Others (under construction)

Monday, June 30, 2008

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

v
This morning, just before the incident with the neighbour, I started packing my bags for my trip to Kinabalu. I started at 9am.. till almost 12pm. This is my second trip. Last year, I remembered how I dislike packing for Kinabalu. I can't believe I'm doing this again.

Anyway, by 12 pm, the contents in my bag are neatly arranged. :)

Inconsiderate neighbours.

I was having breakfast this morning when all of the sudden I looked out of my house. To my horror and amazement, I saw some laundry not belong to me, hanging on my front gate.

This is my front gate. AND THESE ARE NOT MY CLOTHES!!! They belong to my... neighbour. How could anyone be so.. so... so... weird?
I went outside and look into my neighbour's compound in hopes that I could spot my meighbour and tell her off. Her door and gate was open, I could hear voices, but I didn't want to call out for her.

I went upstairs and checked my laptop screen. My cousin was saying hi to me. Immediately I cut him off and told him about my neighbour. He asked if e could help by burning the house down. I replied, better not, the house and adjoining to my house. It may affect my house. Furthermore, both houses belongs to Mctc. Then e asked if he could puncture their car tyres. I told him that I think the car belongs to one of our church member. My neighbour is working for him.

Still feeling dissatisfied, I went to my gate and push all the laundry to one side. I hoped she will get the message. Then I went upstairs and send out an email to all my friends telling them about my neighbour.

There were so many suggestions. I will list it down later.

Then it started raining and one of the neighbour's children took the clothes in.

Later the husband came back for lunch I told him in a nice way. I ask him not to put the clothes on my gate. It looked so untidy. At first he didn't get what I was saying. Later after I've explained it to him, he apologised and spoke to his wife. What was being said, I don't know because they spoke in another language.

I must tell you that my back fence was also bombarded by other people's laundry. I think these clothes belongs to my 3-doors away neighbour.

Not a pretty sight. :(

I had no say in this. Mctc said it's okay for them to hang their laundry there. :(

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Grandmother's birthday!

I know, I know. I blogged about celebrating my grandmother's birthday a few days ago. That was a private party.
Today's party is celebrated by all her children (and spouses), grandchildren (and spouses) and great grandchildren. She gave birth to 15 children, Gave 3 away, but 2 came running back. One pass away a few years back. Last week her eldest daughter and family came to visit and celebrate with her. Today, the rest of the family came to celebrate with her. If I'm not mistaken 9 of her children was her today. I think there were more that 50 people who was in attendance.

Unlike my mother's family who usually eat dinner at 7.30 or 8pm, my father's side is really Chinese chinese (said it twice on purpose). Dinner was at 5pm today. Rachel and I came at about 6.30pm. It was raining. We came just in time to sing the birthday song. After that we had family by family taking turns to have their pictures taken with grandma.

And you know what? I don't know my cousins names... too many of them. We only meet them like once a year. I don't recognise some of them too.

The cake was specially made by a cake shop. The food was catered. I was late for the dinner, so I couldn't get a good picture of the food. MY brother was eating halfway when I asked his permission to take a picture of what he was eating.
And of course there were people playing mah jong.

The last batch of guests (relatives I mean) left at 9pm. Yeah, it's still too early. I repeat again... so unlike my mother's side of the family. They would linger until 11pm.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Pre-climb dinner

We planned our pre-climb dinner a month ago. It was to be held in my parents place on the 28th June. Everyone was expected to be punctual, but being Malaysians, some came later. Doc James was the first to arrive... at 7.15pm. The second batch of people are the Chans. I didn't keep track after that.

Not all the climbers came for this dinner. There were 20 climbers. The 5 who couldn't make it were Johnny and William (overseas). Hendry and Cilla (some meeting) and Adlin (lives in KK).

We started by singing our theme song " Pressing on, the upward way".

Peter Lai song led. He brought his guitar.

Doc Peter Ch'ng had to rush off because he was on call. So while we were singing, he had his dinner. His family came with him too. He left as soon as he finished eating. I'm glad he made the effort to come.
The food was of course delicious. Cooked by my mom and Tusi, we had a total of 10 dishes and 1 soup(leng ngau). Each climber contributed RM8.00 towards the cost.

After the dinner, some stayed back to fellowship and sing some oldies. They lingered around till almost 11pm.

Lunch at Sheraton, Subang.

