PutraJaya Details part 1

A belated post on my trip to PutraJaya. I am still tired after spending a night in CyberJaya last sunday implementing my company solution for a customer. I guess I think it might be a right time for me to retire my "late nights" activities. Hence this is part one of a belated post on my trip to PutraJaya. To be honest I do not know the way to PutraJaya. All I know is that it is located in the middle of KLIA and KL. So the journey will be a test of our sense of direction and the usability and friendliness of the road signs. The rains that were pouring down like there is no tomorrow dampens our spirit a bit as our main objective is not to test drive our 450 KM car but to get some good photos of us posing with the scenery as the background. With the sky as dark as black hole, the only way the photo to look great is to have “plastic surgery” with the help of Photo Shop. So along the way we were doing our dance to shoo away the rains and black clouds.

Along the way there are numerous road sign pointing to KLIA and PutraJaya. In fact too many until we got confuse. As the rain pours down heavily, it has actually crippled the road sign to be purely a piece of metal standing on the side. We actually missed a turning due to this. However our fear turns to confuse as immediately after that a sign pointing to PutraJaya was visible upfront. It’s either that there are numerous roads leading to PutraJaya or there is something wrong with our car wiper. Along the way we face the same problem, PutraJaya is on the left, right and straight ahead. It’s all over the place. So now it all depends on the invisible compass in our head. As we are clouded and overwhelm with all the signs, the rain slows to a drizzle. We finally reached a sign that says PutraJaya Convention Center. So we follow that sign closely.

After the turning, we saw some great and high tech looking street lights. This is a sign that we are in the right place, as a matter of fact we are on PutraJaya road as we saw road sign with the word Precinct, where else you could find such words adorn on a road side but PutraJaya itself. Sprinkle of water still drops on our windscreen. We reached a bridge and we saw a lake. We are like some newly appointed paparazzi hunting for their first expose. We stopped by the road side and outcome my camera, click, click. Aiyah we can still feel a drop of rain or two but the black cloud still hover above us. I guess the book that we bought in pasar malam on the way to shoo away the rain and black clouds might have left out some pages at the back. Aiyah this copy cat not professional at all, never mind, a few drops of rains could never kill us, we continue to click and click. The outcome of the photo is not that good.

After that we drove around aimlessly hunting for some good backdrop for some serious photo. That’s when the few droplets of rains become few hundreds. We decided to drop by at the Alamanda shopping complex. The place looks like a nice place to be in. For starter, it has fewer crowds, I am not sure if it’s because of the holidays or what. It’s quite big and there is a lot of eatery. However one thing that really makes me what to burst out laughing is the ceiling after we walk into the place from the parking lot, the place after the sliding door. You could look up and your nose might be touching the ceiling hahaha. I advised the management of the complex to put a sign warning those above 6 feets to shrink down or walk with their head down. I guess the builders have only the typical Asian in mind when they draw up their plans. We walk around and then finally we sat at Deli France to wait for the rain to stops.

Decoration inside Alamanda.

Pond at the back and the Tuna Sandwich that my wife and sis enjoy in Deli France. To be continue..

My 5 Childhood Memories that relate to food.

I was tagged by Shiaulin again. This time its regarding food. However I do not really remember much about my childhood. There are memories but it looks like my hard disk is a bit corrupted. So I treat this as purely memories from any part of my life. I have a lot but I limit it to 5.


Fried Chicken, holds a special meaning. When I was young, my family was not well off. We stayed in our Grandparents home until certain age before moving out to a flat. I was quite young during those struggling years, I always remembers that when we have fried chicken it mean that day it’s someone birthday or celebration of some kind, like getting good grades in school or etc. I was once told by my mom the food that is often serve on our dining table is Bean Sprouts with salted fish. Hence I always remember that Fried Chicken is considered as a “food” for rich people. I remember when KFC first open its stores in Malaysia, I remember that year, my parents took me to a KFC stores near Pudu to celebrate my birthday. Now the place is called Shaw parade. I have a particular habit in eating KFC is that I do not eat it with any sauce. I love my food to be in its original and intended state and flavour.


