Prelude to another fishy tale

A prelude to my next post, I just came back from Bangkok, a bit tired and I am ready to prepare my lunch for tomorrow but I thought of posting a interesting photo of an outing in Bangkok….its going to be another fishy tale…

In BKK, a cold BKK

A quick update, I am in Bangkok. I flew in yesterday. On the way back to my home, a thermometer found in a building on the side of the road displaying a value which I rarely seen. It shows 24c. A value I see frequently in Genting Highlands.

I took a hot shower when I reach home and my body starts to shake, a way to tell me that it’s cold. My wife and I decided to have natural air instead of compressed cold air. This morning when I woke up and walk around the front of the house, I could feel the cold morning breeze going into my lungs.

It feels colder than last year, it was reported that it will drop 2 to 3 more degrees during this weekend. A cold Christmas in BKK….

All they want for Christmas.

I was reading this article in Star under the Metro Section, page 4, after reading it I felt an urge to do something. Lately I have been wary of passer-by asking for donation, purportedly for certain charities or organization like Kidney Foundation, Old folks home and etc. I have actually stopped donating or buying items from this passer-by, I guess it could be due to the reports that only 10 percent of the amount going to the charities or the organization/foundation. I also felt in a way “dupe” when I do not actually see, read or heard much about the millions of $$$ that was donated by our fellow Malaysian during Tsunami.

As I read this article with the header “They Don’t Know it’s Christmas time at all” and “All they want for Christmas”, I felt here is something that we all could do. And we personally could see that the donation be it gifts, grocery, rental, beds, or etc is put into use. The first article was on a home for the mentally retarded. Most of the statement is directly taken from the article. They need donors to settle their monthly rental or take up or pay some their utility payments such as water or electricity. The rental is RM3,700 while their monthly water bill is RM360 and RM320 for electricity. The home also needs adult diapers. For bloggers or surfers from Malaysia who stays near Ampang, Selangor, you could go out and buy a few bundles of adult diapers, drop by at this place and donate to the home. If you are willing to spend some $$$ and time, below is name of the home, place and contact number to call.

Pusat Penjagaan Kanak-Kanak Terencat Akal Selangor,
118, Jalan Wira Due, Taman Perwira Dua,
68000, Ampang, Selangor.
To help the home call 03-42513955 or 019-7304779 (Rajamanikam), 012-3560155 (Susilah).

Under the article header “All they want for Christmas..” they are more homes, shelters and etc that you could help. I picked 3 of them. For the rest you could click on the picture for details (from The Star).

Phillys Caring Home
(Home for the old folks).
19 Jalan 12/12, 46200 Petaling Jaya.

Needs: Mosquito netting for its room, cushion covers, curtains, stove, adult diapers and daily provisions like rice, sugar and foodstuff.

Contact person: Home founder and manager Phyllis Nathan, 03-79560799.

Shepherd’s Centre Foundation
(home for orphans and the terminally ill)
23 Jln Besar, Tmn Hiew Piew,
Semenyih (main foster home)

Needs:120 sets of bed sheets, blankets, pillow cases; cutlery, crockery, refrigerator, washing machine (10kg).

Contact person: Founders Pastor Jacop and Pastor Bridget, 03-87231213/6770.

Rumah Sayangan
(Home for underprivileged, abused and orphaned children)
14 & 16 Jalan Siput 3, Taman Billion, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

Needs: A small car or van to send the children to school, fruit blender, water filter, food freezer, wall or table fans, schoolbags, writing materials and exercise books, sandals and slippers as well as milk and canned food.

Contact Person: Susan Looi, 03-91314339 or 019-2583747.

I suggest calling the contact person first.

So lets wear a red suit and become Santa Claus this year instead of just hanging our big “socks” and wait for our gifts.

Jingle Bell Tag

I was flipping through the comments in my blog, when I saw this “BTW, I've tagged you, go check my blog ... Hehehee” and on the side, the profile picture of a Santa Girl wearing all red, with a V shape and low cut jacket, showing a see through laze….umm oops just dreaming, Lynne actually Tagged me with this. No there is no picture in her profile. I call this the Jingle Bell Tag.

It’s just 7 days before the Red, Big Teddy Bear comes down and gives everyone a gift for behaving well. Every department store is already broadcasting all kinds of Christmas songs. You could see that if a sad looking person walks into a department store, they will exit with a smile on their face.

Although I am a “Buddhist”, I love all kind of celebration especially those that can bring cheers and happiness to kids and adults and everyone around. That what Christmas is to me and here are the tag rules:

* State the Great Person that tagged you
* List who you want your Santa Claus to be (the bearer of the gift)
* State the Gift you wish to get
* Then invite a few Friends to join the tag, and inform them by dropping a comment in their blog.

