OMG! Nearly got stuck in the lift....

This is like kinda freaky! I nearly got stuck in the lift this morning. I was on my way to my office floor, there's me and another girl in the life.

I pressed my 7th floor and the girl is at 5th. The lift went up to third floor and suddenly the lift stop. And the lift sort of like drop and went to 1st floor then to B2. I was contemplating if we should press the alarm. The girl then tried to press 5th floor again and I press 7th.

Luckily I manage to arrive at my floor without getting stuck! According to my colleague, that one particular lift always has problem.

Creepy!!! You know why I think it's creepy??? coz... It's like one of those horror movies where the lift doesn't brings you to your floor and rather..the lift bring u to lower ground floor and lift door will open and you see something else!!! Luckily the lift didn't open!!!

Typical blonde air-heads...

I simply love "Bergdorf Blondes" by Plum Sykes!
It's hilarious and extremely easy to read, don't need to use too much thinking to read it. It might be a little unrealistic for some, but if you're looking for a relaxing and just for laughs, then try this one.

It tells the world of Park Avenue heiresses, aka Bergdorf Blondes and I really like their idea of being engaged! Personally, I felt like I'm reading about the Hilton sisters...

Kluang Trip & Gunung Lambak

During the 2 Hari Raya Holidays, my whole family together with my aunt and cousin went to Kluang to visit my grandma. This grandma is actually my mom's mom. She's quite old and since some of us works and studies, it's quite hard to pay a visit to my grandma.

The entire journey takes about 3 hours plus. We left early Tuesday morning, since it's already first day of raya, there's no jam! But the entire journey is pure suffering!!!! My cousin gets the front seat and my mom, sis, aunt and me all 4 of us cramped at the back seats!!! We're all not very slim... =_='

Anyway, behold...This is my grandma's house. It's more than a century old I believe. Since my great grand parents stayed here too! Though I've not met any of them before including my grandpa.

The house is made out of wood. It doesn't used to look like this. Erm..that's like before I was born. But the house now is pretty much what I see since young.

Well, during the rambutan and durian season is the happiest time for all my relatives. There's like many durian trees and rambutan trees and during the season, there's plenty to eat till my grandma will sell the rambutans away (by entire tree).

Also coz of all these trees surrounding the house, there's unlimited, uncountable, crazy amount of mosquitos in the evening! My sis record of mosquitos bites is actually 100. =_=" Scary huh!!!

Sleeping at night for this trip is a disaster as well! For some reason, a few of my aunties and childrens stayed overnight here despite having their own comfy homes. End up, there's like 5 of us crammed on a tiny queen size bed. I could hardly get any sleep. *sighs* The living room and other rooms are all crammed with people too! LOL... Just a bit of info about my mom's family, there's like 13 of bros and sis. Just imagine CNY. My aunt with their chilrens and their childrens have childrens... There's about 3 generations and I'm not sure if it reached 4th or not. haha...

Most of the time, is boring to be in my grandma's house. There's nothing much to do. No Astro, no internet no pc no aircond no hot water....yada yada... This time, everyone got kinda adventerous and we went to Gunung Lambak for a hike.

Gunung Lambak is an easy mountain to climb. It's 510m above sea level. Many local people go there during the evening for exercise. The kids go there too! Can you see the monkey in the picture?

This hanging bridge actually leads to children playground. haha... The bridge is quite fun to walk. It's not very high up, so there's no worries for people who's afraid of heights.

Gunung Lambak has nice pathways and wooden steps. It's really not that hard to climb. But due to time constraints, I only manage to make it to... less than a quarter of the mountain. hahaha... And also coz of the sleeping arrangements, my initial plan to climb the mountain next morning has failed terribly... *blush*

Only 2 of my cousin (both male), one uncle and my dad went to climb the mountain early in the morning. Well, they reached the top and got back at at about 10 something am. I think it took them about 2 hours to go up and down.

Let's hope I have the determination to climb it on my next trip to Kluang!!! >.<

Try reading Cecelia Ahern and you'll get swollen eyes too...

When you spend most of the time using your brains a lot at work, you just want to just sit there and stare into space when you're at home after work...

Well... I can't do that as I'll end up screaming of boredom. Since I can't do anything much that requires the usage of my brains... I have resorted to reading chic-lite books when I have nothing else better to do at home when there's nothing good on the telly and my sis hogs the internet...

