BBQ at Boss's house

This was the first time after I've been working for so long in Cheng & Co that Mr Liew invited the staff in our department to have a BBQ session for mooncake festival celebration at his house on September 26. Really kinda surprise on that arrangement.

As a return for his free treat on the off peak celebration, we planned to treat him for the BBQ instead. All the food and equipment for BBQ is prepared by us. As Mr liew was inviting some other partners to this event as weill, he suggested us to buy some satay..... Erm... think he is worried that at the end of the day we are unable to grill any food for his invited guests. The invited guests are Dr Paul and his wife, Mr Chua and his wife and Steven's family. Steven is so generous to contribute RM200 for this event. His money is utilised to buy 100pcs of chicken wings and a bucket of KFC whereas Mr Chua bought us a bottle of red wine.

I'm not involved in the BBQ planning stage at all as there are lots of colleagues were helping up for it. Too many cooks, spoil the soup..... I don't want to be the one who spoil the plan... hehe.

When I reached Mr Liew's place, to my big surprise, there was lotsssssssss of food were served. For BBQ, there were fruits, 100pcs of chicken wings, fish, sweet potatoes, fishballs, sausages, ham etc. On the other hand, Mrs Liew prepared lots of food for the event fried noodles, dessert, mooncakes, apple pie, curry chicken etc. Together with the pre-ordered 500 satays, i guess this would be a big BBQ session with hundreds of guests around.

Then colleagues told me that the guests were all there already. It's only around 20 of us. Oh my God!! Mountains of food for 20 of us!!!

A rough calculation came to my mine in no time. Averagely each of us has to cover 5 pcs of chicken wings, 1 KFC, half of a fish, 25 satay etc....... That's terrible. Such a weak estimation for the event as obviously there would be lots of food wastage. I somehow feel that all of us are treated as if we are just back from Africa.

At the end of the BBQ session, the left over food are a lottttttt more than those finished by us. Everyone is forced to pack lotssssss of food to bring home.

I feel so lucky that this BBQ session was held at Mr Liew's house. Mr Liew didn't really comment much on the event. If the same scenario was taken place at Mr Chua's place, I'm sure and I'm guaranteed that Mr Chua would shout out, "Bad planning! Bad planning! Bad planning!".

Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia

My AS1M passbook.........

This RM10billion unit trust is opened for public subscription from yesterday onwards. 50% is allocated to Bumiputra, 30% to Chinese, 15% to Indian and 5% to other races = Satu Malaysia. Since yesterday was my working day, I was not available to join the queue. But heard my sister told me that she waited for almost an hour at the Maybank of Damansara to serve 4 people and this is the reason she gave up to wait further.

I reached CIMB of Sri Petaling at around 9.15am and can't see any crowd. I managed to subscribe the Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia and complete the whole application process within 15 minutes.... awesome!! Everything done at 9.30am. So, not necessary early bird is advantaged all the time!! Hehe!! I can confirm that the response this time is bit slower if compared with ASW2020 and ASM previously.

Afternoon time, received a call from my sister and she told me that the the Maybank at Damansara is crowded again. Everyone is still excited on the AS1M and long queue again. Huh?? Really unbelievable!! Anyway, I don't bother about that. As long as I manage to buy my share, that's good enough for me. :)

Anti-ISA protest 之有惊无险的一天！！

Anti-ISA protesters were having a demonstration against the act. According to the newspaper, their gathering point is at Sogo Shopping Complex and will march towards the Istana Nagara morning. As usual, I'm having my work out session at Menara Maxis today.

I saw a relaxing and peaceful environment along my LRT trip to KLCC... thinking that the demonstration must be well under controlled or has been cancelled last minutes coz it was already 11.00am. Didn't heard people talk much about the issue as well along the way. Everyone in the LRT seems more excited about the PIKOM PC fair or mega sales instead. Just another nice weekend.

Joined 3 classes back to back today.... Body Combat, Body Jam and Body Balance. Finished my work out session at around 4.00pm. So as usual, I headed towards KLCC Putra LRT station. My normal routine is to stop at Masjid Jamek Station, inter-change station to Star LRT which will be heading to Sri Petaling. At the point of stepping into the KLCC station, I heard an announcement that the train is not going to stop at Masjid Jamek Station as the illegal demonstration is still on and that area is in a total mess.

