My new blog: For those who came here for the cake pop class, I've created a new blog with updates on classes and photos over at guiri in the kitchen



Friday, March 31, 2006

Qing Ming - Chinese All Souls Day

I have never been very keen on visiting graves or paying respect to my late grandparents during Qing Ming, not because I'm unfilial, but more due to the reasons of tear jerking jossticks burning at every corner of the temple. Been there, done it before, and unless somebody points a gun to my head, I really would never think of going to those temples again. I managed to escape the ordeal for the past 5 years or so, mainly because my mom prefers to go during the weekdays, when the temple is less crowded, and FORTUNATELY for me, I have to work during weekdays.

This year I've got no excuse of skipping. My sisters are all away, either abroad or at the NS camp, my brother needs to work, while I am at home just "shaking legs". Can't bear to see my mom go through all of it alone, so I tagged along. Plus, it gives me something to blog about.

As usual, all the family members will bring the favourite food of the deceased, which could range from dim sum to durians. Fruits are very common. Some will include as well as favourite cigarette brands of the deceased, e.g. my granddad used to smoke Camel. Here is approximately how the whole process went.....mom provided the instructions, and I followed:
  1. Serve all the food on the table
  2. Serve the chinese tea with the mini cups
  3. Light the yuin bou lap juk (red joss candles)
  4. Light the giant joss sticks
  5. Light the rest of the joss sticks and then invite my granddad from where his ashes were kept to where the food was served
  6. Stick a joss stick on every single food item on the table so that my granddad will know what to eat.
  7. Proceed to the burning area to burn all the items meant for my granddad (the box was sealed with his name), containing hell money, clothing, shoes, etc.


And guess what, not too long after the family members leave, the monks at the temples will help clear out the tables for the next family to use. So where does all the food go? Whatever that could be salvaged would be kept by the monks to be consumed later. The rest? Down the garbage bin.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Stomach Churning Day

Today marks the end of 2006 first batch of Beginners 1-4 French Class at Alliance Française Kuala Lumpur. Except for Jasmin, who was not able to join us for the lunch at the cafe, everyone else was present (15 of us).



After the lunch session at AF, Laure-Anne joined Gan, Chew and myself at the Berjaya Times Square Indoor Theme Park. Nous avon passé un merveilleux moment! Yan Chyi and Yi Jing followed us to the Times Square, but not the theme park. We went on the bumper cars, kiddie train rides, roller coaster 2x, and a few other spin stuff which I can't remember what they were..... only remembered that I regurgitated my lunch after one of the rides (how embarrasing).

After several flips and turns on the DNA mixer, everybody was feeling wobbly on the legs, so we decided to take a break and went to the Arcade. Chew went on the Para para dance machine - Laure-Anne and myself was going like WOW!! We played on several arcade machines before returning to the theme park again.




I was dizzy again after another tower ride, so we stopped for a while and rested in a mini karaoke room. Unfortunately, we have to pay for RM1 for each song, and there was this irritating and deep growling voice that says, "PLEASE ADD MORE CREDIT" everytime we pressed on the keypad. Guess what???? We found that they have ONE French song....erm... what was it again, S'il sufficait d'aimer by Celine Dion? We gave it a try....hee..and Laure-Anne was kinda annoyed that the lyrics were not properly laid out....spelling and grammar mistakes and all....LOL!

We spent like almost 3 hours in the room chatting after that.... TIME FLIES!! We didn't even realise it was already sept heures et demie! We just went on yakking and yakking...! Gan & Chew sent Laure-Anne home and we finally went our separate ways....*sigh* I am so gonna miss all of you.... :~(

Here's the link to the photos taken on our last day, and at the theme park.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

I look like Stephen CHOW????

Boy, did I have a shock when I decided to check my resemblance of a celebrity. WHAT?!?!? My Heritage actually thinks that I look like the HK actor Stephen Chow (tried and tested with several photos of different face angles). Thank goodness that apart from Stephen, I also resemble Jessica Alba & Tata Young.....*phew*



Sunday, March 19, 2006

Senderismo

J'ai fait de la randonée avec ma famille ce matin. C'est le cinquième fois ce mois. Estoy muy contenta porque cada vez, lo hago en menos tiempo.

