Midlife Crisis

For some reason or other, I've done some dramatic changes to myself lately. First stop, I managed to get myself contact lenses after wearing glasses since age 10! I never thought I'll be one that is so vain to endure poking at my eyeballs to look good, but I am! But don't get too overly excited. I only wear them on weekends, and only when I feel like I can handle the horror of poking my eyeballs with my bare fingers.

I'm using Acuvue daily disposable contact lenses by Johnson and Johnsons, and well, it's not exactly as I've hoped it would be. You know how they always advertised on TV how free you'll feel when you switch to contact lenses? It's not exactly true (for me at least). So far I've only wore it 3 times, and I found that I:
1. Have trouble deciding which side is the correct side to wear those damn lenses.
2. Have trouble walking around in aircon places as it makes my eye feel dry.
3. Carry my glasses along with me when I am out, in case the lenses fell off or it gets too unconfortable to wear.
4. Worry about my eyes getting too dry, but not wanting to rely on eye drops.
5. Worry about getting sand in my eyes on a windy day, or getting my eyes blown dry by the wind.
6. Can buy a box of contact lenses at RM80 in Malaysia, vs S$55 in Singapore....

But still, it's fun to wear them! And wearing shades feels way cool!

Second dramatic change is getting my hair rebond. I've always wanted to try it, but was scared of getting my hair damaged. But what the heck, we only live once! So I did it, and it feels great! And now I am waiting for all my hair to drop off after reading some articles about how much damage it does to your hair when you rebond them :P I'll share some of the articles with you in the reference section in case you are interested :P The horror the horror!

So are all these indication of hitting the midlife crisis? If so, I still need to get a tattoo and start smoking before I hit 40 :P

Ref:
Midlife Crisis
The Truth about Hair Rebonding
The Truth About Contact Lenses

KL Weekend Trip - Day 3

Again, in the safe hands of my good friend Whaley.....

8:00am Pick up Cordy Cod & Koala for breakfast!
(More like 8:45am as we were all rather exhausted. And in case you wonder, yes we ate 1st breakfast at the hostel, and 2nd breakfast with Whaley. That's TWO breakfast a day!)

8:30am Breakfast - Sea Park (Yong Tao Fu & Laksa at Sea Park)
(There was a major phone calling operation going on and circling the neighbourhood before we managed to find the Yong Tao Fu store, but the fried dumplings there were really nice!)

10:30am Shopping (Mid-valley - Gardens)
(We ended up in The Curve instead as I've requested to go there. The journey from Sea Park to the Curve is actually a 10 minutes ride there, but it took us 1 hour to find our way there! Along the way, we drove up and down the highway for like 4 times, and got lost in SS2, SS6, SS4, and after a while, we kinda lost count :P Did some major shopping there thanks to Whaley!)

12:30pm Lunch (Japanese Buffet - Jogoya)
2:00pm Drop Cordy & Koala back to hotel to pick up stuffs
(none of the above took place, but instead we spend lots of time eating and shopping at The Curve till 4:30pm).

2:30pm Shopping or sightseeing (Putrajaya)
(Here's another adventure of getting lost while trying to locate Putrajaya! I requested to visit this place as I thought it would be great for photo taking. But at last, after winding up at a Police Station asking for direction, we found out we were way off our targetted direction! haha! So we decided to give up as we were running out of time).

4:30pm Depart to Kuali's apt / can drop by Bkt Jalil Sport Complex
5:00pm Depart for dinner (Kuali will recommend nice nice food)
(We managed to reach our old friend Kuali's apartment around dinner time, and she took us to a nice road side stall for steam fish head cooked in minced ginger and garlic. We also had bitter gout with duck eggs, fried potato leaves, and fried pig intestine with garlic! Interesting meal)


7:30pm Send Cordy & Koala to airport
(While leaving from Kuali's apartment, it was raining lightly and dark, and Cordy fell down AGAIN! But this time, with some bone-cracking sound effect which really shocked her! At first I thought I might have broken some of my bones! It hurt like crazy, but I managed to stay calm. It was a one hour ride to the airport, and raining heavily all the way. Bummer. I thought we'll never make it, judging from our record of getting lost in the past two days :) )

9:00pm Reach airport for Cordy & Koala to check in
( WE MADE IT! And I CAN STILL WALK! A-but super painful lah. Come back kenna 2 days MC from doctor. THANK YOU WHALEY FOR A WONDERFUL ADVENTURE! Will be back soon!)


Ref:
The Curve KL
Putrajaya

KL Weekend Trip - Day 2

Day 2 in KL, we were all in the save hands of my friend Whaley! That's her driving in her car on the blog banner today :) Here's the original plan she made for us, and the actual events in italic:

8:00am Pick up Cordy Cod & Koala
(yes all our names are coded :P , and she got lost finding the hostel and the receptionist actually had to go to her rescue to show her the direction to our hostel. )

8:30am Breakfast - fish & seafood porridge & otak2 at Selayang
(one of the most wonderful Hor Fun I've ever had in my life!)


9:30am Batu Cave!!
(I've always wanted to visit Batu Caves, and after 3 decades as a Malaysian, I finally did! And I HATE the monkeys there for ambushing and attacking all the tourist there. But the caves were beautiful. Here are some photos to share)

11:30am Back to Whaley's Apt (for shower-optional)
(Whaley has a wondeful studio apartment all to herself! And her driving to the 7 floor via a merry-go-round tunnel up was horrifying!)

