Here's My Story

This is my first time seeing so many food trucks in one place: Know which is truck was the most popular? The one that sold chips. I've always though that food trucks are a foreign concept but then again we all along have those in Malaysia that sell chendol, rojak and burgers, right? I know they started off as stalls decades ago but more and more have switched to trucks.

Just realised that I have these photos that were meant to be posted months ago hehehe. Saw these beautiful kolams at Paradigm Mall during this year's Deepavali celebration...while rushing to gym hehehe.

In our favourite chapfan shop... I told Ban that I suspected that the man, sitting at a table nearby, just threw a cigarette butt on the floor. One minute I saw him smoking and the next he was without it but a cigarette butt rolled from his table towards us. Ban took a look at the butt, then the man and then looked around the shop. He walked up to a table nearby, took an ashtray, picked up and placed the butt in the ashtray, and then placed it on the table next to the man with a heavy thud. Fortunately or unfortunately, the man and the people he was talking with looked towards the noise but went back to their conversation. Brave. As for the man, it was really inconsiderate of him for not using the ashtray when it was nearby and not used. There were a few ashtrays at the shop. Sadly, he was not the only inconsiderate fool. This occurred rather frequently. The shopkeepers tried to encourage them to use the ashtrays by placing them at where the smokers were smoking but when th...

One morning, I joined my dad for breakfast. Just as we drove off from the house, he said that he also wanted to drop some prescription at two different locations to get medicine for my mum and himself. He asked me whether that was ok for me. Errr...in truth, I only signed up for breakfast, not any other places and I had other plans too after breakfast. I didn't make a fuss about it though. After breakfast, he then also wanted to register to see a doctor at yet another location @_@ All in all, my guess is that we took about 20-25 mins to go to these 3 locations and for him to complete his errands at those places. Time, that coincidentally, would have enabled me to be punctual for my lunch appointment later that day. Note to self: always double confirm where else dad wants to go when he invites me to join his excursion. When I told Ban this, he said, "That's one step better than my brother." "One step better? How so?" "My brother doesn't e...

It's harder these days to get chicken rice ball, what more good ones, in Melaka compared to decades ago. I tried the one at Jonkers Walk, a tourist magnet, but their chicken meat was very soft like it was prepared for toothless people. Later, Ban brought me to a place where his family enjoy having that dish and yes, it was one of the best chicken rice ball I had in decades. However, it is difficult for him to give directions to it and therefore I couldn't tell my family and friends exactly how to get there. All I knew was that it was in Batu Berendam. One fine day, when we were in Melaka, we attempted to go there for lunch. Unfortunately, it was close that day (and the next week or so) but luckily I remembered to take a photo of the shop so as to give that information to others: It is in Taman Melaka Baru, Batu Berendam.

Recently, after spending nearly a week in Penang, I arrived at One Utama. Ban was already there to get me but as agreed beforehand, at my request, we had some food at Ichiro Sushi Bar @ Eat Paradise. The salmon sushi was quite nice but pricey given its portion (but definitely better than the miserable ones at Dontaku!) while the amaebi was the best I had so far in Malaysia. The edamame was fresh and sweet. We took our time eating and chatting, while drinking green tea. Later, we had some gelato elsewhere. It then struck me that it we accidentally went on a date haha :) It was very nice, taking things slowly and chatting. Once at his place, I took a nap shortly as I didn't have a good sleep the night before in Penang. When I woke up and went to the kitchen to get some water, I noticed both rubbish bins were full. I then did my usual complaining to Ban (n.b. this happens nearly each time I come back after being away for a few days). Ban, who was doing some work on his laptop,...

I was dining at Damansara Village (excellent steamboat!) when I saw these in their water tanks: The biggest tortoise I've seen in any restaurant. I don't think it's food stuff. Hope not. It looked ancient. It peaked out the water to look at me. I didn't dare to wave my hand closer in case it had really long neck :P It looked like the prawn was trying to escape from the tank full with crabs hehe. Edited on 28 Jun 2012: Should be 'Damansara Village' and not 'Damansara Legend'.

Stucked in a 4km traffic jam for 40 mins. Then spent 50 mins to find a parking bay at Pavilion through 5 storeys of car park. Hours later, spent another 20 mins trying to get out of the car park. Also, on a separate occassion, the delayed (so typical!) commuter train to Seremban was so packed that I couldn't get on it. Same story for the next yet-another-delayed train, which arrived about half an hour later. Frustrated and ended not going back to Seremban that day. Don't you just love KL?

