Achievement for the day

My first lotus root soup! As it was simmering for 2 hours, the aroma was a torture. Got me hungry way before lunch time. But then again, when am I not hungry one?

The preparation part was a bit chaotic. As per my sis-in-law's instructions, I have to remove the seed from the red dates. I peeled just one, it's was difficult, then I decided to just washed all of if and threw them into the pot of boiling water.. :-D

It may seem an easy task for old timers, I am a first timer, remember? Anyway, all's well that ends well. Hubby rushed back after he submitted his income tax form, packed "chap farn" and came back to enjoy his lunch with the soup. I put in lots of peanuts too. Lovely..

What's Next?
Our medical health check, which I've been talking about since 1 1/2 years ago. Need to get that done latest by June. Though at the rate we've been eating, the thought of going for it gives me the shivers.


Look for and compile all the story books and magazines that I have in the house (and my oh my, they're everywhere, not to mention I have tons of them which I've not read yet), and put them up at BookCross@1U, for sharing! For more info about BookCross@1U, ref to my blog Let's BookCross@1U dated April 4, 2010.

Coffee Talk

Had an appointment with Nissan Car Service in PJ at 10 am this morning. Was running a bit late, so I was kind of like rushing out, to get to the Federal Highway. On the Kesas Highway, at the turning into Subang, there was an un-usually long queue of cars, so I waited patiently from way back.

About 100 m before turning left, suddenly a car came from my right and, quick as lightning, cut into my path as i was about to move forward. Obviously by doing that, he didn't have to queue from way back like all of us did, and the shocking action had me jamming into my foot brake to avoid hitting him.

At the spur of that moment, with my heart thumping like at 150 km p'hr, I was ready to cite my "poems" at that guy. All the pleasantries were at the tip of my tongue, when suddenly, he stuck his hand out of the window, and made an apology. And it was quite a long one, mind you. Aaaawwh....... that was nice! What a lovely morning it is!

Don't you just love Tuesdays...?

Dreaming aloud

Monday.... yaaawwwnnnn..........!!!

Dreaming of last night's roasted chicken and seafood risotto at Italiannies, yuuumm....!!!

The engine is taking a bit of time to start-up and warm-up. Didn't sleep well last night, and it was an effort to get up this morning. Was at my lappie only at 9.30 am, and since then, I've been staring at the screen, dreaming of something else.. ;-)

Seems like when I don't wake up at my regular hour of 7.30 am or latest 8 am, my schedule goes haywire. Nothing seems to be moving along..

Took in the mail from mail box. I think I'll start preparing my lunch sandwich, go out early and grab my cup of coffee fix, stopped by the book shop to get some files (need to start a brand new file for my income tax), then get back and start doing some work. Oh, almost forgot, gotta get a new flourescent light for the bathroom too.

Better check out principle's website to get in touch with latest news.

The FB is so darn slow today, even a snail can go faster than it, geeeeezzz...........

Gone shopping, pls come back later.. :-D

Picture taken from here

--moon

Blog name - carrot head and applemint

Tax time stress

Monday

Found and compiled all the receipts for income tax purposes by night.

Tuesday

Tried filling in the e-filing, to familiarize myself and to do as much as possible by phase, so that it won't be so taxing for me this Friday. At the end of the page, as my heart was thumping hard and fast, I paused slightly... before hitting the Tax Summary button. And the result...... I don't know what it means, it's so confusing. I'm not sure if I owe them RM 3k or they owe me RM 3 (whichever it is, this is not possible), but then, whatever is the outcome, the figure is scaring the day lights out of me.....!!!

Usually I'm only required to pay about RM 400 after submission, but last year was a killer. I had to pay RM 1k, and when I saw the figure, I just freaked out, and I only went on to submit the form 1 1/2 months after the deadline, coz I refused to believe that I had to pay so much.

Geeez............. this income tax thing is really not good for my health and my mind. Need to run out for an ice-cream...!!!