The Great Person: Lynne, click to see a picture of her. I spend a lot of $$$ to get it. She lives so far away and she is closely watch by her bodyguards, especially the security head Mr Baker. I got this picture via Satellite. I hired a hacker to tap into the CIA and this is what I got.

The Santa Claus that will deliver the gift. I would love to have the real santa claus. As the gift that I want, I do not think anyone on this earth could deliver it except those who lives up there.

The Gift, fulfilling my wish, to have a christmas dinner with my wife, my sister, my dad and my mum in a fancy restaurant. Five of us sitting, laughing, enjoying ourselves.... just an hour will do.

An Update, it might not be a "Gift", but that is my thought at this moment. As I think a gift is normally a tangible thing.

Friends, I would just like to pass to Shiaulin. The CEO of a well run home.

If those of you guys who wants to join in the fun, copy and paste onto your blog.

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !

Intimate Job

My sis was reading the Star today and suddenly she burst out laughing. She show me this particular Job Vacancy. It looks fine until at the bottom, “Only short-listed candidates will be intimated,”. What does this means? Umm, maybe it mean to get more acquainted…… If someone knows please let me know ya....

On the left is the whole advert and on the right its a zoom on the sentence in red rectangle, click for a bigger picture.

You know, I know.

Now is the time of the year, whereby sales sign is seen everywhere and there is a lot of company doing their evaluation process. I just evaluate 7 staffs and I feel like I was running a marathon. I could write down a few reasons why but anyway I would not like to discuss this in a blog. I was at KLCC today and as usual I bought Newsweek and Times. The big Christmas tree has also been put up at the concourse. I was reading an article found in Newsweek, there is this company, Whole Food Market which has a very unique management style.

The company practise an open book concept, whereby everybody salaries is known. As long as you are an employee of the company you will know your managers’ pay, your boss pay, your peers and your subordinate pay. As I read on, I found that the reason given its quite rationale. I believe most of us has in the past or even present speculate, gossip about a colleague pay. He/She has been buying new car, house, LCD TV and etc and you start to wonder, how much is he/she getting. “I have been putting in more effort than he/she, how come I am still stuck with my old piece of metal with 4 wheels and my 4 concrete walls with a roof.”

When you are young, have you ever kept any secret from your parents or anybody. It could be when you play truant to go and catch a new movie, catch fish or it could be that your auntie gives you more angpow money. When there is a secret it means there is something you wish to hide because its unfair, not right or ???. If our salary or our colleagues is fair or justifiable why is there a need to keep it as a “secret”? Does that means that it’s “a secret because there are significant injustices and the company prefer people not know about them” (this statement is taken from Newsweek).

If salary is an open book items in the company, when a salary adjustment is made to a staff the boss will really need to have a good and valid reason for it. As he/she will need to justify to everybody the reason why hence this will prevent the toss a coin or I like your face or you have been patting my behind type of adjustment. By being open about it, will it create a better working environment or will it become worse or is it better to keep it as a secret.........

Big Boy Toys

When I am in my early teens, my favourite past time is to visit the arcade shop with my dad to play pin ball. The shop is less than half a kilometre away from my flat. We would normally be there during weekends for our round of pin ball. I am not sure why I am hooked to it. It could be the challenge, the challenge of keeping a single metallic ball on a enclose board tilted 45 degrees. The longer you can prevent the ball from falling into the hole and the more targets you hit along the way, the more points you will get. Or it could be the fun of playing an hour plus of pinball with just 20 cents. Every 20 cents will buy you 3 chances. The reason is I am quite good at it, hence I will always get “free” balls every now and then by hitting the 100k points mark.

Actually what joy does one gets from playing pin ball? It beats me but when I played my body will sometimes sway excitedly from left to right when the flipper hits the ball. Flipper is the 2 “little things” that is control by the players. It is the only thing that is standing in the way between the ball and the hole. There are a lot of games and toys that I played during my teens, example Atari or those interesting electronic games like Popeye, Octopus and etc. I bought myself a PS one during my working days but it was stolen by someone when my house was broken into.

And for this Christmas and New Year, I have bought myself a toy. A slick and a small black wonder with an incredible screen and of course the capability of surfing the net wirelessly. I got myself a PSP. I am not sure if it’s a spur of the moment of purchase but I was attracted by its look and its display and what portable game console could allow you to surf the net, compete and play the games with a group of people wirelessly, listen to music, view pictures and see video. Why a “going to be 40 years old man” goes out and buy a PSP? Ummm, I guess I am still a small little boy trap in a man body. I guess nothing beats the feeling of becoming the champion racer, great kung fu fighter that can knock out a big guy with a single punch, treasure hunter and etc. Although all this is done and simulated in a little black rectangle but the feeling of achieving and accomplishing something is one thing us human loves. Oh someone is calling me, “Ok Michael, I am coming, rev up your engine and wait for me”…..

