21st December 2012, in Genting Highlands

Note: This post was from eons ago, but it was sitting in my drafts and I never got to posting it. Haha. Finally went through my drafts, and voila, I’m posting it up now.

My brother being the naive boy he is, wanted to spend the supposed ‘Doomsday’ day in Genting. Guess why? Because it was the nearest highest point we could get to in such short time. If the world ended by floods like how the now a comedy movie, “2012” have shown, it would hit us later than if we were in KL. And so, we spent two days in Genting. I can’t remember when was the last time I was up there, it must have been years. I did kind of missed the theme park and I was looking forward to that, only to have Danny telling me how long the queues were when he was up a few days earlier. I decided it was better to just chill than to wait eons for the rides, cause there is nothing worse than that to kill off the holiday mood.

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Started the journey there with delicious comfort food at Pan Heong Restaurant, near Batu Caves. The porridges there is good and worth a try, pictured here is the Frog Porridge.

But the winner for us is hands down, the ‘Wat Tan Hor’; Cantonese Fried Flat Noodles in Egg Gravy. This is really too yummy-licious, it’s so smooth and the eggs, you can taste the glorious egg gravy. It’s really so good.

The next stop was Gohtong Jaya, which is on the way up to Genting Highlands. There used to be a few shops and restaurants, I used to think it was a dead place. But turns out, there is strawberry farm and a lavender farm too! I almost died from joy when I was at the lavender farm. :) Such a gorgeous place, flowers flowers everywhere.

Took a picture with mom, haven’t had one with her for some time. :) Oh, that is how the farm looks like, it’s a pretty small farm but still pretty nevertheless. I must visit a lavender field when I travel to Europe!

Selfie with my phone camera and the lavender! :)

While we were in Genting, we actually visited two vegetable farm there. One of the farm was known as a Mini Cameron Highlands and I somehow find that funny. The vegetables were really fresh and surprisingly gorgeous, that I did a photo set for them (I’ll post that up in another post, look out for that).

At the vegetable farm, you can pluck/pick your own vegetable. Which actually was a pretty simple process, just lift it up from the container. Haha.

Just like how my mom did!

They will take off the black container and this is how it looks like. The vegetables were the freshest I ever had, so tasty to eat it as salad. 

They had a strawberry farm in Gohtong Jaya as well! You can pick your strawberries, but personally there weren’t a lot to pick. Easier to buy the plucked ones, unless you want the experience of picking your own strawberries.

Huge sunflower! :D It was really freaking huge! There wasn’t a sunflower farm, just a dozen of really tall sunflowers stalks.

Just realised that I’ve been posting more about the farms and what not than Genting itself, but I’d pretty much lazed and walked around in Genting. Nothing worthy of a mention except that Genting was super duper foggy in all the two days we were there.

On the way up.

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Would it be too late to say “Thanked God the world didn’t end” ? Haha, but there was a super freaky heavy thunderstorm that night though. And together with the brother and sister, we actually walked out, looked up to the skies and shouted “Bring it on!”. Self amusement, to a whole new level. :D

That’s all for this post! I really need to stop having backlogs. :/ It’s getting annoying.

I’m 20, two decades old.

The week before my birthday, has been one of the worst week I could have ever lived through. It was terrible, truly horrifying because whatever I was going through was very much different from anything I’ve ever been through. It was worse than failing my exams because if I failed my papers, I could do-over. But not for this, I cannot reset. I cannot start over. It felt pretty much like I’m stuck at the bottom of the well, with no way to escape. It really wouldn’t been so bad, if only I could figure it out. But I can’t, I don’t have a choice. A friend once said, “You always have a choice.” I do realise I have, but I don’t have the courage to go to such lengths to do it. Sighs. I’ll be stuck till then. But I am better now, much better. We all learn to cope, live with it eventually. I’ll be stronger, that much I know. :)

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I was supposed to blog about my birthday a week after it, but I have been so busy that I kept delaying it. Plus, I was blogging on a LIFO basis; last-in-first-out. Haha. That is actually an accounting term, if you didn’t know. :) So anyway, my birthday this year was made perfect by the very awesome people in my life. :) My family; the parents especially, my beloved college mates, the close friends and of course, everyone who wished me on Facebook as well.

30.07.12, AM

Dad brought me to have my favourite prawns porridge to start my special day. :)

Nothing beats a claypot full of delicious prawns porridge with deep fried twisted dough-stick (yao char kuey) for an awesome breakfast.

30.07.12, Early PM

After the awesome breakfast, I was off with mom and dad to run a little errand. Nothing much, pretty insignificant. Came back home and thought I’ll pamper myself a bit before heading out for dinner with my friends. So, I decided to do a Japanese hair spa for myself, it’ll take up some time and by the time I’m done with it, I could have lunch and start getting ready for my dinner date. And so, I went to get my hair spa items ready. But while I was at it, my mom saw and she told me not to do the spa treatment because she needed my help in something, so I had to opt for the normal hair treatment. Which I luckily did, because about 10 mins after I was done with my shower + hair treatment, I had a surprise waiting for me at my door.