Omg.... this is the only way that I know of how to get home from KLCC. I tried to asked around but seems like lots of passengers have the same problems with me. Everyone keep asking and asking whereas the officer in charge were all busy attending them. No choice..... I have to study their route map carefully and try to look for an option where I can start from KLCC LRT station and end at Sri Petaling LRT station without stopping at the inter-change station of Masjid Jamek.

Thank God..... I found 2 option. First is to stop at KL Sentral and change to KTM heading towards Tasik Selatan and from there I can take the Star LRT back home. Second is to stop at Dang Wangi and change to Monorail at Bukit Nanas which heading towards Hang Tuah and from there again I can take the Star LRT back home. I choose the second options with a simple reason that I don't wanna bypass the Masjid Jamek station. Yes... I'm scared of this kind of riot and demonstration. I saw this thing 10 years back and this is really a terrible nightmare for me.

Along my way of LRT trip..... I saw lots of people wearing black shirts... the dress code for the issue. But I think they are not related to the mentioned activity. I can hear the helicopters circling overhead. Think I'm just too sensitive.....

When I was in the Hang Tuah inter-change station, I feel some fear there coz this are is very near city centre. Just scared that when the crowds disperse, they will proceed to this area. Luckily I manage to get into the train in few minutes.

In the train, I overheard a conversation between 2 Chinese guys saying that they just back from the Anti-ISA protest. They are so proud to be part of it. Heard that the police and FRU used tear gas and water cannons fired towards the protesters. Heard that traffic at Jalan Dang Wangi and Ampang is affected. No wonder I can see polices are all around Dang Wangi area.... If I know it earlier, I won't be using the Dang Wangi as my LRT inter-change point....

Finally, manage to reach home in peace as per schedule..... *sweat*

Pos Holding Berhad AGM gift

This is the free gift to shareholders during AGM of the company.... first day cover!!

Leaked pipe

2 days back... after complete with the meter reading work, the 'Syabas' staff suddenly knocked our door and according to him, he is quite sure that we have a leaked pipe in our house as the water bill goes more than 10 times higher than our usual bill.... Goshhh!! We checked out the meter reading.... omg, it was non-stop moving up. So he suggested us to get someone to fix it immediately or else the bill might go up to RM1,000+ .

Dad immediately called up the plumber to help and at the mean time, we tried to observe whether there was any water leaking 'symptom' inside the house..... Not sure whether is it 'luckily' or 'unfortunately', we were unable to find out any....... 'Lucky' in the sense that, the leaked pipe might not be the one inside the house and might be the one at car porch area but the 'unlucky' part would be, we might overlook it as the leaked is too minor to be detected.

Mr Ahmad, the plumber reached our place around 6.00pm. After due investigation, he told us that the leaked pipe is located next to the drain in front of the house. He charged us 100 bucks for repairing. Thanks God that is just a minor repair which took him around 1 hr.

Personally wish to thank the Syabas staff. He is so kind to inform us immediately. We might can't notice the situation immediately without his effort as we tend to keep our bill aside until we make the payment by the deadline every month.....

Wesak Day

For the first time, I am off on Wesak Day after my 6 years of working life in Cheng & Co. We usually need to work on Wesak Day as a replacement off day for Chinese New Year. But this year, since Wesak Day was on Saturday,hence it considered as a off day for my Company... Yahooooo!!

Early in the morning, my family when to the Buddhist Temple at Brickfields for praying of good health and happiness. We didn't bring any offerings for the mentioned purpose as usual. We bought the offerings such as joss sticks and candle there though donation.

Huge crowded people were there. We queued up for around 15 minutes before we managed to step into the temple to be blessed by the master. In return, we are given string for safekeeping and flowers for shower. Buddhist believe that by using them (string and flower), we are blessed with happiness and good health.

The day before Wesak, we went to Menara Summit due to I was doing my work out there. We watched a singing performance for Wesak Celebration. Again blessing, blessing, blessing all the way!!

I accidentally deleted the pictures in my mobile phone

The good thing is .... I just changed the memory card of my mobile phone to 2Gb and now I can saved more pictures and songs in it......Yeahh!!! But the bad thing is..... I accidentally deleted all my random pics that stored in the old memory card. :( I stored those for blogging purpose whenever me and my pc are free.

