lessons learnt

our penang trip was....


both good and bad. i did enjoy many aspects of it but there were some unpleasant moments like how my poor hubby got sick [probably sick of the penang food?]

i love nasi kandar but queuing up this long for a plateful is.... not my cuppa tea. still, i suppose since were in penang we had to do smtg we dont normally do. the line was CLEARLY in view the moment we got on penang road! it stretched all the way to the curb. not bad for a business that's situated in a "lorong" [backlane]

squid egg curry!! cholesterol bonanza
in the end i opted for the chicken in sticky sauce which i assume might be honey based, the yellowed shredded cabbage and rice. that was RM5.40

this is actually my fav penang meal - kueh teow th'ng. really. the porky bits, the fishcake, the fried onion and veggies in broth, it's the most comforting thing ever.
this is part of our ipoh dimsum binge. again, we had to wait in a crowded restaurant for what seemed like forever to get a table! the ipoh folks don't think it's rude to stand around other people's tables while they eat. i personally dn't like that idea though. dimsum tastewise... uhh i think hoong foong in USJ21 is better.
still, as long as there're good people around the table to laugh and talk with it's not too bad.




here;s the apartment gav and i stayed at. we loved it!


and this is the offending curry laksa that we suspect, brought on his stomach trouble! do NOT drink up the soup in penang curry laksa! so we were told by his aunt.

after all that bingeing everyone looked sluggish
so, in conclusion
1. when going on a penang hawker food binge, bring along fibre tablets, prunes, raisins, bananas, charcoal pills and poh chai pills to avoid diarrhea, constipation or both.
2. get EXACT directions for wherever you're going because getting lost and going around in circles in a foreign place wasting petrol is no fun.
3. make sure you get regular bowel movements!
4. do not order curry laksa at 5pm, the soup with coconut milk was probably there since morning! resulting in stomach trouble later. there's nothing worse than having stomach trouble in PENANG and not being able to eat anything nice!

happy birthday kelvin

he's someone who's always earnest and sincere, ready with a smile and has no pretenses. a good friend, fun to hangout with and tells it like it is, no whitewashing.

although a salesman by profession, he has a strong sense of truth and good conscience, knowing how to point out truths [that may not be necessarily nice to hear] ever so tactfully and respectfully that in the end only adds to the respect of those who call him "friend"

one can't help but feel at home with him around because he doesn't pretend to like you, he really does. [if he doesn't, at least he's not pretending to!]

blessed birthday kelvin. gavin and I appreciate you a lot!

come they told me parrupupumpummmm

christmas is...... over commercialized and over hyped up but i love it anyway!! especially decorations, carols and presents!
makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. and suddenly everyone's full of goodwill, giving and giving and giving. that's what God did at Christmas and is still doing so now, that's why we give presents. not bcuz we just want to max out the credit cards and get into debt. we're just emulating Christ. so, what's wrong with giving presents?

wedding details

I'm going to detail the things I did for the wedding in case some people want ideas. mostly for my own memories of the day so that 10 years from now I can log on to this blog and look at it :)

1. the dress

I was looking through dresses online and realized that in malaysia, one only had 5 choices for dresses
- rent it from the bridal studio

this was not an option for me because i didn't want to use the studio packages where the couple pose around against a backdrop. and if u didnt take the package, RENTING the dress would come up to RM800! [minimum!] so not worth it. also the selection of dresses were too limited, it was impossible finding one that with sleeves! and i needed to have sleeves:D

-buy a designer dress [like those from beatrice looi, carven ong, etc.etc.]
also not an option because they start at around RM4,000

- buy a cheap white gown from sungai wang [or anywhere!]
i shopped around for off the rack ones but couldn't find any that fit me properly

-buy it off ebay and alter it
i thought it would've been cheap this way but it wasn't! the dresses still went for about RM400 -RM800 plus more for alterations so it wasn't worth it.

- tailor it

i chose this last option because this was the most cost efficient. so i printed out this picture of a dress from J.Crew and asked ms Kee to make it.
of course it looked SO different on me since i probably weigh 10 x what this model does. also i put the neckline a little bit higher.so this is how it turned out.
cloth+lining: RM48
workmanship RM150

TOTAL: RM 198

not bad for a custom made wedding dress with lining! but then i'll never get to wear it again! wonder what to do with it. maybe i'll put it on a headless mannequin in a tall glass box in a dark hallway....

quotable quotes

now that the year's coming to an end, i'm pondering some poignant moments of the past year and some memorable quotes.

">If u wanna get upset, u can get upset very easily. But i just don’t bother.
-GL

"How do I get to Carnegie hall?

Practice you gotta practice!"

"

"to fly we have to have resistance"

love the challenges

Listen to advice

Don’t argue

Don’t complain

Be nice

Be content

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so simple yet... so profound.

ground coffee

does anyone have a coffee maker/percolator /machine?
I bought some "medium bodied "Colombian ground coffee thinking it was instant coffee and now I can't use it.

so if you want my 2 bags of ground coffee, please let me know and i'll give them to you!