It was Alex's idea to have a get-away during his birthday weekend. A few suggestions did come up and in the end, for reasons forgotten, Fraser's Hill was chosen. I was all for it as I had fond memories of that place. Prefer it to Genting and Cameron as a place to relax. So the 7 of us set off late morning on Saturday in two cars and stayed there till 2pm Sunday. Ban and I fetched Janvier, who had much difficulty in waking up (slept late due to pain from mouth ulcer) and then due to wrong coordinates, we ended a little lost. Luckily we saw the other car passed by us from the opposite direction. The irony is that iPhone has no reception while good old fashion handphone worked ok. I still remember that the coffeeshop is at the border of Selangor and Pahang but most of Fraser's Hill lies within Pahang. It's only later on I was reminded by my parents that the coffeeshop is owned by a relative. Oooh. It was closed though. We stayed at a bungalow formerly called Cicely...

No, it's not the historical relic in Melaka town. It's actually the name of a resort, which have a few "venues" in it. Among them is the Animal Safari. It's by far one of the best places in Malaysia to see animals up close, though I admit that I haven't been to any zoo here for ages and so I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I would recommend it as a place for family outing. Go in the morning. Make sure you're in time for the Elephant Show, which starts at 10.15am. I did cringe at the thought of the elephants being made to do actions that are not natural to them (unlike the bird show at Jurong Bird Park in Singapore). Then take the free truck ride which brings you to places that you cannot see if you walk, especially the animal enclosures. It's like the safari in Africa e.g. you're in a caged truck while the tigers are right outside. Surprisingly the ride is quite long because it would be just in time to watch the Animal Show at 11.20am. That i...

Been busy since I came back from Australia. First 3 days, I retook the exam I failed and the questions were the same! I just hope that the additional stuff I put in will help. Then it was 2 days of catching up with work after 2.5 weeks away from office. It made me realise how bad things really are and I was thinking of quitting. Weekend was spent mainly with Ban, who is ever so caring and sweet :) And naughty too. Haha. Met up with some friends for lunch on Saturday, bought an office belt (after having rather heated discussion with William about it hehe) and then Ban and I attended Ban's friend's wedding dinner in Melaka. We were back in KL after 1am. We were supposed to meet NotHamsap for lunch but it was postponed to New Year. So we had lunch nearby. Satisfy my craving for char kuay teow, which was yummy. Finished the Heroes 5 game (we may start new one later hehe), dinner at airport and off I flew back to Singapore, reaching home before 11pm. Cheryl and Apollo were a...

On Sunday, Derek, Nick, Lloyd and I made our maiden journey to a fish spa, specifically at Kenko Marina Square. Lloyd and I had vouchers that were just enough to get each of us 30 mins of fish spa. Unlike normal massage, one cannot book in advance and so we just turned up. Fortunately, there was plenty of space. At the entrance, we were asked to wash our legs after spraying some disinfectant on them and then to use their slippers. Our bags were kept in lockers. Inside, there was a rectangle pool in the middle and a drain-like kind of pool against the wall facing outside. We just automatically gravitated towars the middle pool, which later we learned has the smaller fish (but not much smaller actually). The feeling is truly unexpected. We couldn't stop giggling for the first 5 minutes or so. It was very ticklish! In fact, Derek kept wriggling about (so guys, we know how to "handle" Derek next time, ok? ;) ) for a while. Later, after getting used to it, it felt like t...

On Saturday, before watching Up (an animated movie), my friends and I were having dinner at Plaza Singapura's Kopitiam foodcourt. One of the main topics we discussed was insurance. A friend commented that it is such a morbid topic and that insurance agent always talks about death and living. Well, that's the nature of insurance. To protect oneself from unfortunate events (e.g. on dying prematurely or living beyond expectation) that one cannot guarantee will not happen. We watched Up at Cathay after dinner. It is much better than expected, even though I went in with much expectation in the first place due to good review all around. It's basically about a man who shares his adventurous wife's dream to live in Paradise Fall in South America. They set about saving money to achieve their dream but alas, they have to use their savings to pay for a few things, of which among them are hospitalisation bill and cost of repairing their house after a tree collapse on it due to wi...