I know... 2Gb memory card is considered very common or even very outdated nowadays. But as you guys know, I'm not really into hi-tech stuff, so for me, this is good enough!! The purpose for the memory card is solely restricted to saving of songs and pictures. No others..Hehe!!

Cost of Living

Every state in all over Malaysia have different cost of living. I had my lunch at Seremban last Friday during my course of audit there. Seems that Seremban has a lower cost of living compared with Kuala Lumpur.

My colleague and I had our lunch at Pasar Besar Seremban. There is a food court within the building, packed with little stalls selling variety choices of food. I opted for rice noodles. Yeah... rice noodles is always my all-time favorite.. Hehe!!

Guess what?? The bowl of rice noodles only costs me RM3.00. Wahh.... really kinda cheap leh. Now it is not easy to look for a place to have lunch for RM4.00, not to mention RM3.00. Different state, different cost of living ....... How I wish I still can enjoy my lunch at RM3.00 in KL again..... I hate inflation!!! Inflation make all prices shoot up except.... share price :(

QingMing

It was QingMing Festival last Saturday. In order to escape the horrible traffic jam, my family decided to go for this Tomb Sweeping Activities on Sunday. But out of our expectation, the traffic still terribly jammed.

We started our journey at 7.00am. We have to go to 2 graveyard for QingMing every year. One for my grandpa at the KwongTung Cemetery of Cheras and one for my grandma at the KwongTung Cemetery of Sungai Besi.

We reached Cheras KTC around 8.30am. Every since the maintenance work is taken over by Wah Mei Landscape Deco & Build, it really ease our tomb sweeping job. Before we reach there, the person in-charged already clean up the tomb area. We don't have to involve in cleaning and gardening work anymore. We just need to pay RM30.00 per year as the maintenance fee. So, here what we did was just to give all the offerings that we prepared for the simple praying session. The whole procedure only took us around 45 minutes.

After that, we straight away proceeding to KTC at Sungai Besi and again we were trapped in the traffic jam as expected. Luckily the traffic is slow but still moving. Managed to reach our destination at around 11.00pm. To our disappointment, although we are paying RM30/- to the same organisation in-charged, Wah Mei Landscape Deco & Build, but we were shocked by what we saw. Bushes, rubbish and water are all around. We didn't bring any tool for the gardening and cleaning purposes. So, before we paid the fee for current year, we pushed them to clean up the tomb area for us since they are the one who did not do their part. Luckily, they are so good enough to listen to our complaint and took immediate action to rectify the situation. Thank God!! Everything is settled on the spot and in time.

Reached home at around 1.00pm. This year is considered quite early to finish the QingMing praying. Few years back before the maintenance of tomb is set to be compulsory, we always utilise whole day and all our energy solely for this QingMing Festival. Now.. is unbelievable fast!! hehe.....

Run... Run... Run...

29/3/2009 marked a funny day for me. My parents went to Sepang for one day trip with my aunties by coach. Early in the morning, they parked the car at Brickfields, right in front of my auntie's house and happily went on the trip.

Around 3.00pm, my cousin suddenly called my elder sister and informed us that DBKL was there to repair the road and all the vehicle need to be removed by 15 minutes. Else the vehicle would be on tow. We decided to go to Brickfields and remove the car with the spare key. But my sister suddenly thought of my parents love to lock the car with a steering lock.... Oh My God!! We don't have the spare key for that. After calling my parents and confirmed that the car is properly locked with the steering lock, we searched for our whole house from up to down, left to right..... and found 4-5 sets of different steering lock key. Old people really love collecting things!! So, I took all 5 keys and wished that one of it can unlocked the steering lock.

After few minutes Fast and Furious session on the highway, we finally reached the destination. The road was blocked for the repair. My sister dropped me at the shop area. This is the time for me to show my capability of running and speed... Luckily I workout quite frequent and manage to run to the destination without any delay, but the feeling of this type of running really pressured.

Upon reaching my car, everybody were staring at me... Thank God that it's still there in safe. My next mission is to unlock the steering lock. Bingo!! I got it right at the third trial and successfully removed the car and DBKL fella manage to start their work. The feeling of keep trying the steering lock key is not a fun one. I somehow felt that myself was involved in a competition of trying to win a car by choosing the right key, trial and error. Hahaha....