Anyway, have been following Cecelia Ahern's books. I love her style of writing, and she's good at pulling my emotional strings!

It started with "Where Rainbow Ends"... the very first book I read from Cecelia... thanks to Bee for lending it to me and sparked my interest for Cecelia's books! The narration for this book is definitely something different! It's a compilation of notes, letters and e-mails or all sorts of correspondence between the main characters and somehow all this can actually tell a story!

Anyway, "Where Rainbow Ends" centers 2 characters: Rosie and Alex who were meant to be together but somehow fate doesn't seem to be on their side. It's a sweet story and easy to read too, you won't get confused reading the different letters or correspondences.

Then, I bought my first Cecelia Ahern book, "PS I love You". Imagine finding your soulmate and losing him. Yes, this is definitely a tear-jerker, my eyes were swollen for weeks after reading this book... My tears just started flowing the moment I read the first few paragraphs and even after reading this book for the 3rd time, I still cried when I read the first page...
- insert pic of book/link-

Ever had an imaginary friend and nobody believed or understands you? Well, "If You Could See Me Now" understands you. Since I've never had an imaginary friend, thanks to having someone who looks exactly like me and is always around me and she's no imaginary person, it was quite interesting to read about imaginary friends. As usual, this is a sweet book, a little sad of course and I love the cover!

Cecelia's new book "A Place Called Here" is out in the UK, so I'll be waiting for it to reach Malaysian shores (but I'll just order from MPH and wait for them to call me). I can't remember what it's about but I'll definitely be getting it!

You can check out Cecelia's official website but I can't seem to access it at the moment... but oh well, I'll just post it here...http://www.ceceliaahern.ie/
You can also find her books from MPH

Happy Birthday Endoru!

Happy Birthday Endoru
and all the best with your studies!!!

Endoru is one of Xell and my secondary school friend. Knew each other for so long and you've spent quite a looong time in Japan already. Hopefully will get to see you soon! Didn't send you a present all the way to Japan... hope you don't mind. :( Give you a treat when you're back in Malaysia ok? BKT? Yau Char Keuy? hahaha....

Movie: The Prestige

Went to watch The Prestige at Cineleisure today. This movie is not heavily publisize. When I watch this movie, I didn't even know what it was about except for it was about magicians.

After watching the movie, man... this is a good show! The movie has quite a cast actually, having Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Christian Bale (Batman), Scarlett Johansson and Micheal Caine. The movie is actually about 2 magicians who has been rival since when they were young magicians. Both kept trying to out do each other in their magic tricks which leads to jealousy, obesession and deadly consequences.

They story begins with sort of the ending of the movie and tells the story from there. It's quite confusing at first but as you watch, you will get drag into the movie and understand more as you go. You are never quite sure what will happen in the end. The ending kinda surprised me. :P And honestly, I find the movie quite disturbing. haha... It's not a scary movie but the way it is filmed, makes you wonder a lot.

Overall, I will give this movie a rating 4 out of 5 stars. It's definately worth watch especially there's no good movies lately. I shally not reveal anything otherwise there's no fun watching the movie anymore. XD

Happy Birthday Sylphiel!

It's our dear one-of-the-blogger-for-this-blog-but-she-never-blogs birthday! She's getting older... hehe... Don't worry... I shall not reveal your "real" age here... hahaha... Poor girl is sick but anyhow, this post is just to wish you....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND
ALL THE BEST WITH YOUR NEW JOB!

2 different gatherings, 2 nights in a row...

One of my ex-classmate from APIIT(Nestum - erm... his nickame is Nestum, don't ask me why XD) is finally going to leave for Japan soon. Time flies. When he told me he will be leaving end of the year to Japan it was around April or May. Suddenly, it's nearly end of the year already. He will be working there, in Tokyo itself for about a year and will see how things goes. It's a long relationship between his current job and his future Japan company. If I didn't remember wrongly, it's his current company's boss' partner's friend's company. erm... haha... I think I am right :P

First gathering - 18 October 2006, 7:30pm @ Kiwi Restaurant, Sri Hartamas
Well... since he's leaving soon, and some of us are unable to attend his bigger farewell dinner. Me and another 3 went to have dinner with him at Kiwi Restaurant, Sri Hartamas. 5 of us chatting happily till late night. APIIT was really stressful from what we remembered back then, even so, I guess we were quite happy. LOL... The good old days, talking back about the past always makes me feel so old. :P

When I see them, all of them are so successful. What about me? I am not bumming around lar... Just that I am not working in some well-known company. haha... One of them in Shell, one in Accenture, one going to Japan, one more in Standard Charted. *sighs* It's not like my company it's not good (thought I am still too early to judge), it's just NOT well-known lar.

