Siu chu chu

Last weekend, a little piggy was let lose in the streets of Ipoh.

On Saturday morning, the little piggy and her partner-in-crime arrived in Ipoh and started devouring "liew fun" (noodles with fishballs, fried stuff and all kinds of things that you pick and choose) at "pat kok lau" (8-angled flats, or something like that). It's actually a corner coffee shop in dunno-where-in-Ipoh.

"Liew fun" is the kind of noodles you can only find in Ipoh. No where else in KL or PJ can you find it. The nearest thing that comes close to it is "yong tau foo", which they serve with "chee cheong fun" here, and not noodles. Anyway, the piggy loves "liew fun", thanks to her partner-in-crime who introduced her to it. Yummy yumm yumm. With yummy soya bean which tastes very nice in Ipoh, of which the partner-in-crime says it's due to the Ipoh water.

Over the afternoon, they snacked on "siu yok" (only in Ipoh, definitely not in KL, can you buy freshly-chopped "siu yok" in the afternoon for tea) and yummy "fu-chuk-yee mai-bak-gor" i.e. barley with gingko in soybean (thanks to piggy's mother-in-law, who boils the best "tong sui"s ever).

And dinner was at "Tong Hoi" restaurant in Menglembu (East Ocean Restaurant). Which was jam-packed full of people. And it was the first time that the piggy saw people standing around waiting at tables for people to finish their 8-course dinners in a restaurant. Only in Ipoh man, only in Ipoh.

On Sunday, breakfast was dry curry noodles (which are the best in Ipoh, very hard to find in KL) at some corner-house-turned-coffee-shop in Menglembu that serves excellent undiluted iced Milo. The piggy then drove to buy salted herbal chicken for her parents, 2 each from Menglembu and from Aun Kheng Lim. The former is cheaper at RM15 per chicken, but AKL's is RM16 per chicken. And the next stop was at some shop to buy the best "kaya-kok" ever! Placed the order at 11am for 15 pcs of "kaya-kok", and was told to come back to collect them at 2.30pm. Fresh I tell you, fresh!

So piggy and the entourage dropped by at Sun Seng Fatt to try their famous dry curry noodles (yes, plate no. 2). The waiter (or boss, maybe) carries some PDA thing to take orders okay, don't play play! Piggy and partner-in-crime shared a plate of the dry curry noodles (which were not very dry, quite wet actually) which tasted okay, and a glass of cold blended red bean, yumms!

Went home to pick the in-laws up for lunch (yes, belum lunch lagi tahu). Brought them to this new coffeeshop in Menglembu town called "Diamond". And the partner-in-crime aka hungry-ghost-of-liew-fun saw a whole stack of liew in front of the shop. How could he resist but put down an order for dry curry noodles plate no. 3 (3rd in 4 hours!) and a whole stack of liew. Piggy ordered a "chap gor ping" (fruit ice kacang). Stuffed, I tell you, stuffed!

Collected the "kaya-kok" and headed back to KL. Piggy and partner-in-crime were in almost-shut-down-mode-so-the-tummies-can-digest stage. And they didn't even have dim sum, or kai si hor fun, or honey-roasted chicken, or wan tan mee. Piggy can't wait to return to Pig-land for more Pigging. But only after piggy has lost all the curry noodles weight.

Transformers was awesome! Granted, you have to ignore some cheesy corny parts. And remember that the movie's targeted at hot-blooded young men. I thoroughly enjoyed the transformations, the regal trucks and smooth cars changing into robots - epitome of cool! :)

Last night when we left GSC at almost 11pm, there was still a pretty long queue for tickets. And throngs of people were waiting to be let in to the theatres for the next change. Obviously many people don't need to really work on Fridays :P

And early this morning when we just got into the car to drive to work, we hear that the great MJ has passed on. What a sad day. He was a fabulous entertainer. And I shall go out to buy his albums that I actually have in cassettes, but I want the longer-lasting CD versions. So my kids in the future will be able to know what a legend MJ is.