Hopefully... no next time!! Not enjoying it at all!!

Inflation effect

I can feel the inflation. I feel that the price for everything in the market is increasing everyday. I need to incur extra during my shopping time, during my lunch time, dinner time etc. Recently I heard that lots of my friends commented that they didn't feel much as a result of the inflation.

I'm in doubt. Why I'm the only one to feel it?? After some chatting session with friends, now I understand it clearly. Most of them are using credit card to cover their daily expenses. They are credit cards supporter. Well, I also own credit card but I don't really love using it. For me, I always feel that I seriously can't control my budget every time I swipe my credit card. I don't have any heartache feeling and instead I feel good coz I can accumulate the points for gift redemption. Should I cover all my spending by using credit card?? or should I keep using cash and keep 'suffering' the inflation effect??

Disney on Ice

What a surprise!! I was there to watch this fantastic show last Sunday. I am offered a ticket of RM228 for free from Cheng & Co.. Heard that these tickets are actually distributed to the committee members of anuual dinner 2008 but I'm so lucky enough that Koh can't make it on that day. So, Sherine gave me the ticket. Cool!!

I love Disney Cartoon ever since I was a kid. Few days back before the show, I dreamed that someone gave me the ticket.... this time the dream really comes true... haha. The theme for the show is Disney on Ice ~ Princess Wishes.

The show started with Tinker Bell skating around on the ice rink to welcome the host for the show, Mickey and Minnie Mouse.... my favourite cartoon. They are soooo cute. As we are sitting at second row, I can even clearly see the ice splashing out during their skating.

Mickey and Minnie chit-chatted about the Disney Princess Wishes and how their sweet dream came true. They kicked start the show by discovering the Whole New World with Princess Jasmine and Aladdin's chase and race skating session in market place. This is the first performance of the day and I was so attracted by the show. Their skating move are so gentle and graceful. Next performance was children favourite bedtime story of Snow White with 7 dwafts and I can say that this is the most 'cute' and colourful performance.... Everyone was happy to see Snow White found her true love on the ice rink. After that, Beauty and the Beast were there with their nice performance and song. Little Mermaid, Ariel cames right before the break time. Most of the circus-typed stunt action were shown in this part of the show....... The background of the show themed... "Under the Sea... Under the Sea!!"

After the one hour show, there was a 15 minutes break time. Right after the break, Mulan and the General were there in action. Mulan, our heroin from China, skates with her martial art.... some kicks and punch involved, kinda interesting. Next would be Sleeping Beauty's turn and last but not least, the Cinderella..... Cinderella and Prince Henry show lotsssss of outstanding skating action. I can't stop clapping and clapping and clapping my hands.... fantastic.

Towards the end of the show, the 7 couples back in action again with Tinker Bell, Mickey, Minnie and Goffy.... Ohh.... so happenings!!!! I love the show..... its really great to watch it for free. Beautiful and magical moment of ice skating show night!!

Mickey and Minnie in the house^^

A whole new world with princess Jasmine and Aladdin

Snow White and the Prince

Belle of Beauty and Beast

The Little Mermaid

Mulan in action

Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella

Final presentation.....

Pre-birthday lunch with my sister

March 2 was my elder sister, Nikki's birthday. A day before, we went to Mid Valley for shopping. She planned to buy some clothes for her work out session. Studio R and RSH were having grand sales which are just nice for my sister to grab her favourite Nike product at a mark down pricing there. To my surprise, the 2 mentioned outlet is crowded.... Such a shopping carnival feel !!

After the shopping session, we went for our lunch. Mid Valley is a great place for lunch with variety choices but it's definitely not for weekends. Every restaurant is packed with customers. Everywhere have to queue... have to wait.... have to be patience.

We ended up having our lunch at Sushi King. The only reason that we have our lunch there is because we don't have to queue for seats. Seats are readily available right in front of the sushi bar. For the food wise, it's just as usual and nothing to shout about. Instead of cutting the birthday cake, this time my sister cut the sushi at Sushi King instead. At least this is something different for her birthday this year. Hahaha!!!

Pre-birthday lunch at Sushi King...

before we left the place......

Free movie at Leisure Mall

Yesterday was my first visit to Cheras Leisure Mall after the my final sitting of ACCA examination at Sedaya College around 7 years back. Not to mention the place, I even hardly remember the route to Cheras Leisure Mall.