The food there was OKAY-lar. Nothing really special. I had Chicken chop - not bad. One of my friend ordered their seafood basket... hmm... he said the cuttlefish is really "hard" and chewy - not good. There's one food there that NO one should even try ordering coz it's NOT nice. It's the Spaghetti Carbonara. Have anyone of you ever eaten Carbonara with Tomatoes, Capsicum and Spring Onions??? It was horrid.

It was fun chatting and meeting up with them again. It seems like I am the only person keeping in touch most of them as some of them haven't seen each other for ages! We left quite late and since Nestum fetch me here, so he fetched me home. And... he was having cravings for Starbucks Hot Chocolate Caramel, we ended up back at Mt.Kiara. Was home at about 12am.

Second Gathering - 19 October 2006, 8pm @ Cheras before heading to Sg. Long
The second gathering was another meaningful one. We met up with our ex-Apiit lecturer. He was like our favourite lecturer and one of the best. :P He left APIIT. He was back in Ipoh for sometime and now he's back to teaching business in UTAR.

And all of you are wondering why Sg. Long? That's like FAR! yeah I know! But that's the UTAR campus my lecturer is based in and he do not have transport.

I haven't seen him for ages, and he still looks the same. The first comment he gave us was, "All of you put on weight huh". LOL... Yeah... I admit that. It was all fun chatting with him. He told us why he left APIIT and he commented that APIIT's standard is not as good as it used to be. The standards detoriate so much that he don't encourage anyone to pursue their IT studies there.

I can understand why he said that. We used to have lots of Indian lecturers but they're not bad. Though it's hard to get what they're trying to say. Now? They have lots of Middle East lecturers, those from Iran etc... They speaks Arab! I can't imagaine. During my time, all was still good! And now he's in UTAR... but UTAR standard in IT it's even worse than APIIT now. I seriously can't imagine. LOL...

It was all fun listening to him giving comments and since one of my ex-classmate is now a manager. Both of them were sort of like debating how you should handle your suborrdinates. LOL... We left about 11 I guess. On the way back, we took some wrong route... and ended up at Jalan Lok Yew. =_=" It was JAM. Good thing we weren't lost. hahaha.... Reach home at 12 am again. hahaha....

End of my story telling. Back to work and me is tired lar....

Philippa Gregory's novels make me cry for days...

One of the many interest in my life as I was growing up was historical myths and legends, especially from the English history, and in particular King Henry VIII and his six wives. And I've always admired Anne Boleyn since I was young (having read and watched loads of stuffs on Anne Boleyn) and was heavily inspired by her determination of being Queen and for her daughter to rule England. And thanks to this interest of mine, I have been hooked on Philippa Gregory's novels!

"The Other Boleyn Girl" was like uncovering an unknown historical plot for me. I had no idea of the existence of Mary, Anne Boleyn's sister and this book covers mostly about her and how manipulative the Boleyns are...

The author really knew how to pull my emotion strings and I actually bawled reading this book and still feel sad when I think back of what happened during that period. All this while, when I read history contexts on the Boleyns or watching BBC movies, I never had a connection with the characters and even empathise with them. But this book definitely changed all that!

I love this books to heaps even though I got a bit tired reading the detailed descriptions of dresses and background but I highly recommend this book to those who shares my interest in history!

Another book I love from Philippa Gregory is "The Constant Princess" which tells on the struggles of Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII from young, to leaving her home and family to an unknown country and to proving herself the Queen of England.

Again I was surprised when I read this book, alot of things which I didn't know of Katherine except she was an old lady who was in the way of Anne Boleyn of being Queen (I was rather biased towards Anne since I grew up idolising her). And again my heart went out to Katherine and cried terribly reading through this book...

By the way, more info on the author...
http://www.philippagregory.com
Yay, she's got a new book! Can't wait to get my hands on it...
You can also check it out at MPH bookstores... » MPH

Japanese Buffet @ Jogoya, Starhill

Note: Actual event took place on 23 September.

*chants* JOGOYA! JOGOYA! JOGOYA!