Shark Fin, My mom was quite an entrepreneur hence when I was in primary school, my family financial standings improved. Fried Chicken replaces bean sprouts. Big chicken drumstick either fried or steam is the frequent “stars” on the dinning table. During this stage, a lot of my cousins start to get married. This opens me to a wider variety of foods. That’s where my love for shark fin begins. In my mind it has replaced chicken as the “food” for the rich people. I look forward to weddings dinner whereby I could savour the taste of having shark fin soup slowly zip through my teeth, hovering above my tongue and slowly glides down my throat. As I grow older, I do not wait for wedding dinners, we will eat it in our monthly buffet brunch. Again I rarely take it with vinegar. I normally take it as it is.


Cockle Fried Mee Or See Hum Chow Fun, I could not remember how and when I get hooked with this food. I think it’s also around my primary time. I remember that my breakfast on weekends will likely be Fried See Hum Chow Fun which is normally bought from the market. My friend’s mother is the seller. At that time, the normal colour of the mee is normally black or dark in colour due to the dark sauce being used. She will usually fry it with cockle. I do not like taking cockles. As the normal style is to have the cockles added during the last stage of the frying hence it will be quite raw. Hence normally when I eat it I will pass the cockle to my sister. Normally I would eat it with eggs added together to complete and enhance its taste.

I remember clearly that my love for this food increase by leap and bounds when a new coffee shop opens beside the market. There is this seller that fries it with prawns. I am not sure why but I remember the colour of the mee it’s a bit orangey as compare those that fries with cockles. This shops also packs it with pandan leafs and it added a new dimension to it, pork fats. Its one food that I love very much, the crunchiness and the taste is hard to explain. Once the outer layer of the fat munches away, you could then taste the oil from the fat itself. A very unhealthy food but its one that ignite my taste bud. If you guys still remember, there is a period somewhere in the 80’s whereby everybody was afraid of hepatitis. That’s where this food gets some face lifts. Instead of cockle, there are shops that fry it with fish paste, or char siew.


Butter Prawn, I get to taste this when I started to work in my current company. It’s when I spend most of my time in overseas. So once I was back in KL I will go out with my family and eat in a restaurant. The first time I eat this particular dish was in a restaurant in a place along Jalan Cheras. I love the crunchiness of the flour and the prawns. It’s a dish that needs to eat with rice as it’s a bit salty. Even now although I could not eat it but in those rare moments when my family goes out to eat, my sister will still order it. My wife also loves it. I have thought of cooking it before but I do not really know how. As the key thing in this particular dish is the flour. I heard it also cooked with milk.


Hokkien Mee, Every relatives that knows me, will definitely knows that my favourite food is hokkien mee. I am not sure what attracts me to it. The taste, the color, the oil, the pork fats? When I was in my teens I took every opportunity to eat it. I take it as dinner, as supper, as breakfast. Of course not everyday but to me I alternate it with rice. When I took it for dinner, I would normally be the first one in the shop. I would wait for the seller to prepare his ingredient for the whole night. He normally will fry loads of pork fat until he gets a big pot of oil. When he starts to fry the mee, he will use that oil. He will normally start frying the vegetables and the pork, then he progress with putting the big yellow mee in it. Once it’s ready, he will pour some bone soup onto it and he will close the wok with a cover and let it boil until it’s cooked and dry. He will then pour the crunchy pork fat onto it and stir it a few times before it’s ready to be served.

This particular food itself changes its taste when there is a pork scare. When there is an outbreak of disease related to pork, most shops stops using pork as the ingredient, they substitute it with chicken. The taste change, its not as nice as frying it with pork. I have eaten a lot of different variety of it. I have eaten it in HongKong, Singapore and Indonesia which I think is cook differently and it looks different also. None of it beats the Malaysia Version and the most unforgettable version I have ever eaten is the one in Petaling Street. After it was served on the plate, a raw egg is put on top of it. It smoothen the textures of the mee, it taste different and it’s quite unique.