My so-fake-shocked look! :)

My college mates had came all together with a cake to surprise me! I had no idea they were coming, I was dressed so shabbily that when my mom said my friends were here, I just went running to my room to change into something decent. Plus, my hair was so huge! Haha.

This is almost everyone that was there. :D Almost, because Crys was late as she got lost again. Heh.

Thank you (L-R) Amanda, Desmund, Jia Ping, Carmen, Celia, Danny, Eugene, Reuben, Timothy (Reuben’s guitar) and Crys for making my 20th birthday so memorable. I love each and everyone of you and am so thankful to have you all in my life. Also, Reuben and Danny played and sang “Be Your Everything” by Boys Like Girls for me! <3 Of course, it wasn’t as a proclamation of love, but rather because it was my favourite song.

They stayed on for a while after we cut the cake. Oh, the cake was from RT Pastry and I have always always wanted to try their cakes. Glad to finally be able to on my birthday some more. :) How blessed was I. Haha. After that, we had a mini karaoke session where we got Reuben to play the guitar and the rest of us singing along.

30.07.12, Mid PM

After everyone left, Celia and Crys stayed behind and we chatted for a while before they were to head off to avoid the jam. Then, we had this brilliant idea to help me decide what I was to wear for dinner that night! So, we went through my wardrobe, picked a few outfits (6 actually) out and I was to try them on and they would style accordingly. Haha, that session was really fun. Finally decided on one outfit and they, then left. But before they left, they told me that my gift wasn’t ready. And that they’ll pass it to me when it is. :)

30.07.12, Late Mid PM

Immediately after they left, I went to have my lunch and a shower to get ready for dinner. I only had an hour to get ready before my friend picked me up. Which actually isn’t enough for me, it was a bit rushing but I managed, albeit being 10 mins late and my friend had to wait. But I was late because a weird unknown number called me while I was going out, I had actually hesitated in picking the phone call up because I was in obvious rush. Luckily I did because it was my aunt, calling all the way from UK to wish me. How lovely and sweet of her. <3 We chatted for a bit, and it was great to hear her voice again. I miss her.

30.07.12, Late PM

I actually had a choice between Japanese or Western for dinner, but since the initial plan was Western.. I stuck on with it. Had dinner at a lovely place called Porta Romano, I blogged about it here. Do click to read my review. Food was great, dinner was awesome. :) It ended in the most perfect way I could have ever imagined. <3

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Once again, I just want to say how grateful I am for the awesome people in my life who made my birthday such a memorable one. <3 But, guess what, 30th July wasn’t the end to my birthday. I received my gift from the girls; Celia and Crys a few days later.

It was a book filled with photos and it tells a story on every page. It’s really funny and I was so touched when I got it. I love the girls so much, for the time and effort they have put into the doing this. Nothing ever beats something handmade with love. <3

Besides that, I previously told Daddy that I was craving for some crabs and would love to have them for my birthday. But because I didn’t manage to have dinner with the family, so Dad made them especially for me one day!

The uncooked crab, to be steamed. Can you see the yellow bit there? That’s eggs!

And ta-da! It’s done and ready to eat! :) So yummy, my stomach is growling as I type this :P

And now, Daddy just owes me my durian birthday cake and my grilled lamb. :P I ate my celebratory chicken wings at Ah Wah in Jalan Peel. Heh.

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So that is all for my 20th birthday, I could never quite remember my last few ones, hence I decided to put this one into words. I hope my 21st will be even better than this. :)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

 Oh, boy. There are so many candles on the cake. I told myself that when I have that many candles on my cake, I better be living my dream by then.

FYI, I don’t like eating cakes anymore.

My one month old nephew.

The traditional Chinese red dyed chicken egg that is given during the Full Moon celebration.

Hey world, meet Brandon! And as the title suggests, he is my nephew which obviously means that I’m an Aunty now. God, that sounds so old. But he has yet to be able to speak so I guess I won’t have him calling me “Ah Yee”. LOL.

Hehe, I find Brandon really cute and obviously very fragile. He is just one month old and his hands are so so tiny!

This boy over here used to be super cute, but now he is nothing but annoying…….Fine, I’ll admit that he is not only that. In fact, he is actually quite sweet at times. And mostly silly and annoying at all other times.

Seeing Brandon (and watching my brother grow up from a cute baby to a boy) makes me wonder how I looked like when I was still a baby and how I was like back then. So, I actually went to the cupboard and took out my huge baby album.

Oh, yes. That was me. When I was close to one years old. I think I was doing something with my eye. [O.O]

Haha, this kid looks so adorable! Unfortunately, this is also myself when I was about a years old.

