CNY Reunion Lunch

This year we had our reunion meal one day before CNY eve at home!


This is the first homemade meal for CNY reunion after soooo many years of eating out and it's soooo good! hahahaha...

Wishing everyone a joyous and prosperous year ahead... May the year of the Dragon bring in lots and lots of happiness, health and wealth to my family, friends and also myself! ^^

til then, ttfn!

ArrowRoot Chips

Arrowroot chips have become my favourite chips to be eaten during CNY after I've tried them for the first time last year. They taste like potato chip but only more delicious and sweeter. and This year I've ordered several containers from one of my colleagues without knowing that my mum has bought one whole lot to be made at home too! So I helped her turn these fruits (is it a fruit or veg or nut?) to chips! hahahaha...

The steps in making these super awesome chips are quite simple... We just need to peel the skin off from the fruit, clean, drain and slice them. ^^



Frankly. the slicing part is a quite tedious task. I can't seem to get it right, so my mum does them.

Next, heat oil in a wok and put in those sliced arrowroot into the heated oil and deep fry them under small fire.



Take the arrowroot all out from the wok when they start turning into golden brown. Do not wait until they are golden brown in colour IN the wok because by the time we took it out, it'll become slightly burnt/ over-cooked.



While waiting for the arrowroot to cool down, sprinkle some sea salt onto them. I reserved two containers of these awesome chips without any salt as I prefer unsalted ones. ^^


Ta-da. Place them into a container after they've cooled down, seal it and it's good to go!

til then, ttfn.

Music-man II Malaysia Concert Promo

Leehom was in town for a duration of less than 20 hours yesterday to help boost his upcoming Music-man II concert sales. There is only one event scheduled during his short duration in KL and it was held in Kenanga Wholesale City.

We went to the airport for his arrival and I think he was in a good mood and we got ours albums and other stuff signed! hahaha... The last time I went personally to get his autograph was in 2009 after his Music-man concert. hehe..


About 10pm Sunday, arrived at KLIA


10am - Kenanga Wholesale City Level 15, where the promo and public press conference was held.


About 11.30, Leehom made an appearance.


Reporters asked questions, followed by a few fans... Photo taking session with the sponsors.


My friend, KC made a 'Dragon treble clef shaped cake' for him and presented to him on stage together with Joanne, the club president.


Homemade cake by Kyrina. Pui Foong helped wrap the fondant and I made the wordings out. =) Looks simple? We spent the whole night to complete it! [Picture credit to Thymeloo & Chewies Delight]


It was all worth it when he took a piece and ate it! ^^


Om nom nom nom....


A table full with lil gift a.k.a 'ang pao' packets was brought to the stage where Leehom will be distributing to all the fans that came to the event


Gulped down some h20 before that...


Collecting one stack before distributing them to the audience.


He looks at everyone with manners while giving out the 'ang pows'


My turn on stage! He said to me to "新年快乐 Xin Nian Kuai Le" and then I replied him back with a "Happy New Year." ^^ [Picture credit to Xpax facebook page]

After we got our lil gift, Juin wanted to go send him off. Hence, off we go to the airport. He was again, in a relaxed mood, maybe partly it's because he doesn't need to perform do a signing session for all the fans in the morning...

So.....


More autographs in the airport!! hahaha... We did not bring any other CDs or books for him to sign except PuiFoong and a few more fans. [Pictures taken from Kyrina's phone]


He waved to us goodbye thus his short trip to Malaysia this time officially ended. All of us left the airport happy but hungry (no food intake since the previous night's supper)

One last pic of my signed 'Heroes of Tokyo' book and 火力全开 album before I conclude this entry.


Ta-da!!!

p/s: All photos taken by yours truly unless otherwise stated. Kindly credit myself if you wish to post them else where. =)

til then, ttfn!

Summary for year 2011

Year 2011 has been pretty amazing! Better than I have expected it to be the previous year anyway. ^^ I've gone through some crazy stuff and the year has fled so fast I did not even expect year end to come so soon. Time for a recap of what good things that happened in the past 12 months again!