I remember one incidence that happens when I was eating hokkien mee long long time ago, which was quite scary and dangerous. My favourite store is at the bottom of my flat. During my secondary school days, I will always “lepak” (loiter around) at the bottom of my flat and on Friday I will normally eat supper after hours of chit chatting with friends. I will normally order hokkien mee. There is this one night, a full moon, while me and my school buddies were enjoying our hokkien mee, I could see that suddenly there are numerous people walking past our table, one, two, dozen and 20 plus of them. I was quite curious. Although it was dark but because of the full moon I could see that this people were having a handkerchief covering their nose and mouth. Their attire increases my curiosity that is until I saw that each of them was carrying a parang or hatchet. This actually put an answer to my question that was running around in my head. I realise that this group of people is looking for their “enemy”, to have them killed or chopped. Luckily they did not manage to find anyone if not I will be caught in the middle of a parang fight.

I will passed this tag to Shiaulin husband Lee Cheen Siong only.

Ranking

In technocrat, there is a ranking system on blogs. I am not sure how they calculate or derive the ranks. Based on the number of hits? Number of Links? I am very proud as I am on the top 80K list (out of millions of bloggers), hahaha actually I do not really care, as long as Blogger continues to provide it for free and seeing my friends and fellow blogger comments, letting me know that they are still out there, its fine with me. You know recently Universiti of Malaysia was ranked number 169th down from position 89th by The Times of London.

Now that is one sudden “turbulence”. You know when you sit in a plane there are times without warning, the plane hit some air pocket and your heart is over your head and your body still down there with the seat belt tightly wrap around your waist. I guess that is the kinda of feeling that the Ministry of Education is feeling, “Pening” (headache in English). Anyway they are smart enough to change the sign near the campus from Top 100 to Top 200 universiti in the world as published by The Sun newspaper in Citizen Nade column this Wednesday. Since there are thousands of universities in the world, we are top 200, not bad, not bad, continue, continue whatever we are doing as there are few hundred or thousand more ranks to go but I guess the Ministry of Education do really need to have a “good seat belt”.

Result of Durex global survey

Every year there is this interesting survey about the sexual preference and behaviour of everyone in the world. I saw the result of the survey on the Star paper a few days back. The surprising thing is that it looks like 40 percent of Malaysian who took the survey has sex without protection. I did not think that Malaysians are that daring and brave. At first I thought it could be that it was due to the fact that there is a lot of older generation who is not so educated and do not care about protection as maybe they think all they need to do is drop their pants and go, who will in their mind remembers they need to wear something that is elastic and rubber when it could be their once a year “celebration”. And most likely their partners/spouse is no longer fear of getting pregnant as biologically their clock stops and there is no risk of their spouse wanders around “experimenting” as wrinkles already replace their smooth skin.

Another amazing thing is that majority of the Malaysian prefers to do it in the toilet where the rest of the world is in the car. I do not think Malaysian is that creative. I just came back from the toilet; I look at the place left and right, top and down. If a couple can transfer body fluid in such a place and enjoy it they must be very small in size as the place its just 3 feet plus, hell yeah the most its 4 feet. And to top it off they should be discrete enough to not create any noise to raise any “suspicion”. Just imagine, kissing, panting and exchanging fluid without any noise, where is all the fun. Or maybe their “neighbour” who is sitting down in the next cubicle was also enjoying themselves. Or maybe the neighbour thinks that this fellow loves his big business so much that when each drops, he lets out a moan. Or maybe they are doing it outside the cubicle, using the wash basin as support and they put a “Toilet is being washed” sign outside. Aiyah so next time when you wash your hand and saw some sticky stuff in the wash basin, be careful hor.

Or maybe it’s my imagination that runs wild; maybe what they mean is the toilet in their home and not public toilet. Umm most likely so, as maybe the couple has a children sleeping with them. Hence the only way to be discrete is the toilet. So maybe when it’s “Time”, they will tell their children, “Mommy and Daddy is practising the “Buddha Stance” in the toilet”. So do not be surprise when you overheard a child asking their parents in a temple, “Daddy! Daddy! How come the monk looks so compose and relax? Unlike Daddy when coming out from the toilet after practising the Buddha stance looks so tired and haggard and sweating and mommy face looks so red?”. Maybe the father will answer in such way, “Dear, the monk practise alone mah, daddy practise with mummy, I need to carry mummy up and down mah”……