God, I missed being a kid. Life was so much easier, then. But it isn’t so bad now. It’s tough, but I know I’ll get through it.

The Last Raya Holidays

Honestly speaking, most of my Raya holidays was spent on studying and preparing myself for the Law Final E-Exam. Initially, I thought one week plus was a long time to study for Law. So, I took my own very sweet time to study. Like half a chapter a day and on some days, I didn’t touch the book. I finally realized that if I continue revising this way, I wouldn’t be able to finish the syllabus on the week of the examination.

It is kind of stupid for me to take that long to realize that. In the days to follow, I set the target of reading a few chapters a day; which for me proved to be an impossible feat. But in the end, I did manage to finish all the chapters with the questions along – of course, it took me many midnight oils to burn to accomplish that. So now all I’ve got to do is wait for my results to be out later in the day, should be around 4.30 pm.

[Edit: The results is finally out. I passed. Oh, boy. I’m washed with relief.]

It was obviously a very mundane routine for me during the holidays except for some occasional incidents involving Kah Lok. Trust me, his antics are really humorous. Take this for example.

He saw the Pooh bear’s butt from the kitchen and he said, “Eee yer. Barrr-tooock.” And it’s so funny if you can hear the way he said it.

In the very same week too, my daddy trimmed Kah Lok’s hair as it was getting bushy. Plus, we had this old *idon’tknowhatitiscalled* thingy (shown in the picture above). All you got to do is comb the hair, and voila! It’s trimmed.

Mommy decided to hose him down with water after that because he wanted it. Haha. He really like the water. But funny thing is he doesn’t want to learn how to swim. He rather just floats around.

For once, I’m going to do a photo post since I did spent some amount of my time editing the pictures I took from the wedding. As for the wedding, there is actually nothing much to talk about it. It is one of my cousin’s dinner wedding but the thing is, well, I am not that close to her. So, I wasn’t involved in the wedding. I’m just attending a wedding dinner and there is really nothing more to elaborate. There was food and it was good, yes. Mandarin songs karaoke, blasting through the speakers. Oh, yes. That is about it. Now, it’s time for the pictures.

Haha, I know there is more pictures of my sister and I than the wedding itself. Well, at least now you can guess how interesting the wedding was or how vain are the both of us. But hey, you are at my blog. Publishing rights is what I have after all. :)

The [2nd] Birthday Celebration.

My brother celebrated his birthday. Again.

Remember this post; Happy Birthday, my dear? Well, he celebrated his birthday with us in that post and he had another one with his cousins yesterday.  It actually wasn’t really a huge party, but oh my holy god, there was just so much work involved in the preparation of getting the food ready for the party. It was a pretty simple menu actually; Fried Chicken, Spaghetti with Mushroom Sauce, Roasted Duck, Fruits Tart. The last two dishes were bought, by the way. So we technically only had to prepare the first two.

I think what was so tedious and took up most of the time was the preparation of the food. Like say the chicken, it had to be marinated, which means you have to prepare the marinating sauce. Mom wanted to do two different variation; the curry one and the ‘nam yee’, (fermented beancurd paste) one.

These were the different types of powder used to marinate the chicken.

The fried chicken, ‘nam yee’ flavoured one. Tastes freaking awesome.

But, what was the hardest part for me was preparing the mushroom spaghetti sauce, one which I personally did most of the cooking. Mom helped out with the seasoning part.

 Sliced mushroom, minced chicken, grinded mushroom bits and hot dog, loads of onions.

Believe it or not, the mushroom sauce actually took an hour to prepare and the best thing was I had to keep stir fry-ing, or else it’s bound to get burned. Imagine my hands. But it was worth it because my cousins who are really picky eaters actually took a second helping of the pasta.

The kids obviously enjoyed themselves yesterday. My cousins came as early at like 1.30 pm, bringing the house down with their screams. Oh, yes. The boys do scream. Haha. And when Adriel came, they brought the house down with the thumping. Mom and I was cooking downstairs in the kitchen (which is below my brother’s room) and we could hear ‘thud, thud, thud’.  The cause of it? Kah Wai was playing the Chicken and Eagle game with them in the room.

Last time, it used to be three girls; me, my sister and my eldest cousin sister. Now, we have three loud, rowdy boys.

  Moist Chocolate Cake baked by Ru Yi’s mom.

Everyone said that the cake tastes pretty good, but nah I took a pass. It looks far far too chocolatey than to what I could handle. I’m weird, ain’t I? I would so prefer if it was a cheese cake. But we did have blueberry cheese tarts too.

  THIS IS FREAKIN AWESOME. ‘Nuff said.

 

From the pictures itself, I’m sure you can tell that my brother really enjoyed himself yesterday. Best part was the his presents were all those that he wanted. Maybe not exactly the one from his wish list but he really loved the presents. They were all related to building something and electronic gadgets. Just the way what he wanted.