Went for 9.30pm movie there with Hern Foong. We took our dinner at Sri Petaling and reached Leisure Mall around 8.45pm. Since there was still another 45 minutes ahead before the show start, we paid a visit to Fitness First there. During the gym touring time, happened to bump and to chat a bit with Cheryl, the body jam instructor. At that point of time, I suddenly feel that.... I so in love with Body Jam and I so miss Body Jam and I so appreciate the time to jam with Cheryl....

Got this free movie treat from Hern Foong as my birthday gift. So great. Thanks a lot. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.... a story of this young and pretty heroin. But this Ms Chun Li's character is totally different from my expectation. I am expecting a Asian young lady with a cute and cheerful character..... Now only I know that Chun Li has such a sentimental characteristic. No Ryu and Ken in the movie. I think they just mention the name of 'Ryu' as a great Street Fighter towards the end of the movie. That's it. This is purely a movie for 'Chun Li' without her gang. A lonely Chun Li, in other words.

The day before yesterday, yesterday and today...

The day before yesterday, yesterday and today are all my off days. But I am having the same activities for these 3 days namely eating, sleeping and surfing net.

For the first day, I really enjoy these activities very very much. This is the first time I can have this kind of enjoyable lifestyle after CNY. Repeating the same activities on yesterday causing a certain degree of bored. But so lucky enough that I happened to meet a long lost friend though facebook and we had a great chat throughout the day.... feel so good after all!!

How I wish I can repeat the same activities today. But I started my day by reading a bad news from the papers. In order to encourage spending, BNM reduced the interest rate again and now the monthly FD rate stands at 2.0% per annum. That's terribly low. Seems a bit meaningless to deposit in FD now. Received some calls from office and clients to discuss on some headache and endless work-related problems.... I so miss my first 2 day off work. I appreciate that kind of peaceful very very much.

Facebook Gift

A friend of mine always sends little cute gift and sometimes attached with message to me at Facebook. At the same time she also keeps asking me to send her something. For me, this is nothing much but since she likes to receive this kind of gift, I'll send some to her when I am free. Receiving these gifts served as one of my 'must do' activity everytime I sign into my facebook account.

But recently my this friend went offline for weeks and I didn't receive any gifts from her. Now I have a feeling...... For me, I don't really feel super happy when I receive those little gift thru facebook but when I receive zero gift, I just feel not comfortable. Now, more or less I can feel the reason why my this friend always ask me to send little gift to her.... !!

Lynda's wedding lunch

Just went back from Lynda's Wedding. This is the second time of attending Malay Wedding Ceremony. Really not too much of Malay close friend. Lynda was my membership consultant in Myfiness. She invited my sister and me to attend this auspicious ceremony at Cheras.

Joe gave us a lift from Endah Parade to Lynda's Wedding ceremony. With reference to the invitation card, the Kenduri supposed to start at 10.00am. We reached the place at 10.30am and found that the food is not ready yet. So we decided to greet Lynda with our congratulatory message before proceeding to the kenduri.

We noticed that lots of guests presenting her some wedding gift but three of us presenting her $$. Hahaha!! When we stepped into her room, Lynda is so busy, doing inai, makeup etc. So again, we walked back to the kenduri and this time I'm so happy to see that all the food is readily served. Feasting time started. The food served is delicious generally. But since 3 of us have another lunch session elsewhere later, we finished our food quite fast and went back to the bride's room again.

This time Lynda finish her makeup already and this is the time where we snapshot with the the bride. But since she hasn't change into her wedding costumes, so we don't have chance to take photo with the beautiful wedding costumes....

The token ......

A box of Chocolate, for the guests.......

The bride and us.......

CNY Angpao

Now only I'm free to open and count my angpao money. Not because I'm rich, just because I'm bit lazy to do it....

I always feel super 'syok' to receive angpao when I was a child. Nothing much.. coz is my only income for the year. Every time after CNY, I couldn't wait to calculate my angpao money excitedly. I'm not calculating it all by alone. We, the three sisters sat down together and opened our angpao. That was the time when my sisters and i would compete with each other to see who got the most angpao money. When we are still young, our angpao money aggregately are the same.