Result page at Durex

Pole Dancer and LollyPop Licker

I am a frequent user of LRT and I have encountered some strange and weird characters while on them. Normally I will take the train during peak hours and hence I will normally use the pole that was strategically located in the train to stabilise myself. There is this morning when I walked into the train I saw a nicely dressed lady. I say nicely dressed because she has a black coat on and a big brief case. I guess she is a lawyer as the route that I used, stops at Masjid Jamek, that is where the high court is. She was already “holding” the pole. Her whole body was actually touching it, her arms is like curling around it as though it was her boyfriend arm and with such force that it looks to me she is afraid that the pole is going somewhere else. From far, it looks like she is caressing the pole and her legs seems to be curling around the pole, anchoring it. Wah Sei Man, the only thing I can do is to put my hand towards the door to stabilise myself. I guess she might be a pole dancer in her last life.

There is another incidence which I saw in one of my trip to KLCC during lunch time. As I walked into the train it was quite empty and the pole is free from the usual pole dancer. So I put my right hand on it, grabbing it with enough strength to ensure that I will have a steady ride and I position my body 2 feet away from it to give way for other user who wants to share my pole. “Ting”, the door opens up and more user walks in. There is this lady, quite plump and a gentleman, I guess is her boy boy who walks in and have those looks that say, we cannot wait to go somewhere quiet and ahem ahem….

She looks around and saw that the pole which I was holding was quite “free”. She leans her back on it just below my hand. Her boyfriend stands opposite her. They continue to chit chat, whispering and giggling as though the whole train belongs to them. It’s fine to me but when she starts to move up and down the pole using it as a back massager or a way to scratch her back or it’s like a tongue licking a lollypop, that ignores me. And that’s where her back “crunch” my hand, I immediately let out a scream “Aiyo, Excuse Me!”. The girl looked at me and looks at her boy boy as though I am the one who “molest her”. I looked back at them with my Steve Austin look that says "Do you want some 3:16?". That seems to work as she stops her lollypop licking act. When I walked out from the train, I think they are the happiest couple in the train as finally they have the “Sweet Lollypop” all by themselves.

My Dad First Year Death Anniversary.

My dad passed away a year ago on this same day and month last year. I was at the temple where his ashes lies bottled up in an urn on 28th October, his anniversary according to Chinese calendar. He has been away “vacationing” for a year already. I hope he enjoys his vacation as a man with no illness and no worries. When he is on this part of the world, his left leg used to be very weak, suspected of a minor stroke, hence he walks with a limp. Although we still think of him once in a while especially during a day like this and there are times that we wished he is still around to share with us, our “life achievement” like sitting on our new car but we gotta to do what ever we gotta to do. This is not a permanent separation.

I do remember one sentence my dad told me 2-3 weeks before he passed away suddenly is that he wishes to sit on his own Mercedes Benz one day. We could not buy a Mercedes Benz now but we will buy one when we could. We will then drive around with his picture sitting beside us, wouldn’t it be fun. As we grows older and move along in our life’s without him by our side, I realise there are a lot characters we shared. The way we talked, our expression, the way I walk around after waking up holding my pants. At least we know we have some part of his character living in us.

For those who lose their loved one, who still feels the pain in which I truly understand, I wish to share my thoughts of the matter. Life here is just a facade, a prelude to a much better world in which we will all be in one day. What better way for us to do is to enjoy every minute of our life here as there is no better way for us to remember our love one then to enjoyed ourselves. No love ones of us be it living or “vacationing” would like to see us unhappy or unwell. Do not hold grudges on yourself or others for not doing enough for your love ones. Last year when I was pushed into the operating room and when the anaesthesia hits my system I was totally unconscious, totally black out. I guess this will be the same feeling someone will get when they are on their way to “vacation”, the tunnel in which we travel before reaching the other world. As we crossed that tunnel all things will be left behind, the sadness, the hatred, the grudges, the happiness and etc. All physical objects will no longer exist and we no longer could feel or hold it. It likes a piece of art drawn on a canvas, its colour and contents being slowly wash away, transforming it back to a plain canvas again. Hence there is always no pass but just present.

