Childhood "Chocolates"

Thanks for reminding me of this, Kelvin.

One day a long time ago when Jan started to learn how to crawl, we were all in my parents room in Alor Setar chatting while the evening sun was setting. I then noticed that Jan was missing from our sight so I got up to look for her. She was sitting quietly, tucked in a shadowed corner hidden beside my dad's table. I went up to her and was saying to her, "Why you sit so quietly in one corner by yourself?" when I noticed she was eating something.

Upon closer inspection, she was delightfully chewing on some chocolates (you know, those chocolate coated almond ovals you'd find from most chocolate brands). I exclaimed, "Wah! Where did you find chocolates and why didn't you share with us?" as I sat beside her and picked up one to pop into my mouth.

When it hit me. Wait a minute. How did chocolates get up here in the room. And why were they strewn on the floor. I carefully examined the piece I was about to bite into in the feeble lighting and realised what it was. Yes, they had fallen out of her nappies. I screamed and dropped it while she gave me a chocolately grin.

This one I managed to witness. Ron apparently took contents out of his training potty and did a face mask while Grace preferred the more exotic tastes of the body of a moth.

As I always maintain, I'm the normal one in my family.

Wedding in Langkawi

The weekend after watching Wicked in Singapore, KS and I flew up to Langkawi to attend my high school friend's wedding. It was a great, fun and relaxing trip for me as it always is with good friends and I only wished we all could have stayed a little longer to catch up.

A few of us stayed in Citin Hotel, which is a serviceable hotel in Kuah as the wedding was held in Westin,  just a short drive away. Not much changes to note about Langkawi except I realised we were conned into paying a lot more for car rental from the airport. It's definitely much cheaper (almost half the price) if you rent from outside the airport and particularly useful if you have a contact. I managed to get a name card from someone in Kuah so I'll be trying him out next time.

Anyway, back to the wedding, Shie Lee and Jin held a cosy and intimate wedding ceremony by the beach (my first beach wedding!) with thoughtful details such as providing woven fans in case the guests felt hot. I loved their choice of personalized favours (tea from TWG and M&Ms for the kids), the unique array of food, the photo booklet of all their past photos, their tree of fingerprints (which was a very much better execution that what KS and I had!) and their choice of their walk out song by U2 Beautiful Day (just like KS and I too! :P).

The anxious groom

The bride arrives

After the ceremony

 

The fingerprinted tree

Dinner ended fairly early since it was a buffet, leaving us a chance to gather at their villa to continue chatting with close friends. It was really great to catch up with Tsiang, Fuen and Josie (missing Khor Ling who's in Sydney) and look forward to more.

We also discovered the most fantastic nasi briyani in Kuah. My mouth is still salivating from the mere thought of it. It's at Langkawi Fair beside McDonalds called Fair Cafe.

Us after a fantastic meal before we went home.

Congrats again, Shie Lee and Jin!

Wicked, Singapore

We finally made it to Singapore to watch Wicked, our second show which we didn’t know the plot, storyline or characters (the first was We Will Rock You). All we knew it was something to do with a green witch and the Wizard of Oz.

I travelled to Singapore with a friend early Saturday morning as KS was already there due to work. I booked us a pretty boutique hotel in China Town called The Inn at Temple Street due to budget purposes and food location. I find that with my recent trips to Singapore, I’m finding out new pockets of Singapore I’ve never set foot into. A discovery of Singapore all over again despite going there for years!

The hotel was very nice, clean and most importantly, near food and the Chinatown MRT station! It’s still a little bit pricy and there’s no free wifi otherwise this would be THE place I’d stay the next time I go.

Anyway, back to the show, it was supposed to start at 7:30pm. I wanted to eat at this place called Astons in Little India (cheap and good food!) but had factored in only 15 minutes for travelling time. And I forgot that almost everywhere in Singapore, you’d have to queue. Still, I thought at 6pm, there wouldn’t be much of a queue but I was wrong. We waited 15 minutes (which isn’t long in Singapore standards I guess) before we were seated at 6:15pm. Ate quickly and went off at 6:45pm. It looked like we had plenty of time to reach Marina Bay Sands Theatre didn’t we?

Nope. By 7:15pm, after running all over the Doby Ghaut MRT station looking for the correct line to take, we were still on our way. My friend who had reached there earlier called to say she couldn’t collect the tickets because they needed to see the credit card that had made the purchase of the tickets. And if we don’t collect the tickets by 7:30pm, they will shut the counter and we would have to miss the show.

By 7:20pm plus, we arrived at the new MRT station (Bayfront) that opened into MBS (thank God!). I looked at KS and said, “See you at the theatre” and I ran for my life, calling out to anyone who looked like they worked there “WHERE IS THE THEATRE?!” to guide my sprint. Felt like I was in some Amazing Race but I didn't care anymore at that point.

All ended well as I managed to get the tickets in mere minutes before the counter closed. It took me almost the first half of the show to recover from my run.

As for the show, I truly enjoyed it. Sure, the costumes weren’t as fantastic as Lion King but I liked the story. Few things that stood out for me was the conversation between the Wizard of Oz and Elphaba, about changing the historical documents so that eventually the lies will be believed as truth and the sadness of Galinda on the things she had to do due to her chosen life of being a public figure. And the song, Defying Gravity. :)

Strange House Call

A couple of weeks ago, I was boiling some eggs for my sandwich when I heard a fairly loud crack from the stove. It sounded like one of the eggs had cracked really loudly but usually if they did, they didn't make such a loud sound.

Ignoring it, I continued to boil away and had taken the pot off the stove to start peeling the eggs when a louder explosion came from the burner that I just used. Fragments of a white shell-like substance made me even more curious and the only thing that is white on my burner is a little ceramic bit that formed the starter. So I thought it had exploded from the heat and was worried that it had something to do with the gas.

Mentioning this to my dad the next day, he immediately asked me not to switch it on again until he managed to get a technician to look at it, just in case there were further explosions.

So today, the technician finally came and my dad was all worried about him starting the stove. Instead, the guy looked at the burner carefully and didn't find anything unusual about the ceramic portion.

The small burner in the centre was the cause of concern

Small cup-like inside of the burner  

My dad lifted up the parts of the burner and noticed this strange white round balls at the bottom of the burner.  First thought he had was Lebensstil put them there for some aesthetic function until he compared the other burners which didn't have it.

Upon closer inspection, they both then realized they were lizard eggs. Yes, there were about 20 of them nestled inside my burner and when I had used it, the heat cooked the eggs and one exploded from the pressure.

The cooked lizard eggs in my dustbin

Dad concluded with slight embarrassment, "My daughter hardly uses her stove" to which the technician agreed immediately. I really wonder what his report is going to say when he gets back to the office.

Anyway, my dad was very impressed with the after sales service for Lebensstil as they offered to come on weekends or even after hours when my dad couldn't reach the technician.