Here's My Story

Restoran 126 's supposed signature noodle is the bittergourd meat noodle, with 4 choices of meat: pork, fish paste, fish fillet and special meat. Alternatively, there's seaweed tofu noodle with the same choice of meat. You'll also get to choose the choice of noodle and soup/dry Normally I order the bittergourd pork wantan noodel dry as that has relatively more vegetables than the seaweed tofu. However, ever since I tried their herbal pork noodle recently, it has become my current favourite. It has some leafy vegetables and probably a little more than what other shops usually serve. One rather huge pork ball (a little salty for me though), 1 piece of pork liver and about 3 clumps of minced pork. My choice of noodle is mee sua, which suits very well with the soup and pork. I love the combination of the ingredients with the taste of the soup. The soup has quite a deep taste of herbs. Probably nothing complicated but I like it nevertheless. Its size is just right ...

The night before Ban and his brother went to pick their grandfather from the airport, I had a dream that their grandfather arrived here in a grumpy mood. When I asked, Ban said that it was because his brother was late in picking their grandfather. So the next day, I told the brothers my dream. Not much reaction lol. I shouldn't be surprised because they had planned to depart an hour before plane arrived. However, the first sign of trouble was that Ban couldn't get hold of his brother on the phone 5 mins before their planned departure. He promptly walked over to his brother's unit. Hours later, after Ban was back, I learned that they were late after all! However, to be fair, it was wholly due to the plane being early by 40mins! Details were sketchy (Ban is infamous for lack of details in many things lol). Grandfather was unhappy that neither of them bothered to call him to reconfirm the flight details. Hmmm in my opinion, shouldn't the onus be on the person flyin...

On my recent trip to Australia, I made the maiden trip to the festival Enlighten with my sister and her family. It was my first time hearing about it and I thank my sister her husband for arranging a family trip there (need to get the "wriggle" out of the boys' system lol). I enjoyed it tremendously but alas my feet had gotten sore faster than, oh let's say, 10 years ago. Old age lol. Despite that, they did last beyond the time to go home as it was way past the boys' bedtime. What I saw and remember on this trip was the colourfully illuminated buildings and how the "picture" changed, the hauntingly beautiful lighted horse puppet performance, and the visit inside the the old parliament house. Here's what the Enlighten website says: Culture and creativity illuminate the capital  See Canberra come to life after dark when cultural institutions across the capital open their doors to host an array of exclusive events and surprising experien...

PJ is hit by water rationing for the second month in a row. Unlike previously, our neighbourhood is covered this time. Similar to previous month, the schedule goes like this: 2 days on, 2 days off, so on and so forth. However, we have been lucky so far that our tap hasn't run dry. We surmised that the water tank in our condo is large enough to last the 2 days of no water. Nevertheless, we did store a huge tub of water just in case. Despite that, I followed Ban's lead in conserving water. Personally, I had already practised that everyday but what we do now is to clean house less often (coincidentally, Ironclaw campaign has just ended and so no more weekly guests at our place) than once a week. I even used only half a bucket of the usual amount of water when mopping. We are delaying cleaning the bathroom for as long as we can and meanwhile I've been wiping dirt here and there so as to prolong this delay. So for those in Selangor, how have you been conserving water?

Usually on my trip to Canberra, I would request to have a meal at Iori, a Japanese restaurant at Civic. However, this time, I decided to try something new: Sushi Bay at Belconnen Mall. The restaurant is possibly one of the first, if not the first, couple of restaurants to have a conveyor belt serving plates of sushi. Definitely a novelty in Canberra. It was good to see that they had quite a crowd when I had lunch there with my sister. The size of the salmon sushi looked impressive! Definitely larger than that served by most of the restaurants in KL. Thick slices of salmon. It tasted just fine but just not as juicy as some of the good ones I had. Its price was AUD 4.50 per plate. Yes, even the handroll was larger than that served in KL. I supposed it should be expected because the serving size for all other food (noodle, rice etc) in Canberra (and probably in Australia) is larger than that served in Malaysia. It had thick slices of salmon, and generous amount of avoc...