About a month ago, my dad's friend introduced us to a jungle trek not too far from my house (less than 20 minutes drive). Ever since, my dad has been making it an effort to get all of us to climb the hill at least once a week during the weekends. I do not find it a problem because I simply adore trekking. I fell in love with trekking ever since my first climb to the Pinnacles at the Mulu National Park in Nov, 2003 with Hong Teng.

At my pace, the whole trek takes only about 1.5 hours, involving crossing mini streams and several hills. My first attempt took me close to 3 hours though. I am glad I have made a lot of improvement. Will continue to try and break my own record! Heard that some of the superfit ones can actually complete the track in less than 1 hour!!! Ganbatte kudasai!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Boh Tak Chek!

Damn "2 larn" today. Today is Festival of Goddess of Kuan Yin.....no, I am not being religious, just that some of the BTCs really made my blood boil. We live a few houses away from a Chinese Temple on Jalan Midah 9, Cheras (which happens to be a dead end street). We moved into this neighbourhood close to 4 years now.

And every now and then, when the temple organizes some functions, or when it is a special prayer day, there will be some inconsiderate *BTCs whom will park on both sides of the street, turning it from a 2 lanes to 1. As if that is not bad enough, these BTCs would even block the entrance of some of the residents (yes, we are not the only ones being blocked). We have tried all means to keep them away, at least from our gates, by putting NO PARKING signs (which a Super BTC duly removed and dumped into the drain), lining the road side with potted plants....but to no avail.

This afternoon case was the worst of all. BTC#1 driving a big 4WD blocking a portion of our entrance, with another BTC on the opposite. And to add to all this, 2 whole stretch of cars parked on both side of our street. There was no way we could have entered through our gates, whether direct or reverse. That's it! We've had enough. My dad was really pissed and decided to just stop our car and walked into the house, leaving the car in the middle of the street. My brother followed suit. Some of the folks on foot who were about to leave the temple watched us walked into our house, and did not dare say a word. We waited from inside the house. Let them have a taste of their own medicine.




A few moments later, BTC#2 decided to honk. We did not budge. He did not even bother to ring our doorbell, just honked and honked. A few others walked by, and no one...I repeat, NO ONE even cared to ring our doorbell, or even cared to get BTC#1 to remove his car. My brother decided to take a picture of the 4WD (BTC#1). I gave up waiting and went for a shower to cool down. BTC#1 finally removed his car, and then 3 policemen came and rang our doorbell.

This is where the drama begins:

POL: Encik, saya terima aduan. Ini kereta encik? Boleh tolong alih kereta encik? Kereta encik ni ganggu laluan lah.

Dad: Encik, gerak saya mesti gerak punya, saya mau itu semua orang tau macam mana rasa kena halang.

A mob of BTCs: Move your car lar! How can you park like that! All of us cannot go out lar.....we wait very long already, you know??!!??

Bro: Anybody cared that we waited a long time too??? (some of the BTCs kept quiet and walked aside)

POL: Encik boleh guna NO PARKING sign ka, letak kerusi ka, tak baik buat macam ini. Encik boleh panggil kami jugak.

My dad said nothing - he finds it pointless to explain things all over again, went inside to get the car keys and walked to the car, now that BTC#1 is gone, we could get both our cars in.

BTC#3: If you've got balls....leave your cars there lah! See if I'm gonna break your windscreen or not?? See if I'm gonna burn your car!!! You are chicken if you move your car NOW!

One BTC tried to grab a brick nearby but was hold back by another.

Bro: Encik, nanti tolong ambik semua nama dan IC dia orang. Nanti kalau apa-apa terjadi pada rumah kita kah, anjing kah, kereta kah, boleh saya repot polis.

POL: Sabar, encik, ini semua belum berlaku lagi.....

My brother showed the picture of the BTC#1 blocking the road. Then the group was trying to explain the police officers, while another BTC continued to scream at us.

BTC#4: You pun olang Cina, olang sembahyang mesti ini maciam punya lar...bukan tiap-tiap hari mah! Itu olang sembahyang hari Jumaat pun cincai cincai park kereta! Tak boleh masuk panggil olang keluar kah??

BTC#2: Why you so larn-cee?? The other day I park in front of this house oso they never complain?

BTC#3: Yeahlar....saya pun tak boleh sabar lagi...tengok encik! Dia olang tanam bunga ini maciam, kita olang mau parking pun susah! (ooh...guess what, apparently this nitwit have not realised we did that on purpose)

After getting both our cars in, the rest who did not want to be any part of this also left. As there were still some outside our house refusing to move, my brother brought the camera out and attempted to take a picture of the mob again....they were dispersed almost immediately, except BTC#3 who was caught off guard.