Thursday

I took a number in the Income Tax Dept in Shah Alam and waited nervously for my number to be called & expecting the worst. I needed to get this sorted out before I go bongkus. When my no was called out, I sat in front of the staff, briefed him of the result and asked for clarification. He calmly rubbed his forehead, shook his head, asked me to key-in my access, got into the file, checked and double confirm with me on the figures, and when he came to the end of the page, told me, "Miss, you have paid RM 500 in excess, so this year you don't have to pay anymore upon submission."

I blinked, and I blinked, and I blinked. I asked him 3 times, the same question, and he said, "Yes Miss, this year you don't have to pay." I grabbed my scribbled paper from him as fast as I could and ran out, feeling at the top of the world! I must have looked comical at that time, coz the guy was looking at me funnily.

This weekend, I'm going shopping!

Work hard and play hard

April is almost coming to an end. The next 2 months are gonna fly even faster, as they're gonna be busy months for us.

May

MetalTech 2010 Exhibition (5th - 9th May, 2010 in PWTC)

In case you haven't noticed, it's 5 full days, mind you!

June

World Cup, woooohoooooo...!!!!

And in case you haven't noticed still, it's one FULL month.. :-D

I can feel the world cup fever building up!

Thinking Aloud

iPhone, iPhone, iPhone... the hottest topic in town nowadays. My cousin sis just got herself one. Should I or should I not? Why do I need one for? I got myself a HTC and till now, apart from using it as a phone and camera, I don't really use any of it's other features. At one point of time, I didn't even know if it had WiFi feature!! But then again, it's so chic and has lots of application which we can fiddle around with. To get or not to get?

Was at the Cold Storage in Bangsar Shopping Complex on Monday night. I was oh... so overwhelmed with the variety of cheese there. Oh, if you're a cheese lover, try this one. BabyBell. Something like that, love it! And the old amsterdam cheese is also lovely and heavenly. Must try!

Johnny, where are you, my Johnny?

One of my all time favorite cartoon - Johnny Bravo.

Sad thing is that they don't show it on Astro anymore.

Johnny Bravo - This show resolves around a huge muscular blond beefcake, aged 25 year old, with black sunglasses and shirt, blue jeans, pampadour hairstyle and Elvis Presley like voice tone and personality. The story sometimes resolves around him trying to get a woman that he's targeted throughout the episode to fall in love with him, but sometimes gets himself beaten up or stunned by his target or companions or gets ditched by them, due to his narcissistic and dim-witted traits that lead to a severe incorrigible inability to attract women; which makes it so hilarious to watch..!

The episodes vary, where he's finding a woman, travels intentionally or unintentionally to unfortunate places around the world, doing chores for his mom, adventures with Carl - Johnny's best friend and Lil' Suzy - the little red haired intelligent 5 year old neighbor, who is always inviting him over for a tea party with her "little friends" that are basically her toys and dolls.. :-D

Miss my silly but funny Johnny!


--moon




Blog name - carrot head and applemint


Hey, check this out!
1) World cup news up-date from a local scene
2) Koh Samui, Thailand
3) NOT the end of the story

Income tax = Nightmare!

I promise that I will submit my income tax way before the deadline this year. Hmmm... that means I have to submit by 24th April, 2010 ah..? 24th is this coming Saturday wo..

Wah lau eh, that means I have this week to search for and compile all the receipts for donations, book purchases, insurance, etc already la, so that I can start filling in by this Friday.

Yikes...!! This week is gonna be a stressful week for me, stay away!

A case of diet gone haywire

I thought I'd be able to get back to my normal healthy diet after CNY. However, all this birthday birthday stuffs, just seem to give us reasons to feast, feast and feast. Of course, our trip to Bangkok last week didn't help much either.

Fortunately I've done more than my fair share of exercise this week. Instead of the 3 treadmill & 2 yoga sessions, I did 4 treadmills and 1 yoga. We were in JB on Monday and by the time I got home, I was bushed, so no yoga that day. I did it this morning instead, before anything else got in the way. Tmrw will be rest day.