Ban was down here for the weekend. His brother advised him that trading account in Singapore, for the purpose of trading shares listed in overseas stock exchanges, is better than that in Malaysia for reasons that isn't entirely clear to me...nor to Ban but hey, his brother knows this stuff. Saturday He arrived here on a bright early Saturday morning at about 7.20am. It's the usual time I wake up for work hehe but well, it was ok since I had planned to wake up for tennis even earlier than that. I didn't go for tennis since I decided to get Ban at the airport. Not exactly a good idea to have a bunny hopping too long at the airport ;-) We had breakfast at Parkway Parade and then headed to POEMS to open account. Unfortunately, they needed quite a big sum for deposit and wouldn't accept Ban's suggestion of completing the application and then send the cheque later because it has to be done in person. Bummer. Had lunch at Aston but this time at the branch at East ...

Thank You For Coming , originally uploaded by williamnyk . Also thanks for the photo and the apt title of the photo haha :-) As mentioned before , William was here for 5 days. Besides "exercising" with his Derek, he has been ironing and doing laundry (not mine, though sweet of him to offer) at home hehe. Ok, ok, that's not all that he did obviously. Since he'll probably blog about it (conventionally weeks later hehe), here's just a summary of what I know: Monday Have already blogged a bit about it. Tuesday Lunched with Derek's friends. I accompanied him to Orchard Road to attempt to buy a pair of shoes for Cheryl. Took a few photos of ION. Went home for a while before going out again for KTV (yay!) with Derek and his friend. Had plenty of fun singing :-) Wednesday Derek and I were working and so William was left to his own device. If I'm not mistaken, he ironed Derek's clothings. While a bunch of us were watching the play Own Time Own Ta...

This is an excellent movie! Go watch it. Sorry, I'm bad at general description. I suspect Derek might write a review about it. Update on Sunday, 21 June 2009: Hehe well, I'll say a few words about this movie. I was so tired last night especially since I played about 2 hours of tennis in the morning. It was about a guy, Peter, who was about to get married but realised that he doesn't have any male best friend to be his best man. Thus he went on a quest to find one. It's hilarious (but not slapstick) especially the inevitable awkward moments (both gay and gayish ones) as he doesn't really know how to make male friends. I've never had best friends, at least not according to my intepretation of "best friend". I had a few close friends. In fact, there was a group fo 6 of us back in lower secondary school. In upper secondary, I had a few close friends and a few very good friends but not all of them hung out together. I remember writing a letter of tha...

The recent weekend was disappointing on a few fronts, ranging from frivolous issue such as the hot weather to serious issue such as the lack of effort in studying and lack of support that led me to fall backward with my life briefly flashing back at me. This morning, the gastroenterologist told me that my Helicobacter Pylori breath test is negative i.e. they all have been slaughtered. He guessed rightly that I still have gastric problem every now and then, due to sensitive stomach. I really wonder how on earth did my stomach get that sensitive? It clearly wasn't there before 1999. One new thing I learned today is that I'm not supposed to consume beans and nuts. Why? Strangely, it didn't strike me to ask him there and then. Anyway, here is the third and last part of my visit to the Garden. Though most of my photos are of flowers, there's probably 50/50 flowering and non-flowering plants in the Garden. Red claws! Recently, I realised that my condo compound has thi...

Haven't had time to do much else for past few nights after I came home, aside from catching the latest Bleach & Naruto Shippuden episodes and several blogs update. Normally I have at least an hour at night to do stuff, depending on the time and duration of the pilates/yoga evening class. However, I've been having problem sleeping past few nights (yet again!) and not too sure why. Have a vague suspicion that it's due to my mouth guard. Due to the refilling of a tooth, the mouth guard has become a bit tight. Since over adjustment would result it being too loose and thus useless, adjustment has to be done bit by bit and comfort via trial and error. Adjusted once but no good. So went without it last night. Though I slept through, I had rather vivid dream and so I knew I didn't sleep well. Woke up once again feeling really tired. So due to such restless nights, I tried sleeping earlier to catch up but not working. Since tomorrow is Saturday, I'll sleep in and h...

William was down in Singapore for a week, from late March to early April. It was the longest stay so far but like most good things, it's never enough :-) On the first Saturday of April, William, Derek, Llyod, Nick and I made our way to Singapore Botanics Garden. If I recally correctly, it was Derek's suggestion although someone has been whinging that his other half had still not brought him there although latter had suggested it before ;-) I had always thought the garden is called Botanical Garden and so I was surprised to learn its actual name. Hmmm I wonder why it's named this way. I supposed it's similar to Historical vs Historic City? *Shrug* So all of us walked around, not necessarily together all the time but within sight of each other most of the time initially. William, Derek and Llyod took photos using proper cameras while I used my gimpy handphone. Nick was there, panting from the sun and the walk hehe. Ok, I did that took but not that obvious :-) Some...