January

Begin our year having our annual barbecue session with my 38 Homgang. Received a belated birthday parcel from dear SH all the way from UK. Jon Bailie visit to Malaysia, brought him to have Klang seafood and to I-City with Stewart. Hatyai weekend trip with PuiFoong & Kyrina.

February

First CNY celebration in Klang since 2007: Met lots of friends that I haven't seen in ages. Gathering at Pavilion for a Japanese food dinner with the bunch back from Sheffield. V-day celebration at Library, the Curve with my awesome juniors. Girls night out with Joanne and bunch to Jarrod & Rawlins and the Hill, Damansara Heights. Sara's birthday celebration at home. Gathering with some Sharon and gang at Delicious and Zouk Cafe, MidValley.

March

Dinner with colleagues at Lala Chong. Gathering with high school buddies on YC's birthday at Rakuzen and T Forty Two, Empire. Caseyli's birthday celebration at Palate Palatte, Bukit Bintang. Gathering with KJ at Belly Good, Sunway. Met Fahrenheit at Signature, Gardens for Canon product launching press conference; thanks to Lili for it! Get to see Leehom perform at MY Astro Music Awards at Genting; he bagged the most award back that night! Good friend Kenny & Huiling's cutie princess~ baby Ashly was born.

April

This month was quite quiet for me. Most weekends just out for a meal with Juyen or family only. Baby Ashly's full moon party at V-Garden. Had the best Tiramisu at Alexis, and also attempt to make my own tiramisu dessert, which was a success! hahahaha...

May

Seafood at Teluk Gong with Jessy & Rambutan. Weekend trip to Penang with Pin & Qian; had lots of yummilicious Penang local food! Nisha & Dhiren's birthday celebration at KFC Sentosa. Kyrina's birthday celebration at Alexis.

June

ChuiChin & AhHu ties the knot; a heartiest congratulations to the newlyweds. Found another porridge steamboat place in Klang, been once, and only once coz it's not good. hhmm... Become a volunteer for Parents' Day Luncheon (mainly for old folks) at Imperial Restaurant Klang. The event was meaningful and fun!

July

Gathering with Uni juniors at Library, MV. Seafood lunch treat by Kenny at Tanjung Harapan. Had a quite major operation [hernia] on the 6th and have to take 3 weeks off work to recuperate. Weekend trip to Tawau & Semporna with parents, niece & nephew. Was so disappointed I can only see the seafood being served at dinner tables but not savour them. =(

August

Lunch with family at the Vanilla Place, Empire and they lurved it! Japanese dinner at Jyu Raku with STK for his birthday treat. Been to 88 Steamboat Barbecue, Bukit Tinggi for the first time and enjoyed the experience. Ramadhan buffet at Klang Executive Club with family & Royal Lake Club with colleagues from Marsh. Had my passport renewed in a span of less than 3 hours! Brilliant job from the custom office. Popular book fair at KLCC, bought more than 20 books! National Day celebration at Library, Avenue K.

September

Day trip to Tanjung Sepat and Morib with parents, niece & nephew. Trip to New Zealand - Had my first Bungy jump, shotover jet, ice bar, winery tour and wine tasting experience, etc. Unforgettable trip for sure. Belated birthday treat for AndrewTang at Sushi Zanmai, Gardens. Gathering with JasonTan & friends at PJ. Juin's birthday celebration at KC's place then followed by drinking session at Library later on. Big bro & SiL came back from the USA for good.

October

Attended several relatives' wedding with family. Westlife's 'Gravity' Asia Tour at Putra Indoor Stadium. Was seated 3rd row from the stage and it's so near! Marsh' 3d2n team building event at Langkawi; had lotsa fun as this was the first team building that I've joined. Leehom released his latest compilation album title 'Open Fire.' Logos Hope docked at Westport so went there to have a look and bought a few CDs back home. Juyen's birthday celebration at Craft Brewery and Laundry, the Curve.

November

Another friend ShinWare, ties the knot. Deepavali lunch at Dave & Sis place. Crystal became a mum to a beautiful and healthy baby girl! First karaoke session with colleagues at Redbox, Gardens. My first visit to Taiwan, and also to Leehom 'Open Fire' two-day concert tour which kick start in Taipei Arena. First time holidaying with my Homies out of M'sia/Thai. Another unforgettable trip! Kevin's birthday celebration at home.