But as time goes by, my elder sister always leads the competition. She started her 'bai nien' session with her classmates and she received lotsa angpao from it. I really wish I was able to grow up faster at that moment.... I just felt jealous. Yes, my passion towards money started since I was a child.

After I started to work and to earn money, I somehow started to feel shy to receive angpao especially from my relatives. They tend to ask when is my turn to give rather than to receive. My reaction is the same every year.... just keep on smiling. I can somehow feel the 'invisible pressure' when I received angpao nowadays. But I just love to be single.. without commitment, without responsibility.......

As time goes by, I notice that the number of angpao that I received is reduced gradually but the monetary term is much more attractive except for some special cases. Those special cases including angpao from Cheng & Co, where it stands unchanged at RM20 since 10 years back and angpao from Mr Liew, where he reduced RM10 for his angpao given annually.

I think I should educate and share some idea with them on the global inflation issue when I'm free, so that they know what should they do next year!!

Cyberjaya CNY Open House on 11.2.2009

Chap Goh Meh already over. But this Cyberjaya CNY Open House was held on 11.2.2009, 2 days after Chap Goh Meh. So weird. Since I was conducting my audit job there, I joined this event. It was so happenings there!!

It was a 2 hours event from 12.30pm to 2.30pm. A variety choices of food were served and the public was welcomed to this event. To my surprise, they really prepared lotsa food. Too bad that I've taken my lunch before I reached the place or else I might able to comment abit on the food.... I saw siem mai, rice, chicken, fish, vege, all sorts of kuih-muih, drinks, fruit etc.

There was a little booth there to give up free calligraphy. We only have to give them a simple idea what we want, they would come with a nice calligraphy ready for us. Initially was thinking to ask them to write something for my boss but since the queue is so long, I have no choice but to cancel my plan lo.

I managed to see 2 performance. The first one was the Chinese orchestra. A team of 3 person playing some Chinese music instruments including flute, 琵琶 and 二胡. Generally the performance is good. But I felt uncomfortable when they played Micheal's 童话. Just feel very weird t listen to this song playing in Chinese orchestra. Still prefer their performance on CNY song especially 大团圆.... coz the CNY mood suddenly came back!! Hahaha...

The 2nd performance was Lion Dance. Not Bad, not bad. Pictures speak louder than words!!

Gathering with Cheng & Co Ex-colleagues

As an annual event, few of us, who were / are working in Cheng & Co. had a so-called gathering at The Gardens on last Saturday. A day before the gathering, Hern Fong msn-ed me to inform me the time and venue. It was on 1.30pm at Fong Lye Restaurant of The Gardens. At the same time, I was so touched that he told me he would reach the mentioned place a bit earlier as he wanna book a table for us... So touch!!!

On that day, I reached the place 5 minutes earlier and expected somebody already there. But to my surprise, I didn't see any familiar faces in the restaurant. Swee Yan walked towards me and told me that Hern Foong not there yet, Catherine had another gathering elsewhere, Kam couldn't turn up for certain reason, Shanel attended friend's open house at the same day and Kee Siang couldn't make it last minutes. People that 'give aeroplane' always come with these fancy fancy excuse.

Hern Foong reached the place at around 2.00pm. So, that's only 3 of us. We had our lunch there. This is the first time I went to this restaurant. I ordered 三杯鸡饭 and apple juice. Hardly remember what Hern Fong and Swee Yan ordered.... I think my memory power is getting worse and worse due to aging. The food served is really really delicious. I really like it very very much.... But I just don't understand why this restaurant is traded in cash term only. Credit card is not allowed.... Really a ad point, no convenient enough after all!!

In the mid of enjoying our lunch, Mr Low called Hern Foong. He was on his way to Mid Valley to join us. Really a big surprise coz he was rushing here to meet us after his 'bai nien' session at Shirley's house. So touch!!!

4 of us continued our chatting session at Coffee Bean. I just somehow feel that, of coz this is my personal view laa, after working in China for about 4 years time, Mr Low looked a bit difference. Now his face looked like a China man.... Again, this is only my personal view.

Feasting time....

After the lunch while wating for Mr Low.......

Coffee Bean with Mr Low

Since Hern Foong planned to buy a Digital SLR camera, next time, I might post much more better quality photo for our gathering photograph session with his new DSLR... Yeah!!