A few years back, due to certain circumstances, Ban had 6 parking summons, each with RM50 fine, issued by the town council. Often than not, people do not pay this fine because there is no dire consequence, unlike those summons issued by the Land Transport Authority whereby failure to pay means you are blacklisted and therefore you will be unable to renew your road tax and drive your car. Ban decided to do the "right" thing by paying for the summons. He was told over the phone that there was no alternative way of paying (e.g. internet, post office etc) other than to personally go to the town council office. Once there, he was ushered to a room while I sat in the waiting area. While waiting, someone came in and went straight to the payment counter to pay for his summons. However, he was asked to approach the appeal counter, despite him stating clearly that he wasn't interested in appealing for lower fine. This would make much sense to me later. Ban came out of th...

It has become a routine that each time I go to Australia, I'll buy glucosamine for myself and sometimes for my father too. Supplement there is much cheaper than here in Malaysia especially at the discount pharmacy stores. This time, however, my sister ordered one via an online pharmacy. She had been using that portal for sometime now and had been quite pleased with it. The bottle had 180 tablets where each tablet was 1500mg of glucosamine. The recommended dosage was the standard 1500mg for each day, which meant that the bottle was supposed to supply for 180 days (about 6 months). However, we were shocked to discover that its expiry date, when it arrived, was in June 2014, which was about 3 months away! So my sister e-mailed the online pharmacy. She first received a call from a rather irritated customer service officer (CSO) who nevertheless told my sister to send back the supplement using a reply paid envelope and they would refund the money to her.  Upon my sister's qu...

My way back to KL from Canberra was also via Adelaide, same as to how I got to Canberra . The first hiccup was the delay of about an hour of the Qantas flight from Canberra to Adelaide. The reason was a first for me: the pilots were waiting for the flight attendants from the plane arriving from Sydney as they would be the cabin crew for this flight to Adelaide. While waiting for that plane to arrive, some other flight attendants temporarily helped by doing the preliminary procedure in the plane after ushering passengers in. The flight itself was uneventful. The snack was quite dry. Other than eating, I just slept. Didn't have the energy to read either. At Adelaide airport, I tried finding the Air Asia X counter to check-in my luggage. It was a little confusing. Normally I would just head to the departure hall as the check-in counters are situated in that hall for all the airports I've been too. It is still true for Adelaide airport with one exception: Air Asia X counters ...

In psychology, the Zeigarnik Effect describes the tendency people have to remember tasks that are partially done better than tasks they have completed, and the desire people have to complete a task once it has initiated.  Discovered by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnk, the Zeigarnik Effect, as well as subsequent studies by other researchers, has led psychologists to the conclusion that the best way to overcome procrastination is to start doing something, anything, no matter how small, which will force your brain to want to keep going with whatever it is you are trying to do.  This also explains why Sudoku puzzles are so damn addictive. - Genevieve Hayes in the Actuaries magazine I can certain attest the part about overcoming procrastination.

Here's the latest and final update after the interlude : Altogether there were 16 rulers: 13 male and 3 female, a product of Agnatic-Cognatic Promegeniture rule. The ruler with the highest score was King Mernix V the Great with a score of 15,264 and ruled for 35 years. The ruler with the lowest score was Queen Scathach with a score of 72 and ruled for only 2 months. She was sickly lady, if I recall correctly. The last ruler, Emperor Pal the Bold, was my one and only emperor. I'm quite proud at being able to create the Hispania Empire, although I didn't get to enjoy much of it. Still, to start of playing a count and ended up as an emperor is pretty good, eh? :) With a score of 124,683, it exceeds the best House i.e. the House of Capet by far (>100k). The Hispania Empire is the land coloured in dark yellow (there are a few light-yellow coloured land belonging to the Kingdom of Galicia) . It spans the land in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, modern-day Spain, Nor...