Happy 'Niu' Year 2009

The Year of the Ox was celebrated in my hometown, spent my time stuffing myself silly with food and visiting relatives. People say, pictures tell a thousand words, so browse through and enjoy....

The Highway Jam Home

Caused by inconsiderate drivers slowing down where there were accidents/car breakdowns

The Dog

All wrapped up in sweater to protect against cold air from air con

Benjoe getting lonely, so he came up and rested his head on my knee/nudged his head in between me and my cousin's leg

Lazy pose...

Sleepy face..

The Dinner Day Before Reunion Dinner

Steamed pomfret, forgot to take the cooked version pic hehe

Beef rendang, yummylicious!

Fried chicken wings

Pickled pineapples, cucumber and onion

Deep fried prawns

Stir fried tou miau (dunno wats it called in english)

The Reunion Lunch

Stir fried lotus root, celery, carrots and mushrooms

Ju hu char (stir fried dried cuttlefish, mushroom, turnip and carrots)

Salted vegetable, pork leg and duck soup

Fish maw, scallops, gingko and mushroom soup

The Reunion Dinner

Yee Sang with unagi

Baby octopus & salmon sashimi

Salted vegetable, pork leg and duck soup

Fish maw, mushroom and gingko soup, with added limpets and top shell

Roasted duck (which we had for lunch as well)

Steamed chicken (also had during lunch)

Ginger fried pomfret

Cheese baked stuffed tiger prawns

Cauliflower, brocolli, carrots and mushroom

Ju hu char

Sea cucumber, dried oysters, mushroom and sea moss

Apple and strawberry crumble

Fruit punch

Wine

The 1st Day of CNY Dinner

The menu

Tossing yee sang

Braised shark's fin soup with eight treasure

Steamed stuffed boneless chicken with condiments

Braised dried oysters with seamoss and mushrooms

Fried king prawns with mayonnaise and fresh fruits

Steamed garoupa with spicy bean sauce

Wok fried glutinous rice with condiments

Double boiled sweetened lily bulbs with dried longan and lotus seed

Deep fried glutinous rice ball with lotus paste

Wine

Friday Night @ Velvet/Phuture

Mel was asking me yesterday to join her at Velvet, where she was meeting up with her high school mates. Phil was unable to make it and so did Ee Ling, so I asked her to call Jeremy along so that I wouldn't be so odd one out there. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, we kena FFK by him.

Anyways, we bumped into Yu Ming at the entrance and he was also there with his high school mates. So basically, I was an outlier the whole night, although I did drag Yu Ming to the dance floor with me, haha.

Initially, we wanted to go to Velvet as they had Mambo Night. But, there was a boring event going on (although a lot of guys were hanging around there cos Vanessa Chong of TARA2 fame was there co-emceeing the event). Can you imagine, they didn't even play any music there except when certain activities in the event warranted it? So we ended up hanging out in Phuture, enjoying the music there until later when we went back over to Mambo.

Unfortunately, I don't have many pics as I'm too lazy to take pics while dancing haha.

Mel & me

Chor Yee & me

Sex on the beach!

We had an incident while on the way home. Mel drove home using the SMART tunnel and at the toll booth, there was a car in front of us in the Smart Tag lane. We didn't know that the other car's Smart Tag wasn't captured, so when ours was captured, we moved and before we could move further, the barrier came crashing on the front windscreen. Luckily, it was a rather soft barrier and there was no damage to the car or its occupants. Mel got rather annoyed as the other car went through without paying since her Smart Tag opened the barrier for the other car to pass through. Oh well...

2009...A New Year

I know this is extremely late but hey, better late than never, right?

New Year's Eve was celebrated at The Curve with a bunch of people from work. We booked a table at TGI Friday's but when we arrived, we were told that our booking was not in the list! While waiting for Ee Ling and Tho Kin to settle the problem, I bumped into Adelle, who was also at The Curve for the countdown.

Anyways, we managed to get our table situation sorted out (even though 7 people had to squeeze in a table that was meant for 4). They had a special menu and Ling was rather disappointed as she had browsed through their online menu earlier in the day and chose her desired meal beforehand.

Anyways, this is what we ate....

Tho Kin kept goin on and on about how I wasn't as sporting as I used to be when it came to drinking, so to prove him wrong, I ordered myself a Long Island Tea (which he did too...). Phil had a mojito, Ling had an Iced Lemon Tea and I can't remember what Justin, Jesmin and Petrina ordered...=P

Fried Mac and Cheese Balls, which Ling and I had...