PSP with all the items in the value pack and seen with the screen visor from logica.

And I got a free leather organizer for slotting a certain amount using my mastercard....

All that Jazz

I am actually a music lover who loves all kinds of music. Some may say I am a bit odd or some may say I am just plain music collector. Just open my entertainment cabinet in my living room, there are rows and rows of CDs. It ranges from rock, pop, punk rock, heavy metal, new age, jazz, blues, rap and etc. There are CDs that I bought it, listen to it once and then it will be in the cabinet, filling up the empty rows slowly. Most of my CDs are all “Tulen” (genuine in English) and it’s not from night markets that sell in MP3 format. I do have 15 odds one that is “cloned” in which I bought from bazaar in Jakarta.

Once in a while I will have a sudden urge in buying CDs and for the past 2 weeks whereby I was on a hiatus from blogging and cyber space, that urge came and out comes my credit card. My first conquest is Emi Fujita, Camomile Blend, this is my first Emi CDs. I bought it with high expectation as a lot of colleague especially Lee Cheen Siong loves it and I came to believe that Emi voice is rated as one of the best. After listening to it, I shall say that it’s not what I expected. It could be that the songs are not original, it is originally sung by artiste like Police or Cyndi Lauper or it could be the pronunciation of certain English words. It actually reminds me of a Japanese Singer by the name of Seiko Matsuda. She has a beautiful voice, I love her Japanese Songs but her English version is just average.

Or it could be due to another CD which I have bought almost at the same time. It’s by Janet Seidel, its called comme ci, comme ca (French). When I first listen to it, I have the same feeling as when I listen to Norah Jones first CD. Her voice has that kind of “pull”, that will drag you in. I felt as though as I was standing there singing with her, feeling the emotion and each words drift across the air and lingers in my head. Try it guys. Oh before I forgot, the music genre is Jazz.

I have also other conquest, like Depeche Mode, Stefanie Sun nd Ronan Keating. Depeche Mode still belongs to the “Dark Side” of electronic music, their latest called playing the angel. I could feel Dave's emotion on this one. His road from hell and back. Stefanie and Ronan is more commercial pop songs……… I have another surprise in my next post. I have just bought myself a gift for Christmas and New Year. Its black in colour and its fun, my wife is sitting beside me now and enjoying herself.

A quick update

A quick update, I understand some of my colleague and friends are quite worry about me. It looks like I have been missing for almost 2 weeks from cyber space. There is no blog update or whatsoever. I did log on the net though but somehow most of us did not see each other online on MSN or Yahoo Messenger. I have also changed my MSN id as it seems I could not use my old ID to chat with my wife.

Since 19th November, I have been quite busy, work wise as most of the resources have been “discharged” from the project. I do not want to delve further, all I could say is that its have been a hell of busy and busy time. I also do not feel as well as I wish to although my wife might disagree but my body told me I am not my old self.

I went to Genting on 20th November. It was quite cold up there. It hovers around 22 degrees in the afternoon and at night it dips below 15 degrees. The first photo below was taken on the way down from the escalator from first world hotel. The second is taken just outside of resort hotel near the mini Japanese Garden. Again the mist almost swallow up the surrounding area, I could feel the moist on my face.

In fact it was so cold, that I ended up buying a jacket at one of the many stores available up there in Genting. Why did I buy it? I did not realise that it was so cold until I was shivering. It was all due to a gulp of water. I was outside enjoying the cold and clean air and I was a bit thirsty. Hence I decide to take a zip of water. Thats when my mouth starts to crackle, noise from my teeth knocking each other, shaking. The photo below shows my “new” and cheap jacket that cost around Rm39.

My sister was also away in Shanghai for 8 days hence I was preparing my own lunch and breakfast by myself. Hence I am bit tired also. Below is some of the things my sister bought. On the left is a pair of dolls and on the right is some lucky charm according to chinese zodiac.

On the left is a silk pillow is famous in Suzhou and on the right is "Wan Pin Kuo" a type of cake, very famous in Shanghai.

I was in Bangkok last week and I was sick most of the time, having a bad cold. However I still manage to get some christmas tree photo and some fireworks photo as on monday they celebrate the king birthday. I am still having problem with air pressure in my ears due to my cold, creating imbalance to my brain, wook wook.....

This firework display was taken from my bedroom.

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.