To do yoga, we first need to be in the right frame of mind ie. relaxed state, both in mind and in body. I didn't do any last week as I was in Bangkok, but I was at the hotel's gym, maximizing it's facilities. Somehow, for this entire week, my body muscles felt tight and tense, just thinking of starting yoga again. Hence this morning, to coax my body and mind into taking the 1st step, I started it off easy by doing the lotus pose (ref to abv pix) while I breathe deeply, to provide oxygen to my entire body, to loosen up the muscles and to warm them up. In between, I slotted in some body twists while in lotus pose, to strengthen my back, neck and spine, as well as to burn off excess energy that causes the earlier wired up feel.

After about 10 mins, I felt I was ready to start my sun salutation sequence. I ensured that I spent a bit more time doing the forward bend, backward bend and downward dog pose. By the 2nd set of the series, my whole body felt light and my mind was begging for more. I completed 6 sets (didn't want to push my body after 1 week of absence), and I was sweating buckets. By the end of the session, I knew that my body is back in tune.. :-D

Next week, my normal exercise regime should resume, and hopefully my diet too. Working on my home made lunch menu for next week now.

Oh, Austin, our squirrel pet is back in action, after being absent for close to a month. He must hv gone off for holiday like us.. ;-)

I've learned a way to keep the house cool in the afternoon scorching sun. Under normal circumstances, I would open up all the windows, sliding windows, and doors to let the sunshine in and hopefully the wind. But in actual fact, when I do that, I'm also letting in all the heat. In fact, more heat than anything else. So, the best thing to do is to close up all the windows and doors (note - just windows, not the curtains so that you still get the sunshine), to keep the cool air in and the hot air out. Smart eh? Does everyone already know this or is it just me? Uhhh... nvm.

(Pix taken from Getty Images)

Tree house - my child hood fantasy

Whenever I go back to Penang with hubby, I will insist every now and then that we drive past a road nearby my in-law's house. Reason being, there's a tree house in the garden of a corner single story home there, which I love to see.

I remember when I was young, I've always dreamt of having a tree house of my own, situated in a huge garden of a bungalow (dreaming mah, anything goes, right?). The tree house came about after having read those Secret Seven story books by Enid Blyton, about a fictional group of child detectives, who are always going somewhere for holiday during school breaks (is this the group or is that another group, can't remember, read too many already) and getting themselves embroiled in adventures.

In this tree house, only members are allowed in and they are required to provide their secret password like ("ayam naik kapal") or something like that, he..he.. You know, something that no one can think of, and the password itself takes like weeks to be selected by the committee.

Anyway, back to the tree house story. I was just googling it over the w'end and found some fabulous pix of elaborate tree houses, created by people who really take their fantasies to the real world. So far, the above is my favorite, though the kind of tree house that I've always had in mind is a small hut on top of a complicated and shady tree, but I've yet to see one like that.

You can check out more pix here. Some are really cool!

And since we couldn't have any tree house in my younger days (that's for sure), guess where we imagined our tree house to be? It changes location based on our mood and availability. It could be my best friend's room, my mom's room, the mini porch (anjung) in front of our house which is also below my mom's room window, under the big tree beside our house, etc.

Wah lau eh, it's already 8.35 pm, I've finished blogging, but the cleaners are still not done. And my tummy is growling. A hungry person is an angry person... grrrr....

Stories from my day

I was kind of like on my way out of the house this morning, when i caught a glimpse of my mail box. It's full to the brim, all the letters & mags pushed in by force as it's already full and I could feel them beckoning at me that it's time to empty it. So I decided to clear it up (since it's been like 2 wks late, coz I promise to go thru the mail box every Monday morning).

In the pile was a letter from the income tax dept (I shrink and my hand froze having seen the logo on the envelope). Yikes..! They must have done all their reconciliation after my many rounds of complain. The last that I knew, they claim that I owe them more than RM 5k, over 8 years. I would have to work part time at night on weekdays and tell ST to entertain himself on week ends too if I have to pay that amount. When I finally saw the figure stated on the letter, I heave a sigh of relieve! It has been reduced tremendously, so now I can sleep in peace.. :-D

But I still have to pay up the amount due. Tmrw morning, I'm on "holiday" being my big day. But I'll go to the income tax dept to settle the amount, for good, and then bid them good riddance.