Prawn Martini, ordered by Phil, Petrina and Jesmin

Some chicken appetizer which Justin had...

BBQ Half Roasted Chicken. I wanted to have either lamb or steak but it was just way over my budget. So I settled for chicken even though I knew I couldn't finish it on my own. Oh well...Ling had this too but she shared it with Tho Kin.

Salmon and rice, which the rest ordered...

Dessert! Mocha mud cake. I was expecting a brownie with a scoop of ice cream on top but it turned out to be something like an ice cream cake instead...

The Attendees:

Yours truly and Phil

Ee Ling and Tho Kin

Jesmin, Justin (who really came in a tux!) and Petrina

Mel and Ron, who came by after dinner

Shie Haur and his girlfriend, Jayky, who dropped by after their dinner

After dinner, we all went towards the main road where all the action is. We were all rather annoyed at the crazy people who couldn't stop spraying each other with aerosol foam. It was kinda irritating especially when you're wearing black and the smell is horrible. Anyways, we managed to find another spot where it's relatively safe and waited for the fireworks. I wanted to capture the entire display on video but decided to enjoy it life rather than through my camera display view.


After that, we adjourned to Tony Roma's for drinks to let the crowd disperse somewhat and also to avoid the massive traffic jam that was expected. Even so, we were stuck in the carpark for about half an hour before we managed to get out to the road.

So here's to a new year, a new start and hopefully this year would be a better year than last year...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Christmas in Penang

Christmas this year was celebrated in my home in Penang for the first time...well, my first time la.......haha

The mini-Christmas tree that I assembled. =)

On Christmas Eve, we had a sumptuous dinner that was a combination of my sister's and my favourite food...mmmmmmm yummy.........haha

Stir-fried chilli lala

Deep-fried baby white pomfret...extremely yummy, I eat everything, only leaving the backbone! Hehehe...

Garlic kangkong

Steamed white pomfret

....and my favourite dish of all time, salted vegetable and pork leg soup....=D

On Christmas Day, I followed my sister and her boyfriend, Adrian, to Wesley Methodist Church for Christmas service. I met my old school-/classmate, Ming Boon, (or Allyson, as she is known now) there as well. However, it was my sister who had the most catching up to do there haha....Adrian and me just stood there stoning haha...

At night, we had our formal Christmas dinner together with my grandmother and aunt. Feast on the pics ppl!

The dinner table setting...

Toasted baguette...

...eaten with tomato salsa...

...or dipped in Italian herb oil and balsamic vinegar...a la Italiannies...

Salad

Roasted chicken...

..with mushroom sauce...

Onion and minced beef stew...courtesy of chef Adrian...this was the only dish was finished!

Pork baked in aluminium foil...my mum's experiment haha

My signature mashed potatoes...

I wanted to get wine but unfortunately my suggestion was shot down by my mum...Bah! We settled for imitation wine instead...sparkling juice...

Apple and strawberry crumble...baked by me and my mum...

After dinner, we exchanged gifts. And we had a fun time opening each other's presents and being kaypo wanting to know what each other got...haha. For those of you who are curious, this is what I got...


I truly stuffed myself silly this trip back, what with the Christmas feasts and hawker food in between. Time to go to the gym!!!

Mel & RJ's Birthday

Last Friday, we were at Red Box celebrating Mel & RJ's birthday. Shie Haur originally booked a room at The Curve but since Phil and me were at Gardens and managed to get an earlier booking we ended up at Red Box Gardens instead.

But then Mr "Brad" Tan forgot to tell the birthday boy that the venue was changed and poor RJ ended up at The Curve and had to come all the way to Gardens.

The girls and the birthday boy and girl

The boys ("Brad" Tan too busy singing to look at the camera)

Birthday boy and girl =)

Cutting the cake

X'mas Lunch Party

My department had a X'mas lunch party last Friday. We also had secret santa gift exchanging session.

Too-pretty-to-be-eaten cupcakes...

My snowman...

Lunch was juz okay...but the fun was seeing how "crazy" everyone became over the gifts especially when big boss was opening her presents. Someone commented that if we were to combine all her gifts, she could set up a mini spa in the office! Haha...

My secret santa actually gave me 2 presents, a mug and a pen holder. The other gift I got was from one of the Area Managers who gave the whole office presents...

Me and my presents

Tadah!!!

One Saturday Night...

What do you get if you combine.....

Balls...

Clubs...

Driving range...

Golf night!

I didn't know a headless skunk can be so cute....=P