That was what I've been chanting when me and my sis made plans with J to celebrate her birthday at Jogoya, which Zen has been going on and on bout that place. And finally we went on the 23rd Sep (Yeah yeah, I know it was ages ago but had no time to update... hehehe), two days after J's birthday.

Anyway, the interior design was superb (of course, this is expected of anything inside Starhill) and we were greeted with the sight of gross-looking snails in a huge aquarium as we walked in from the main entrance.
Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the snails...

If I was to comment about the food, please don't take heed of any of my comments as I have sensitive tastebuds and kinda enjoy airplane food... Anyway, the selection of food was pretty limited to me, like I have said earlier, I'm picky on food.

Comments on the food... I think I'll leave it to Zen on this part. Oh but I must mention that the hype on Movenpick ice-cream left me kinda disappointed when I finally had my share of 3 scoops of it... there's nothing special bout the flavour, in fact I think I prefer Lecka Lecka to this... And my friend's bf actually had 6 scoops of it... our inital aim for 10 scoops so that it would cover the price of the buffet...

Well...since Xell wants me to write on the food... I will continue from where she left out... Basically, this is my second time to Jogoya. First time was a treat from mom's friend. It was excellent! So I was all excited to eat here again. There's not many pictures taken since we're not exactly allowed to take pictures in there apart from your own seats.

Jogoya is huge and divided into many sections. From what I can remember, there's Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Western, DimSum, Desserts, Drinks etc. For every section, there's chef cooking food right when your order. All tables comes with metal clips with numbers, for food that requires cooking, you just drop the clip on the food you want to it and the order will be sent to the table.

One those most popular dishes has to be the unlimited Sashimi and Oysters. Even Sashimi has many different type of fishes apart from the usual Salmon and Tuna. At each section, take for example teppanyaki, you can choose from chicken to fish to Squids to vegetables.... Same would go for the Indian and Western food.

From Top to bottom left to right: Sashimi, Anchovy Salad, Softshell crab and Crab on hotplate

Apart from the Sashimi, I had plenty of Softshell crab, prawns and I had snails too! Remember Xell talks about those gross looking snails? yeah, I had them. Not the first time I've been eating snails :p I had escargotz in Paris too! And there's this pretty special Anchovy Salad which is very nice.

Apart from a wide variety of food selection, there's a wide variety of drinks as well (minus the alcoholic drinks). :P There's hot drinks range from various type of tea (green tea, Shui Sin, Oolong tea etc) all in packs where u can just made them in pots. There's of course various type of coffee, ice-blended drinks and fresh juices. But out of everything, the most popular drinks of all has to be the Thai Coconut. The Thai coconut is my personal favourite as it is really sweet!

Rows and rows of Desserts

It's really hard to tell what is nice and what is not. There's just too much selection and of course there's some food which are not that good and some are good. The most attractive section of all are the desserts section which is the place where we sat. Our table is right next to the dessert section. It was really tempting to begin our meal with desserts. The cookies are nice, some of the pudding are nice. But I was VERY VERY dissappointed because I dunno for what reason, there's NO Creme Brulee!!! >.<

Well, with the wide selections of food, the buffet didn't come in a cheap nor affordable price. Buffet dinner cost RM 88++ and starts from 5pm - 9.30pm. There's lunch, hi-tea and supper as well. Supper ends on 1am. Different buffet hours comes with a different price. :P The most expensive meal of course would be the dinner. There's also a 10% service charge & 5% government tax.

Location & Reservations ...
T3, Relish Floor,
Starhill Gallery,
181, Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2142 1268

(Xell's comments in purple, Zen's in black)

Seremban Trip

Note: The actual event took place on 16th September. Zen was too busy to edit the photos so the post was delayed. :p

After being pestered by my colleagues for almost a year (or more like ever since I met them when I started working...), me and two colleagues (Mei2 and KS) went for a road trip down to Seremban to visit them (SW and JY). Was forced to wake up at 7.30am on a Saturday so that we could make it for dim sum at Seremban... but it was worth it since the last time I've been there was years and years ago when my uncle lived there.

Went to the Ming Kok restaurant for dim sum, which is the biggest Chinese restaurant in Seremban (SW even added that most likely she'll have her wedding banquet there in the future... hehehe I'm still rooting for Hilton for mine...).