BTC#3: HeeeeeyyYYYy!!! Why you take my picture??!!??!?!?

BTC#3 ran to our main gate and kicked it, trying to break it down, and was stopped by the officers

Bro: Encik, ambik gambar pun tak boleh kah?

POL: Boleh, ambik gambar boleh....tapi masuk dalam dulu.....

My brother ignored them and went into the house after snapping a photo. The mob was finally dispersed after a while with orders from the officers.

There you go, a friendly encounter with my "neighbours". These people don't live here though, they are just here at the temple for prayers. And they think they have all the right to block others just because they are here for a NOBLE cause. I would have expected a peaceful and educated bunch of people, rather than a mob of BTCs. And the funny thing is, BTC#1, the catalyst of all this nonsense, just quietly vanished into thin air and not to be seen again.

The other residents in the neighbourhood, who were also victims of the rampant parkings, have been keeping quiet all this years and did not want no troubles. We wished we could do just that, but its easy to lose patience when it happened again and again, and each time it gets worse. I am not sure if this would ever happen again, but for sure that we ain't gonna be quiet about it.

*BTCs = uncivilized idiots

Friday, March 17, 2006

Gamarjobat - THUMBS UP!

This evening I went to see Gamarjobat with the rest of my family at Actor's Studio, Bangsar, and we were very well entertained. I wish I could mime it here to show how good it was, but I'll leave the miming work to both Hiropon & Ketch! whom are the experts :D My mom, who normally falls asleep halfway through a movie, actually stayed completely awake throughout the performance. She was quite reluctant to go at first, but I convinced her that she'd love it! She did! They'll be here in KL till this Sunday, GO WATCH it while you can! Highly recommended!

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Internet is UP again!

After countless days of being "Internet-less", I finally got it up again. Ohmigod, it does feel like eternity. There was a heavy thunderstorm few days back (and hailstorm too!), and almost like striking the lottery, the lightning struck my beloved modem. My brother put a new one up again after 2 days...as if it's not bad enough to without the Internet for 2 days, Streamyx was apparently down too. It was only after another 2 days, that we found that Streamyx had already fixed their problem....yet we are still left without Internet. Which zooms the problem to our own internal connection. After spending several hours of troubleshooting this afternoon, I found the culprit. One of the ports on the router, which connects to the modem, was damaged by the lightning as well. So, my brother brought home a new router today, and voila! We all have Internet again!! Hurraaaayyy!!!

This made me wonder - can't we live without the Internet? I have such a huge dependency on it that I have not really realised how important it is to me. I probably could go without Internet for 2 days MAX. When the modem was down, I did have some intermittent connections with my Bluetooth phone, to make sure all my important emails were received. But it's just too expensive to use a dial up, not to mention slow. My sister was caught in the same dilemma. She was so miserable (almost like a walking zombie) the past few days and was also bugging me day and night to get it fixed. But the good thing is, we finally managed to get her to go to bed earlier....about 11pm, instead of 4am! So, my mom was the ONLY one who was actually glad that the Net was down :P

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

J'ai mal à la tête

After approximately 90 hours of french classes, we are due for an exam tomorrow. This time there will be no listening section, like the previous 2 tests (which I got très bien overall...ehem!), instead it would be replaced by an oral test. Uh-oh.....my worst fear. Je toujours ne peux pas parler en français! We did have a practice in class today, I seem to do quite alright though....hopefully I won't have any trouble with it tomorrow :P I can't believe this class is coming to an end soon, and since I won´t be continuing after this, I am gonna miss all my classmates....*sniff* *sniff* Well, Ee May has got some great pictures and even a video taken of all of us. Though group's a little cuckoo, but without them, it would have been such a boring class.... ;) BIG {{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}} to all of you.

Another thing that is giving me a headache is my upcoming Europe trip. Being a little greedy, I tried to squeeze in like 7 or 8 destinations in my Europe tour, including Feria Abril in Sevilla, which I am really looking forward to (chance to practice my español again...and Sevillanas too!). Unfortunately the French embassy would not let me have my visa earlier, so I have to rearrange my French courses a little to make some adjustments and cut my Europe tour short. Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed that all will go smoothly. Mis amigos, ¡os veo pronto!