December

The month with lotsa public holidays & birthdays; also my favourite month. Jacky Cheung half century concert tour at Putra Indoor Stadium. Lil nephew, Wei's birthday celebration at home. Wore polka-dots attire to work with the whole finance, admin and HR team to work. Worked one year at Marsh already! Yay! Qian's birthday celebration at Neway, Centro. Weekend trip to Singapore with Meng, Nisha & Dhiren. Q4 staff meeting, year end lunch, and gift exchange session with colleagues. Birthday celebration for December babies. Christmas eve barbecue at home with high school friends and family. Birthday lunch treat at Sage, Garden with FZ. Weekend shopping session with JY and Sara, followed by a pint at Overtime with JY & stk. Daniel Lee released his latest album 'Sincerely Yours, Daniel' on the 29th. Eve of New Year's eve 'steamboat'/ drinking session with colleagues at Lock's place. New Year's barbecue at home with my 38 Homgang.

Pheww, finally done with this summary.

Looks that I've been going to a few concerts, having enormous amount of good food and drank quite a bit of alcohol for the past 12 months. Will try to cut down on all these this year hopefully. ^^

Hoping for the best to come in 2012! My this year's resolution is pretty simple. "Work hard, play hard, lose weight."

til then, ttfn!

Last working day for the year!

Ok, I've been quite busy and without me realising, it's the eve of New Year's Eve once again! I think I'll just sum up everything in 2011 in my next post.

Work has been treating me OK so far. Frankly speaking, this year has been far better and great than what I have expected! I never thought I could still travel overseas or get my passport 'stamped' in other countries after I came back from Sheffield.

Anyway, summary for 2011 up next! Felt realllyyyy reeaaally bad for neglecting and lacking of updates in the month of December.

til then, ttfn!

Busy December

Whoa I did not realised I haven't been updating my blog for the past two weeks already! Time has been allocated more in work and also on other stuffs. When I came back after work, my energy normally will be drained almost to the minimal level and thus leaving me only little to spend time with family. I don't even switch on my computer on a daily basis anymore! (This is coming from someone who can't live without her laptop even for a day, mind you)

Anyway, just another short one today and hopefully will have more time to catch up on those that I have not update very soon. *fingers crossed*

Christmas, birthday, and new year is around the corner. Guess time to update here will be delayed once again. Hhmm, maybe will just update some pics these few days..

til then, ttfn.

Taiwan Night Market FOOD!

Frankly speaking, one of the most exciting part visiting Taiwan is to try out their local cuisine and snacks from their various night markets! I've been to only two night markets this time and have tried some of their huge varieties of local specialties...

Prior to the trip, my mum told me that their food are over-rated by a lot of food programs from the TV, and from her tour last year, she said it's true coz most of the food she had was crap. I beg to differ. She followed tour and my friends and I are on our own. Tour groups/ agents always bring you to some crap places where they received commission for bringing in tourists to their dining place. So, that is one reason I hate to follow tour. hahaha..

Well, these are some of the many many more snacks/ food we tried during our short trip to Taiwan. There are more, but we didn't really took all the pictures of food we've eaten...


Shihlin (Taipei) & FengJia (Taichung) Night market. Crowded ALL the time! Even past midnight, the streets of night markets are occupied with people!


Fried squid that are cut into smaller pieces - is a MUST try!! I don't dare take so much of these evil fried stuff coz it's only our first night in TW. Don't wanna get sick too soon. hahaha


Mmm.... Hands down, Snowflakes and other dessert copies in Malaysia can't beat these little hawker stalls. Seriously, one big bowl of this dessert is only NT30 (about RM3.00)! We can choose 3 different ingredients to put into our 'tong sui'. The taro and sweet potato balls are really yummy and I've asked the uncle to put more of those in my beancurd tong sui and he didn't even charge me extra for that! *lurvesss*


Wildboar Taiwan sausages. These are super good! One will salivate just by smelling the aroma of these grilled stuff! Can't have enough of these, I think I had two for supper after Leehom concert. =)


Deep fried enoki mushrooms in batter. All my friends' favourite! I liked it but too much of deep fried stuff is starting to make me feeling not so well that night.