Routine Check

I got this tag from Shiaulin called Routine Check, umm in general most of our life is quite routine, wake up, dress, went to work, lunch, work again, return back, dinner and sleep. On a bigger note, we were born, growing up, study, then work, courting, flirting, married, our children is born, work harder, then retire, then sick and then we pack and go for a “vacation” in another world. After "vacationing", for the lucky lot they will get born again, grows up and continue the same old cycle. Of course there are some who actually faces different situation daily but this falls under the minority in the world population. For the majority of us we will make do with what ever that is interesting out there.

I would not separate as what Shiaulin did by before & after marriage and her son is born but I would separate and highlight routines that have changes as I guess the original purpose of this meme is to do that (trying to be smart here and avoid writing a long post as its time for me to prepare my next day lunch, hahaha). I will not include my post illness routine as its actually a 360 degree change. In terms of my routine nothing much has changed. The difference is the way that it is being done. Its also could be due to the fact that our thinking and action has matured and also due to the physical changes to our body as we grew older. In most activities we try to do it together as the main ingredient of a good marriage is partnership, balance of power and act of compromise. I think it’s a matter of blending both of our likes and dislikes together and in our case culture also. After a while you realise whatever that you used to dislike or like will be changed according to the results of the blending. This means that after a while my routine will becomes my wife routine or her routine will becomes mine.

Waking up, I still woke up early in regardless if its weekday or weekends. Now I might laze around a bit turning around in the bed instead of heading immediately for my shower on weekdays. On weekends my morning routine still remains the same, opens up the TV catching some cartoons; follow by downloading my mails and brisk net surfing. I will finish all this before I will actually brush my teeth. My wife will by then wakes up.

Breakfast, I used to skip breakfast on weekdays and on weekends I will take brunch instead of breakfast in the market and it mainly consist of my favourite food like nasi lemak, Lum Yee Mee, Hokkien Mee, See Hum Chow Fun, and etc all in XL quantity. After married we took breakfast together on weekdays at food stores near my home or office and on weekends I still take my usual XL brunch plus my wife portion if she could not finish it. After that I will still enjoy my weekend newspaper with a cup of coffee at the stall waiting for my sister while she shops for raw material to cook for our dinner. My wife could not really eat a lot in the morning hence we will take some snack or her lunch in the afternoon during our weekend window shopping.

Shopping, I loves to burn time at shopping complex during weekends and I do not mind going to the same shopping complex every week. After married we still window shops together but we will have more “varieties” alternate between KLCC, Mid Valley, Low Yat & Sungai Wang and Bandar Utama. So if you are around these areas, do watch out for me. As for my yearly shopping, I will normally do it during Sales as I love to dig at bargain corner “fighting and racing” with other shoppers during sales, as for my wife, she prefers when there are no sales as she dislikes crowds. So after married we will normally go on odd hours during sales or we will go during pre-sale for members. After years of married, my wife seems to quite enjoy the bargain and the “competition” during sales.

Brushing my teeth, I do brush my teeth every morning but I do not brush my teeth at night I will just rinse it with water. After married, on most nights I will brush my teeth unless I felt lazy or tired.

Reading, I am not the type of guys who read books often or routinely. After married my wife loves for books actually convert me from a book hater to an occasional or social reader. There are times we will buy hundreds dollars worth of books during MPH warehouse sales. Now I enjoyed my weekly read of Newsweek or Times Magazine.

I am one of those boring people who do the same thing all over again. I do not have any special routines hence there is nothing much to writes about. I was once told that the only road I know is between the office and the house. There are some routines that remains the same for example I still changed my clothes in the room, walk around nude when drying myself after shower. I still spend time reading magazine in the bathroom while doing my big business. Well thats all I could think of, wow this meme is really difficult to do as need to remember the before and after, hahaha I always only remember the after. I do not think I will pass this to anyone so do not worry......hahaha.

PutraJaya

A quick update, today my sister, my wife and I went to PutraJaya. At 1:30 pm we make our way out of KL, the weather was pretty good, nice, sunny and good for outdoor photography. As we make our way into the highway the sky turns dark and gloomy. Once we were near Puchong area, the rain starts and it’s practically raining cats and dogs. All the cars on the highway slow down to a slow 50 km/h. We almost decided to turn around and head back to our cocoon but I guess the anticipation of visiting this proud city of Malaysia push us forward.