Map to Dim Sum Restaurant

After a hearty meal of dim sum (Thanks JY for the treat!), we headed to the Lake Garden, and that's when I started having childhood flashbacks... hehehe... I suddenly remembered that I always go to the A&W at the Lake Garden every time my family dropped by Seremban to visit my uncle when I was kinda young... Anyway, the weather was hot but good to take pictures of Minangkabau roofs... hehehe

We also went to the Museum, or more like to enjoy the air-conditioning in there...

Adding to that, we also went back to SW and JY's secondary school... and I felt like going back to my school... So Zen, I want to go back to our school to visit and take pictures!!!

Strawberry joss-sticks...

When I was at Seremban with my colleagues, we went to the new shopping mall at Seremban 2 just to find a place to cool-off from the heat...

Went to Watson with the initial intent of buying a facial wash (I hate it when my face is feeling sticky and we were rushing off for a farewell dinner after Seremban, so I wasn't allowed to go back home) but ended up buying more stuffs along the way... and one of it came in the cutest box I've ever seen!

It's actually giant Pockies!!!! *screams* And it reminds me of joss-sticks too... but it's so damn cute and it taste just the same except bigger in size... Unfortunately, it's only available in Watsons as it's only manufactured for Watsons...

But I haven't check whether the 1Utama Watsons has this or not... my sis bought another box from the Petaling Street Watsons...

Bak Kut Teh Lau Kau @ Segambut

One of the greatest lunch I ever had during a normal office lunch hour is... having BKT at Segambut! Yah!!! It sounds very far right? Actually not lar... from Mt.Kiara to Segambut very near only! haha... and it's a Friday!

And tada... We're at Bak Kut Teh Lau Kau. The name sounds damn funny... but in mandarin, it's suppose to mean "Old Monkey". And yeah... it still sounds funny. hahaha...

Anyway, this place is really hidden. I don't think I know how to come here again. :p but look at the lunch crowd! This place is really popular and according to my colleagues... it's a famous place to eat BKT in Segambut. The restuarant is really simple... under the tree with very simple settings. But I am quite surprised there's TV though!

Since one of my colleague is quite familiar with the dishes they served here, he did all the ordering. The person who took our orders is a little girl about 9 or 10 years old. She's so cute la! She really can talk! Very funny... :p She's very good at promoting the food too!

Anyway, apart from the BKT, we had some vegies, shimmered pork (I really dunno how you call it in English. In Canto is pronounced as "Lou" ) and sour vegetables. The BKT has a very unique taste, unlike any BKT I've ever eaten before. The soup is really nice... I like the sour vegetables and the shimmered pork too! The pork is really really good!

I highly recommend this place. XD The entire meal feeds well for 6 person in which out of 6, 4 are guys! 4 quite big guys. :P And the meal cost roughly about RM 10 per person. I will want to come back again for BKT but that's if I know how to get here lar. hahaha...

Hakka Tai Po Mee?

I was having my dinner at the usual place - DU kopitiam... when I suddenly noticed the Wan Tan Mee Stall.

Hmm... what interest me is not the Wan Tan Mee but the line below Wan Tan Mee. What on earth is Hakka Tai Po Mee? The first thought that came into my mind is... some name you pronounce in Cantonese. (客家大波面)
Hhahaha... and I couldn't stop laughing after that. Direct translations to English would be Hakka Big Ball Noodle. WHAHAHAHAAH........ So can anyone tell me, what exactly this noodle should be called?

Movie: Miami Vice

It's been quite some time since I last watched a movie. Been always busy with work... and finally... after all the Stress... I went to watch Miami Vice. The main actors are Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. And of course for actress we have our famous Asian actress Gong Li!

This movie has been quite a big talkabout lately lar...with what Gong Li acting in some daring hot sexy bed scene with Colin Farrell. It is at times like this you wish you're watching a movie in UK coz nearly EVERYTHING has been censored. Though it is expected...but yeah... all gone.

If you guys have watched Heat (I haven't), it's from the same director and most people would prefer Heat still. The storyline was kinda slow... The beginning of the movie was really confusing...

But overall, it was quite entertaining in the beginning and the ending of the movie. LOL... Although it's called "Miami" Vice... but the entire movie is filmed out of Miami other than the beginning and the ending. :p Yah yah... I know the title has nothing much to do with Miami... but still... haha...

Watch it if you like Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Although Jamie Foxx seems like a sub-character in the movie. And... Gong Li is COOL!!! She's like a real business woman in the movie and yeah... watch Gong Li. It's ineteresting!