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the wedding part 3

finally I feel inspired again to document my thoughts on the wedding day, 2 months ago.
after the ceremony everyone headed into the restaurant for some finger food and tropical cocktails made with 100%juice, no water added!

first up were the speeches. i was very touched with my dad's speech, throughout most of my growing up years he hardly ever said anything nice about me but tnoight he did and i was so touched i cried.
he said he was very happy that I'd found someone i truly loved.
then, tucker was on. he's an old friend of gavin's, probably known each other something like 15 years. or more!

and then terk and fanyin and rach [interestingly, all our speech givers were from our respective high schools!!]perhaps this shows that a lot of our most lasting friendships are from high school, not college or uni or work.
all their speeches were so meaningful and touching and full of well wishes and philosophical quotes on love and marriage. i think. i was too happy to remember what they said exactly which is why i can't wait to see the video pat took of the wedding!

the cake cutting was of course, quite fun. i had originally intended to buy a nice metal cake knife and engrave our names and wedding date on it to become an heirloom cake knife but somehow that never materialized and we ended up using the restaurant's very sharp knife! still i loved the cake so much! it was very me, very sweet, pink, girly and original since it was made by my mum, husband and friends [i can't stop talking about how great they are for helping me out!]

then, some of our friends did a few very special romantic songs for us! I know a people who hire their wedding band and MC for RM4K for it all but i think ours were priceless because they're our friends! [and all are very talented and passionate!] carol played guitar and sang, sonia did a very powerful rendition of "from this moment" and albert graced the solo part from "kiss me"

carol and terk did a very nice "grow old with you" from the ben stiller movie. everyone loved it!


i loved the video pat made, it was so meaningful and funny at the same time! so did everyone i reckon! here's everyone watching it
i reckon i'll watch it again on our 20th aniversary and laugh over it again!

then was the "fun" part where I, wanting to hold on to western tradition, threw the bouquet over my shouhlder.
caryn got it! or rather it hit her. I wonder why our girls are sooo afraid of catching bouquets. i mean... it's just for fun and doesnt have to be taken THAT seruiosly. besides, every girl wants to get married so why is it such a bad thing to catch a bouquet? of course no one actually believes in the whole "person who catches will be the next one to get married" thing. that's just old western superstition. this is just for fun u know! I've never been to a wedding where someone threw the bouquet before and of cousre i've never caught one but well, i reckon it would be fun to catch one.
so! that was it, my wedding! going back to the hotel room that night, so much was going through my mind. i wasn't prepared for how sad I'd feel about moving out of my house for good, being out of my parent's house forever. I didn't think of it at all really, until i came back a few days later and found that my bro had already moved into my room when i hadn't even taken anything out yet! it was really sobering to think that I'd never sleep in this room again. and i'd been sleeping in this room for 25 years! life has really changed. also I wasn't prepared for how I wouldn't live with my family anymore. not that i loved living with them so much before, [u know how it is, how they make me come home before 12, don't wash the dishes, etc.etc. hehee] but still, i felt a sense of loss somehow. I can't quite explain why, bcoz I am thrilled to be living with gavin now.

I suppose you dont quite appreciate something until it's gone. Ok i know some of you are waiting for pt 4 when I talk about what happened after going back to the hotel room but i shan't say anymore :D
thanks for being part of my day, all of you! You all made it so beautiful and meaningful! i LOVE you all!

novotel

novotel hydro majestic kuala lumpur on jln kia peng is a very big name in hotels and we were very impressed with the decor, especially in the lobby. the place is very posh looking and decorated in a modern way. and the rooms were also very nicely done up, colour coordinated and very "modern" hip looking.
however we were up for a very rude shock~ we booked it for our "first night" [u know, on the wedding night!] but they gave us a TWIN bedded room instead of the king sized bed we booked!! [imagine, for our FIRST NIGHT a twin bedded room!! garrhhhh

and, we booked the exec room but they gave us the superior room instead [that means we were DOWNgraded one level although we paid for the more expensive room type] not only that, but we couldnt even check in at 2pm which is the LATEST check in time you're supposed to have.

sigh if that weren't bad enough, the room smelled strongly of sewage [shit] when we first entered!
now if you think that's already the worst of it, it wasn't!
when we complained about it later the manager lied to us telling us that our reservation was only for a superior room but when we went home to check the confirmation letter we found that he lied and we were right all along.

sigh....

what can we do now ? we've already complained several times [through email, through snail mail, and talking to the duty manager face to face] but they just refused to compensate us in any way.

i totally totally cannot recommend this hotel to anyone at all, sad to say.

i've already called 3 times and each time the receptionist said they'd call me back and took down my number but until now, a week later, still no call from them! are they ALL trained to lie and lie and lie????? sickening!

preparing for christmas

christmas is coming! I love the "trimmings" of Christmas although I know it's got nothing to do with the meaning of it. it's our first christmas together as "married" and it's fun putting up decorations.

i thought it would be fun to put baubles up and apparently terk thought so too. here he is playing "boink the ball" with his forehead.

putting up the lights, writing christmas cards, shopping for gifts, baking christmas cookies, playing christmas music, all that is so much fun !

we spent last sat decorating our pastor's house and it's massively decorated. they have 3 christmas trees and 6-12 sets of lights in each tree [each set has 100 lights! imagine!] and although we spent a whole day there we didnt even complete half of it. there were probably 40 santas, 100 reindeer around and 50 snowmen. ok i didnt count but everywhere you l ooked there was a santa! or a candy cane! or a snowman! or reindeer!