12:30pm Depart for lunch! (bak-kut-teh)
(Again, another wonderful meal)

1:30pm Rebonding (will send koala to 1-U / the Curve to shop by himself)
(Yes, I got dragged to go rebond my hair. I'll post another entry on hair rebonding soon in the near future... Anyway, the cost of the rebonding was RM120, and 5 hours of your life in pure boredom! Terrible! But the hair looks great though :P, thanks Whaley for dragging me there! )

5:00pm Depart for dinner! (Crab at Bandar Puteri - got telur masin, cheese, chili etc)
(We actually reached the restaurant at 930pm was told the crab was sold out! So we had a light dinner at a coffee shop next door which has the best mutton satay!)


7:30pm Go Bangsar
(We managed to reach Bangsar at around 10:30pm after getting pretty lost on the highway. Bangsar was another place I've always wanted to go to, as it's suppose to be a 'happening' place in KL. Unfortunately it wasn't as I've expected, but we did managed to get one of the nicest mango yogurt I've ever tasted in my life! And it's at a store call 'Mango Mania'.)

Ref:
Batu Caves
Mango Mania

KL Weekend Trip - Day 1

Me and my hubby went down to Kuala Lumpur for the Good Friday long weekend. It was a rather eventful trip which I will share with you in this blog via 3 blog entries.




Day 1's arrival was smooth, landing at KL Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCC) airport at 8:15am. The express bus to KL Sentral cost only RM8 per person. We made our way to a Hakka Restaurant at Jalan Kia Peng near Raja Chulan station at . The food was wonderful (but a bit salty). Highly recommended for Hakka Food fans.

After lunch we make out way to Classic Inn Hostel located just at the back of Berjaya Time Square. Here are some photos of the lovely hostel. It looks more like a boutique hotel and it cost us around S$50 per night for a double bedroom, with breakfast included. The breakfast was wonderful! We ate outside the hotel everyday we were there on coffee/tea, 3 pieces of toast bread with peanut butter, one roti canai (a.k.a roti prata), and cut fruits! The roti canai actually came from an indian shop some 100m away from the hostel. The shop get a phone call everytime a guest in the hostel comes down for breakfast, and an indian guy will deliver the freshly made roti canai to the hostel. Usually he delives 1 or 2 roti each trip, along with the curries, so you can be sure you get really fresh roti for breakfast! Highly recommended!

The rest of the day we spend wondering around Bukit Bintang, and at Berjaya Time Square where we managed to have a Dr Fish Spa(15 minutes) and a foot reflexology(30 minutes) for a total of RM50 for TWO person! The indoor theme park there was rather impressive as well! Btw, those are not my legs in the photos, they are my hubby's. Also, as it was raining heavily every day, I slipped and fell right outside the hostel while trying to get to Berjaya Time Square.

Ref:
KL LCCT
Hakka Restaurant KL
Dr Fish
Classic Inn Hostel

Tampines 1 opening 9 Apirl 2009

Living in the East side of Singapore just got cooler! Tampines1 will be opening tomorrow 9 April 2009. That's one more reason for me to skip Orchard Road all together! We're already planning to go there for lunch tomorrow to check out their Japanese Food Court Manpuku. You can read more about it at Mall Blog from the reference link below, as well as the Manpuku web site. Other shops I'm looking forward to is Carl's Junior, Sake Inn, and Sushi Tei. I guess I'll be roaming the mall after work everyday from next week onwards :) See you there!

Post Note:
Here's an interesting article posted by a reader in the comments section. Thought you might like to read about it. Click here for more info.

Ref:
Tampines1
Mall Blog @ Tampines 1
Manpuku

Thai Green Curry

Another one of my favourite dish to cook is Thai Green Curry. Here in the photo are all the ingredient that you need. The Thai Green Curry Paste can be found at Giant supermarket, selling at S$1.90 per bottle. Or you can also buy a tub of it, available only in Giant Malaysia Branch :)

Cooking Instruction:
1. Mince up all the shallots. Heat up oil, and saute for 5 - 10 minutes until fragrance.
2. Add in the Thai Green Curry Paste and saute for another 3 minutes. Mixed well.
3. Add in chicken meat and saute with paste for another 10 minutes. Let it burn a little, it's ok.
4. Add in coconut milk and bring to a boil. Add in eggplant. Bring to a boil, and then lower heat and cook for 30 minutes.

And you're done! Taste great with white rice and vege! And in case you think any dish with coconut milk is bad for health, here are some health info to enlighten you about this dish:

Eggplants/Brinjal: is effective in the treatment of high blood cholesterol hypercholesterolemia. It helps to block the formation of free radicals and is also a source of folic acid and potassium. Eggplant is richer in nicotine than any other edible plant, with a concentration of 100 ng/g (or 0.01 mg/100g) (no wonder I am so addicted to it!).

Shallot: contain more flavonoids and phenols than other members of the onion family.

Coconut Milk : The monolaurins in the coconut oil have been found to be very powerful antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal agents in Ayurveda. Some people believe that coconut milk can be used as a laxative. It is also used for healing mouth ulcers.

Ref:
Thai Green Curry
Eggplant
Shallot
Coconut Milk
Giant Hypermart

Woohoo! New Camera

With reference to this blog entry here, the results are out, and somehow, I managed to won myself a Canon Ixus 80IS Camera worth S$430! It comes with a 4GB SD card, and a mini tripod worth S$9! But what really facinate me is how small the camera is. Very compact. You can just put it in your pocket whether you go.

This is actually only the 2nd camera I've ever own in my life! The first was my Nikon Coolpix 4200 which is 5 years old, and cost S$500 then. Somehow, I think I still prefer Nikon :)

Ref:
Canon Ixus
Nikon Coolpix 4200

Departures (おくりびと)

One of the most beautiful show I've ever watched. Who would thought you can shed so much tears watching a movie about funeral and casketing! I'd say that Slumdog Millionaire pales in comparison to this movie. This movie is just pure poetry from start to end. I highly recommend you to go watch this movie!

Ref:
Departures (おくりびと)
Slumdob Millionaire