Bangkok - the way I see it

One thing that I love about Bangkok is that wherever you go, you see a hint of their culture, believe and religion everywhere you look. Whether it's at the airport, on the street, in a shopping complex, in their architecture, clothes, etc, etc. In this modern day and era, you can hardly see this sort of stuffs in most nations, especially in the major metropolitan cities. You know that those are not put up or put on just for show, as it can be felt in certain cities which seem to have lost it's touch with their own culture, if not slowly losing it.

Pix was taken on one of the street in Bangkok, a statue of an elephant.

Curi ayam in Kluang Town

ST had a meeting in Tangkak and Batu Pahat, both in JB today and asked that I accompany him there as one of the potential customer, couldn't speak English well and only speak Mandarin. I wouldn't say that my Mandarin is that terror, but I guess it's better than his coz the only word that he can utter is "ni hao" and "xie xie".. ;-)

After our meeting in Tangkak, we drove to Batu Pahat. I never knew Batu Pahat has a giant shopping complex called Batu Pahat Mall. And believe me, it's huge for a small town. We had lunch there at the Chicken Rice Shop, before we met up with our 2nd customer. Meeting ended around 3.15 pm, and since we were quite near to Kluang, ST suggested that we drop by Kluang, a hometown of my friend Christine whom we have heard so much about. Neither of us have been there.

Anyway, I would normally need my coffee fix in the afternoon, so what better place to check out than the famous Kluang Train Station Coffee, right? So there we went. And to my utter surprise, we found that Kluang is quite a big town and like Batu Pahat, they too have their own giant shopping complex called the Kluang Parade. And ST, being the mall rat that he is, insisted that we go in and check out the place. Cool!

The train station is located on a slightly higher ground than the rest, and the shop lots in front of it has some hills as the back drop, which reminded me a bit of the place called Lake Como in Italy which I went to in year 2003. A tiny slight resemblance, but for that, I kind of like Kluang. Certain parts reminded us of Ipoh.

Pardon the messines, still not that familiar with this yet. And don't ask me why some words are in black and some are in white. I wonder too. Will try to clean up a bit later.. :-D

Travel around the world

It's mid April, and to think that within a short span of 3 months, I've gone to 2 of the world's most well known cities and came back. Hong Kong & Bangkok.

I remember ST used to insist that I must visit Hong Kong & Bangkok, after he came back from this 2 places many years back, and I've always asked him what is there to see. In Hong Kong - another metropolitan city with sky scraper and concrete jungle, and in Bangkok - the jam..?

It's not that I don't enjoy learning other nation's culture, style of living, architecture, etc which is of interest to me, please don't get me wrong. It's just that, if I have a choice in choosing to go for a vacation, I would always prefer the sea and the beach or the hill over concrete jungle, traffic jam, crowd, etc. I mean, if I get to choose to go for a holiday, obviously I would prefer a place where I can relax, instead of getting myself stressed out, right? So, somehow this 2 places has always been at the bottom of my list.

So when ST told me that he will be going for his sales conference in Hong Kong and his training in Bangkok, and that he will be having a room all to himself anyhow, I thought perhaps this is the right time for me to tag along. Further more, all his business trip events are held mostly in 5 star hotels. So even if I don't enjoy the 2 cities, at least I get to enjoy the hotel facilities.. ;-)

The summary of my Bangkok trip will be posted in batches. Stay tuned for more..

Off to JB tomorrow!

Home sweet home

Finally reached home around 11.30 pm. Looking at the political situation on the news a while ago, we are certainly glad that we're finally home.

Farewell to the tom yum goongs, song thum, pad thai, khop khun kha, sawat dee kha, and etc. Till we meet again.