Euphoria or sadness, still have to work for my pay on a Friday. Looking forward to a weekend of food ;)

For the record

1. It's Transformers tomorrow!
2. I'm addicted to that 7pm show on tv.
3. I crave the "best wat tan hor" in Batu Caves / Selayang.
4. Work is boring.
   

On a Sunday morning

Got a part-time maid to make my life easier (http://yds.com.my/) RM160/- for 4 visits at 3 hours per visit. She cleans the porch, sweeps and mops, washes the toilets and irons the clothes. While she does all that, I wipe down the countertops, do the laundry and change the bedsheets. Every once in a while, I get her to wipe the fans, windows, grills, door frames, knobs and switches, dust the ceilings and cupboard tops, do some garden-weeding. It's amazing how much keeping a house requires. But I'm grateful I can pay for help.

I am reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari". It is an awesome book. So easy to read. But every sentence hits you in the eye, makes you think, reflect, re-read, re-think. It's like "Eat, Love, Pray" by Elizabeth Gilbert of which I still need to go get my own copy of since I returned my rented copy. These 2 books are in my must-own and must-reread-all-the-time list. Some people attend motivational seminars to push themselves forward, and some get a jolt in that direction after something happens. For me, it's books like these that push me towards trying to be a better person.

Couch potato

The Tudors Season 1 is more awesome than Season 3. It was, however, in Season 3 that I noticed His Hotness Henry Cavill. And next to His Royal Hotness Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, the series is quite eye candy, I must say.

My other guilty pleasure right now is So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) Season 5. This is the first time I'm watching it and by golly, these dancers don't have any bones in their body - they bend every which way! Can't say yet who's my favourite couple, but I like Philip and Jeanine (their Neyo-Mad routine was awesome mad! go watch it!). But most of all I love Cat Deeley - the bestest reality tv show host ever! She's spontaneous and genuine and I just love her accent, charming I tell ya.

San Francisco

Typed on 11th April 2009 at 8.53pm :-

At Golden Gate Bridge, the landmark of San Francisco. Bloody cold wind blowing I tell you! My fingers were completely frozen!

We took Southwest Airlines from LA to San Fran - a budget airline - the ticket costs us $70+$60 each for return flights. I was pleasantly surprised because they gave us free drinks (pretty decent selection) and honey roasted peanuts. Better than AirAsia.

And they had a very organized way of boarding the plane. When you check-in, it is written on your boarding pass you are the passenger number-what to be checking in. So boarding is according to those numbers printed on your boarding passes. They have properly marked out locations for you to be queuing up. How cool is that? Much better than AirAsia - again.

Anyway, we landed in San Francisco International Airport - very nice and modern and far better than LAX. And we took the BART (one of their train systems) straight into the heart of the city - cost us about $5. We were heading to Chinatown, where our hotel Astoria is.

After dumping our luggage at the hotel, we walked out to catch our first cable car ride. Luckily we had our 3-day travel pass ($18) which enabled us to hop on and off any bus, tram or cable car as much as we like. The cable car was packed - but the ride was awesome. It gave a fantastic feel of San Francisco - and whenever I think of San Fran (which coincidentally has the same initials as my name), I will remember the feeling of riding on the cable car.

The cable car is a typical San Francisco landmark.

We rode the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf.

This is called the "turn table". This is the end of the route for the cable car. It goes on it, then the drivers manually turn the cable car around so it can go back the other way.

Typed on 13th June 2009 at 10.37am :-

I'm too lazy to type so much. So I shall just caption the photos. I don't have many of San Francisco, because KF took most of the photos, and most are in RAW format, he hasn't had the time to process them yet. So these are what we have ...

Clam chowder - apparently a must-have when in Fisherman's Wharf. I think it's overrated, my Campbell's soup tastes similar. But when in SF, you have to do what every tourist is doing ...