Below are 2 photos, most of the photos have a gloomy background to it. I will follow up by a detail post later.

The Administrative building.

The new millennium tower.

Eng Loon Junior

A son of a Malaysian Colleague. Lets call him Eng Loon Junior

Butterfly Park KL

I was at the Butterfly Park KL today. I am not sure why we decided to go there. Maybe I wanted to take some photos of graceful and intriguing butterflies. All the while the only butterfly I frequently see is those that we Chinese think or treat as transformed from our dead ancestor, which is dark and greyish in colour.

I have heard that there are hundreds of species out there. I have been to one such park in Hong Kong but I could not find any photos which is good enough to be posted on my photo blog. So I felt the urge to see something different, something colourful that I hope could be capture nicely on film.

So after lunch, my sister, my wife and I head out to find the place. I have tried searching the internet for its location but I could not find any that is informative enough. However I do remember that it is supposed to be near Bird Park KL which is situated near Lake Garden. As we are near the entrance of the Lake Garden, there were signages which is clear enough directing us to the location. It is somewhere near Bukit Aman police station.

Below are some photos that I managed to take. I will be posting a much higher resolution and of course more photos in my photoblog.

The entrance fees are Rm5 per adult and it seems there is a different pricing structure for foreigners. If I am not mistaken its Rm15. And do remember to keep your camera in your pocket or hidden as they charge Rm1 for it and if you are bringing in a video camera, they will charge you Rm4. I am not sure why and who is the idiot that think of such charges. Maybe the idiot have been colouring and applying make up to the butterflies hence the additional charges.

The above is one of many interesting and colouful butterflies in the park. Just look at the blue and orange colours that decorated its wings.

One of the friendly ones. I could feel that its sucking my hands. I guess my hand is too sweet to resists...hahaha

There is also a fish pond, the fish is quite big.

There is also a turtle pond. I used to have a turtle as a pet.

And of course there are a lot of beautiful flowers around to feed the butterflies.

Selamat Hari Raya!

Tomorrow another round of celebration and holiday, its Hari Raya, so for those fellow “boleh” member, Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin. So I take this opportunity to ask for forgiveness. If I have ever offend anyone, very sorry, please maaf me lah. You know sometimes I will be a bit blur blur, hence very sorry. Since you have forgiven me, then send me all your rendang ayam, Ketupat, all the cakes and cookies. Aiyah I have forgotten I am still under strict diet, never mind I will ask my sister, she will eat it all for me. Oh do not forget my duit raya...Happy Hari Raya. Oh Sifu I still have not finished learning how to make Ketupat, wait....

Title

I have just changed the title of my blog. I am still playing around with other names. Don’t be surprise it changes again…

Happy Deepavali

To those who celebrate deepavali, I wish them Happy Deepavali. I guess those who are from another town would have “Balik Kampong” (travels back to hometown in English) due to long stretch of holiday and is now enjoying a cup of coffee in a KopiTiam made the traditional way and reading newspaper while listening to some bird at the background happily chirping away.

I remember the hot burning stove which uses coal to boil water was also used to make “Roti Bakar” (Toast Bread). The water will be poured onto a bag that contains the coffee powder that acts a filter. It kinda looks like a socks connected to a stick. All the coffee juice will slowly leak down from the bag onto the cup. My cousin who is now in their 50’s still loves to goes back to the same old shop that prepare this way. They say it taste differently. They will actually take the time to travel for a few kilometres in the morning to just pack them back and enjoy in the house.

I have always been a city boy but I have travelled before to Penang, Ipoh and Melaka and have taste some of those famous food such as Penang Char Kuey Teow, Ipoh Hor Fun and Special Chicken rice ball. I considered these as real classic Hawkers food that can brings out the saliva in me when I talked about them. So for those who is now in their hometown, drink all those coffee for me and of course enjoy all those delicious food on my behalf. If you are brave enough light up some fireworks, I think the police do not mind as long as you do not burn down any house. Happy Deepavali…..