News up-date frm Bangkok

Despite latest development in the news, we are still ok. There are still plenty of foreign tourists here. We were at the floating market this morning which is 1 1/2 hr away frm Bangkok. We are hoping that we will be able to get back to KL in one peace by tmrw.

The area where we are staying looks normal and we are still able to walk out for dinner.

Greetings from the Kingdom of Thailand!

Bangkok, the land of smiles!

First thing that hit me when we first arrive - the extreme heat! To give you an idea of what I meant, I was bargaining at a roadside stall, practically with sweat dripping down my face and neck. After the stall owner quoted me the price, I had to tell him to give me 5 mins so that I could walk aside, to get my face towel from my bag (that I borrowed from the hotel - it's a white hand towel) to wipe my sweat. The same happened when I was trying to have lunch, sweat was dripping down my face, and if you ask me now, I can't really recall what exactly I was eating. I just shoved whatever is on the plate into my mouth and half way through it, I decided I needed to get out and get back to the hotel.

Thank god my cousin sis brought along her lappie, otherwise, this will have to wait till I get back.

I went to Pat Pong this evening, you know, the place where it's like our Petaling Street plus the go-go bars. This is my first time going into a go-go bar, seeing a group of ladies dancing at the pole on the counter top in their fancy bra and panty. My comment - hmmm.... interesting.

The Prime Minister of Thailand declared a state of emergency in and around Bangkok yesterday, after the protesters managed to climb their way into the Parliament. Despite that, and a few major shopping complexes, areas and roads being closed, everything else was business as usual. ST and the Stratasys team went about their training in the hotel, like nothing happened. I was walking around and exploring the hotel area in the day time alone. Some of the participants has seen the protesters on their way to the hotel from airport but other than that, it's not too bad. But what a time to be in Bangkok! Songkran festival (the water festival starts this Saturday).

Uh, that's all for now, someone just came into my cousin's room. We are gonna yak the night away, coz they are leaving tmrw morning.

Sawat dee kaa.. Bangkok!

Coffee Talk

I remember when I was in primary school, I've always had this passion for reading. As soon as I discovered the library, that has been the place you will find me after school, before I had to rush off to catch my school bus. Being an "extremely" shy girl, I will always wait for the senior students to borrow whatever books there are in the library before I goes in and "sapu" whatever that's left. Hence, I always end up with books that are torn, without cover or with missing pages in between; the reason why no one was interested to borrow.

Being in a sekolah kebangsaan, there were plenty of Malay & English story books & magazines. One of my favorite magazine that has never failed to make my day is the Gila-Gila. And I remember those times when I was so caught up with certain story in it, but was unable to obtain the following month's publication (coz I was always grabbing the leftovers, remember?), it was soooooooooo.............. frustrating!! FYI, I do hear my niece telling me every now and then, that the will father sit in a corner sofa with a copy of Gila-Gila that I've supplied, and snickering to himself softly.

Now that I look back, even though the library was an extremely small one, that very library never failed to provide me with endless joy, information, entertainment and exposure, all of which was crucial to a child's imagination and in the development of our vocabulary. I'm not saying that my English or BM is A1, since working in the real world at times does not require such good and proper sentence formation (depends on which industry you are in), and that has not really helped me in maintaining what I have acquired, but it has certainly helped in my language papers without much effort in preparation.

My love for books didn't just end there. In my secondary school days, I remember bringing home, books that are as thick as the old Oxford Dictionary; that looks as old as probably one of Eintein's reference books (the older and thicker, the better), and my mom used to ask me if I actually understood what I was reading. 

                                Something that looks like this....