The seals at Pier 39. They're wild seals that suddenly decided to make Pier 39 their home.

We accidentally arrived in the gay area of Castro, after getting on the wrong bus.

But we found what we were looking for - yummy hotdogs! I ABSOLUTELY recommend Rosamunde's Sausage Grill ... the hotdogs are authentically fabulous!

The menu is yummy-licious! Nope, I don't think that's Rosamunde.

Jellyfish at the California Academy of Science - the most fascinating museum I've ever been to. The most captivating thing I saw was a huge octopus, its tentacles hypnotizingly suctioning and unsuctioning along the glass enclosure. And the planetarium was awesome!

We spent our last full day in San Francisco roaming at "Land's End". The beautiful name of the place is what attracted me to put it on our itinerary. We spent half a day walking along the trail, which runs along the cliffside of San Francisco.

There was a small cave we went into along the trail.

The view from outside the cave at Land's End.

One of the lookout points at Land's End. At one corner you can see the Golden Gate Bridge (the little red tip of it). This is also where we saw a real life whale. It was pretty cool to be able to do some whale-watching - a first for me.

The wind-swept cypress trees along the Land's End trail.

Now, our "moments of timeless pleasure" - Ghirardelli Chocolate! This is really an absolute MUST-DO when in San Francisco ... expensive, and so decadently sinful chocolate ... I'd eat this everyday if I could. At one end of this ice-cream restaurant was a chocolate mill, with rich milky chocolate churning slowly, mesmerizing me into swoon-land.

One of the famous Ghirardelli sundaes. The best and most unforgettable is its chocolate peanut butter sundae - MUST EAT!!!

Ghirardelli's magnetic pull dragged us back there twice in the span of 3 days.

Now this is what I'm talking about - churning chocolate - slurp!

Taken at Alamo Square - don't the houses look familiar? It's from Full House! :) These houses are called the Painted Ladies.

So that's about it. San Francisco. A wonderful tourist-y town. I liked the Golden Gate Bridge (not golden at all), and Land's End, and the Science Academy, and Ghirardelli! And although I'm broke from the trip, but ... I'd rather be broke from travelling than from shopping ;)

My new bob

*cough cough* hazy-nye hari ini ...

Climbing rocks

Me trying hard not to look scared of the walls

Camp 5 at 1 Utama has this pretty awesome vibe - it's filled with people who are all looking to challenge their limits.

Trying my hand at bouldering with the girl behind "spotting" me

We got to 1 Utama the earliest I've ever been there - at 9.20am, at a discreet corner of Level 5 (accessible by the lift opposite Big Apple Donuts in the new wing). Joe, KF and I were attending the Basic Wall Course at RM126/- per person, from 10am - 3pm.

Our class listening to the instructor (seated in blue)

We learnt :
- How to tie double-eight knots
- How to belay
- The "passwords" of climbing
- How to do bouldering (nope, not throw rocks off cliffs)

KF trying to be spiderman at the boulder

It was a very fun day! Because I got to learn something new, and something I never thought I'd do! Ok la, I didn't manage to reach the top, chickened out mid-way because accidentally saw the blue carpet from the corner of my eye and the "heights" fear popped up (yes I'm someone who can't even climb past the 4th step of a ladder). I tried 3 different times on 2 different routes, but still failed to get to the top. And around me were small little nimble kids happily monkey-ing their way up and down the rocks - geez. But, it's still an achievement for me, so I deem the day not wasted - and I got a small-but-oh-so-painful blister on my right little finger to show for it. I had to plonk to bed at 11pm on a Saturday night from all the exertion.

And so, I had a great Saturday, plus the license to boast : "I've rock-climbed before!". I'd love to go again, if only just to see if I can reach the top. If a 7-year-old can do it, I should be able to too.

(All photos courtesy of Mui Yee - who patiently waited for us throughout the class)