caves - and the impressive Lord Murugan reigns at 42.7m high. He is the God of War and the patron deity of the Tamil land.

Batu Caves view from the entrance of the cave.

the monkey that we don't get to see.

there are a huge sky hole inside the cave, and a whole new world on top of the lime hills.

there are numbers on each step, from the bottom to the top, 272 steps altogether. no jogging and exercising here please!

the interior of the cave is cooling and mystical. but i did look around nervously for signs of bats. Bats mean got bat's shit. don't want to step onto any ... eeeeiii

Women's Driving Club

I lost my way for nearly two hours last saturday when i tried to go to PJ from wangsa maju. i was terrribly anxious as i need to go to toilet, i don't have a map with me, and king yeung was waiting for me so both of us can travel back to segamat.

but in the end i ended up somewhere in sungai buloh, batu caves, kepong and bandar menjalara, and eventually back to wangsa maju. i never reach PJ on that day. feeling terribly frustrated, terrified and tired, i gave up trying to reach pj. finally, i called ky to pick me up from my place. He has been such a darling, i felt like a failure.

Mid Autumn Festival

I bought a box of mooncakes from The Baker's Cottage today. This is a must have in every household, even more so if we were to buy for in-laws or future in-laws. Giving gifts during festive seasons is deemed good manners and show that we have been brought up properly by our parents.

But how I wish the mooncakes would taste better. Nobody really like to eat them because they are too sweet. But we buy the expensive stuff because they are a must-have and I honestly think the box cost more than the cakes itself.

The mooncakes we bought from the shopping centers never fail to look like the dummy plastic food the Japanese restaurants put out for display. They are odourless, no real texture to chew on, the lotus paste and salted egg yolk are hard and brittle .... and only have one kind of taste... sweet.

Frankly, if I have a choice, I would prefer those fresh baked mooncakes sold from homes. The crust is crispy, the salted egg yolk is definitely fresher, and the lotus paste is hot and fragrance if just taken out from the oven..... hmmm .....

Anyway, unless we know some aunties who would do it from homes, we have to be contented with the machine-made mooncakes churned out from the factories every year.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival everyone!

Making Paper Roses

Aaahhh ..... at last. I managed to get my paper rose right after so many fail attempts last sunday.

I learn from watching how they do it in youtube. I felt so guilty folding the roses as my exam papers pile up at a corner waiting for me to mark and I have a deadline to beat! But once I started I couldn't stop unless I finish the mission.

Today is the third day I made the attempts to fold the rose, after putting in several hours of real concentration. and I have to hide in a corner at work to do it, under the pretext of marking exam papers. shame on me! What would my colleagues think of my crazy obsession during this crucial time of completing my works.

but once i did it, i was washed over with real satisfaction. I folded a few more and put in on my table. kakakaka .... now i can go back to my work. i managed to overcome my distraction.


they are also called kawasaki roses.
this one is difficult to make, because it can bloom or close
the one i folded look something like this.