I was capable of bringing those books home, reading them without fully understanding, but will still read them. As I read those long words and sentences, I always wonder what it means, I don't know why. And at times when I'm hardworking, I'll cross check the meaning in the dictionary, but more often than not, I'll just read on. And I actually saw this habit of mine exhibiting itself in my 2nd niece - the CD Girl @ Charmayne. She was doing exactly that in her early primary age.. :-D

Even now, whenever I know or anticipate I will have lots of time to kill, I will ensure I have something on hand to read; whether it's at the airport, in Penang, or even when I go for vacation or beach holiday. Always. And nothing beats reading a good book or magazine while you laze on the beach/patio/hut/balcony/hammock, sipping a cool drink. Bliss.....!! Just give me a book anytime, and you can be assured that I will not bother you even if the sky comes falling down.. ;-)

Hence, I love buying books and magazines for my nieces, just to ensure they do not run out of stuffs to read in their free time (something that I had to go thru in my younger days). They are lucky in the sense that they have someone to provide them endless supply of reading materials.

So imagine my joy when I discovered BookCross@1U (ref to my previous blog for details). I totally love this concept, as I feel that books should not be kept, but should be shared.

Reading, truly opens up your world, your mind and possibilities!

Let's BookCross@1U

What is BookCross?

It's where 852,652 people in over 130 countries come to share their passion for books with the world. Where books take on a life of their own. Free your books! Follow their journey and the lives they touch.

Described as a modern day "message in a bottle", BookCrossing was founded in 2001 in the US. The global phenomenon follows the unique concept of leaving books at public spaces for people to find and ultimately spread the joy of reading.

BookCrossing is earth-friendly, and gives you a way to share your books, clear your shelves, and conserve precious resources at the same time. Through this unique method of recycling reads, BookCrossers give life to books. A book registered on BookCrossing is ready for adventure.

Leave it on a park bench, a coffee shop, at a hotel on vacation. Share it with a friend or tuck it onto a bookshelf at the gym -- anywhere it might find a new reader! What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel. Track the book's journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person.

Books needs to be released and shared.

Above content partly extracted from www.bookcrossing.com.

I've found my BookCross at 1 Utama (Ground Floor Highstreet). Have you? Join us and make the world one big book exchange!

My pick of the 2010 Oscar Evening Gown

Was browsing thru some magazines earlier and saw some of the evening gowns worn by the stars at the recent Oscar award nights. Love some of their gowns.

Sandra Bullock

Sweeping floor length metallic champagne dress with a metallic floral bodice. The combination of the full length gown with straight neat hair speaks only of elegance personified.

Kate Winslet

Silver strapless gown with a fitted bodice and straight skirt. Clutch bag in silver, modest silver bangles, shimmering art deco pendant. Dress was extremely elegant consisting of embroidered black silk tulle over the grey satin dress. It's one of my fav form of combination.

Charlize Theron

Voted as the most crazy looking dress, with quote and unquote - "2 purple cinnamon buns on the chest" - wink, wink! Strapless gown with sweeping floor length. It is slightly out of the ordinary but I do love the total combination, I don't know why. Unique is the word!

--moon

What's in and what's out

Whenever I need to purchase an electronic or tech gadget, without fail, I will always check my facts at CNET Asia. Here, you get plentiful of reviews and ratings provided by users themselves and the editor too. The tech products reviewed here includes mobile phones, digicams, notebooks, PC and peripherals, printers, home AV, music and play and softwares. Just type in the gadgets (by brand, by budget, by type or operating system) which you are researching on, and the answer will be there in seconds.

The site was recommended to me by my friend Clement. Extremely useful.. :-D

Trust me, you get neutral reviews here which is crucial to help you make your decisions. Have fun! Oh, and feel free to leave a note here, if you know of other avenues where we can do the same.

Un-learn and re-learn

The reading continues...

3D production systems & 3D printing machines. Additive fabrication technologies and application. Blow molding. Tooling components. Modeling. Fabrication & assembly tools. Proof of concept. Functional testing. Vacuum forming... etc, etc, etc.

Am doing my reading at KK's Delifrance, with my fav cup of coffee at the side, and the cooling air-cond running. If I had been at home, I'd be reading for 15 mins, after which you will find me curled up on the sofa with either Timon or Tabby at my feet, snoozing away, he..he..

This Maxis mobile broadband stick rocks...!!! *Thumbs up for them!*