Taiwan version of 卤肉贩 Lu Rou Fan! I've always ordered this in 'Little Taiwan Bangsar' and now I'm actually having the local specialty at the origin country! hahahaa...


Emm... I don't have a clue what this is called. But it's actually some very very thin layer of pancake wrapped with sweet ground peanut and ice-cream! You can have the option of putting some smelly coriander/ parsley in your wrap. But I dropped the idea coz I HATE those green stuff in ALL my food.


My bowl of richly flavoured beef noodles, and I didn't even bother to take out those little spring onions from the bowl this time! hahaha...


Dan Bing/ Chong You Bing/ Scallion pancakes or whatever you want to called it, is also another MUST try if you're in Taiwan. I was in Taiwan for 6 days, and I had this for 4 days! We can choose what to wrapped in our pancakes and I have chosen bacon for this one. My portion of super tasty Bacon dan bing. Yum yummm....


I did not manage to try any of their famous oyster omelet but no worries, can always go for a second trip in the future! These are what I called as fresh oyster!


Smelly Tofu. I have been bugging my friends to accompany to try these Smelly/ stinky beancurd since day 1 of the trip but none of them gave me a slight interest to try. So, during my last night in Taichung, I finally bought a portion of it to try! As my friends are looking at me eating the crispy tofu, they were curious and all of them tried some in the end. LOL...

One picture of me in front of the smelly tofu stall @ Feng Jia night market before I conclude this entry...

yummehhh!!

til then, ttfn!

Pictures from Leehom Taipei "Open Fire 火力全開" concert

25th and 26th November 2011 marked the date where I stepped foot into Taipei Arena for two consecutive nights to watch Leehom live in concert at his so-called 'home country.' The experience and also his performances are way much better than in our country [Malaysia]. I truly enjoyed his first show [the first night] as it was a fairly new concert tour and on the second show, I took some pictures of his performance just to reminisce the good moments in the future. =)

Below are some pics that I liked best.


Taipei Arena from the opposite road.


Was taken aback by the amazing stage and forgotten to capture any pics of those special 'opening act' moments.


Not so clear, but this is one of the very few pics that have the dancers in sight. haha...


Singing 'The One and Only"... All time favourite ballad...

Went back stage to change and surprises the audience when this piano appear


Hanging in mid-air. Leehom singing 'All Thing You Never Knew 你不知道的事'


'Flying' above our head... One weird looking piano. Resemblance of a Shark mouth, eh?


One of my favourite picture of the night. I just seem to lurve this to bits... ^^


Cute!


Bringing the crowd to scream in excitement. Hot & sexy Leehom dancing with Rino Nakasone


Another one...


Talented 王力宏 with his violin...


Multi-talented Leehom with his Er-Hu. Super lurve...


Zoomed in...

Chinked-out time.




THIS costume is SO cool! Agree?


Leehom with Bahamut the customised electric guitar all the way from Ireland

A Capella time!


Medley: A series of songs which I have been prerecorded.



Went backstage again to change and appear and 'flying' once again..


The fans seated far far from the stage gets lucky when he flew and stopped right in front of them.


Singing 手牽手 Hand in Hand with DunHua elementary school children and also two of Leehom's special guests; his nephew & niece from the States.


They're so brave! A lil shy but still have the courage to perform with their Uncle Leehom on stage, in front of thousands of audience~


The kids went back in after Shou Qian Shou and he's solo on stage again.


zoom closer and closer.... luv this pic!


Confetti from the ceiling means that the concert is coming to an end soon...

Encore encore! and he came back out....


...in this super bling-ed and baggy outfit. hhmmm...


and finally the concert came to an end but fans were still not satisfied. We waited and chant for him to come back on stage and finally he re-appear for the 2nd encore session and sang 3 more songs [4 during the second night] and the show is officially over. hehehe...


One last picture of us that flew from KL to Taipei for Music-Man 2 new concert tour!

Now, it's time to countdown for his Malaysia concert which will be happening in March 2012 at Stadium Merdeka!

til then, ttfn! ^^

All pics credit to me if you intend to use/ post them elsewhere... Thank you very much. =)