This is Sheraton Subang... or rather a small part of it. My friend Pam, wanted to meet up with Shanty , the marketing manager of Sheraton Subang. She didn't want the hassle of thinking how to get to Sheraton, so she asked Mctc to take her there. Surprisingly Mctc agreed. I followed along just to sibuk (busybody).

I must say, I was surprised by the the interiors of Sheraton. According to Shanty, the land on which Sheraton occupied can match a football field.

We reached there at 11.30am, met Shanty and she took us around the hotel. We walked quite a bit till my already injured knee started to cry out. At nearly 1pm Shanty asked if we want to have a buffet lunch or try the Japanese in which she highly recommend. Now, to tell you the truth, I don't really like Japanese food. I do eat them, but if given a choice, I would prefer something else. Anyway, since she recommended it, we had Japanese for lunch.

Surprisingly, the food tasted nice. I love the beef. It was so tender... and I love the green tea ice-cream with red beans. We all had that for dessert. It was oh-o-yummy. It's a pity I forgot to take a picture of it, otherwise I can post it in here.

We left the place at 3pm. On the way back we pass by the pyramid. It's a shopping complex.
Nice huh?! I haven't been to the Pyramid for such a long time.

I Can't Sleep!

It's 5.24AM, according to my computer clock.

I was awake since 4.28AM according to my handphone.

I was dreaming about Mt Kinabalu.

And NO... it's not a nice dream. It's like having exams the next day and you are dreaming about what is going to happen in the examination hall....

Not a good night sleep.It's a rare thing for me to sleep in on a Saturday. Usually I would go for a morning walk in Bukit Kepayang.

And I've set my alarm clock for 8AM.... sigh..

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ovens again!!

My Aunt Lily is going to stay with her son in KL. She's planning to sell her house in Seremban and her son doesn't want anything from the old house.

Today, I saw my Aunt Lily at my mom's house after class. She and my mom were talking about the stuff that she had to get rid off from her house. She asked if I wanted her oven, her big oven... like my mom's but it uses electricity instead of gas. Wah..... I was so excited... I can bake cookies in my house. "Yes! I want it", I told her.

I do have a small oven, and it has been serving me well over the past 2 years. But if I want to make cookies, I would prefer to use my mom's oven because I can bake 3 big trays at one go. And I love making shortbread but my mom cannot stand the smell of butter. Imagine after 5 hours of baking buttery stuff in her oven, Tusi (the maid) will have to "halal-nized" (sanitized) the oven.

la-di-da...can't wait...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Today!

Today is Tuesday.

Today I feel lazy.

Today is self-declared off-day.

Today I have to clean the house.

Today I felt the strain in my right knee.

Today we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday in Regent Restaurant. (She actually only 89, but the Chinese like to add 1 more year to their actual birthday).

Today, Tuesday, I did my weekly housecleaning in spite of the pain on my right knee. Housework means 2 - 3 hours of sweeping, mopping and washing the bathroom.

The dinner in Regent Restaurant cost RM433. We had the birthday noodles, sharkfin's soup, steamed fish, lemon chicken, prawns with egg (like butter prawns), vegetables with mushroom, fried rice (yummy) and japanese taufu cooked like claypot style.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Om's first hike at Bukit Kepayang

Here's Om with her monkey friends at Bukit Kepayang. When she saw them, she was overjoyed. She even made monkey sounds and told us that when she does that her monkey friends will come to her aid. And by having her super mystical monkey stick with her, she is the monkey queen.

Funny girl...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

A surprise for me!

Every Friday night after cell meeting, we have a time called fellowship. This involves food brought by one of the cell members. Most of the time it's "tai chow"... usually fried rice, hokkien mee, "cantonese yin yong" or "yee meen". Sometimes it's porridge, "ham chim pank", pau, sandwiches or fruits.
Once in a while we have left overs and depends on what was leftover, some of us will "ta pau" (pack) home.(Hmm.... this sounds very Malaysian.. "ta pau home", or "bungkus balik"). If no takers, the host and hostess, Dr Peter Yeow and Aunty Yeow are left to deal with it. Usually Aunty Yeow will put them in containers and refrigerated them. They always ask us to take back the leftovers and my standard reply was... I will put it in the fridge and 1 week later it would go into the rubbish bin. My reason being... I don't have a microwave oven and I'm too lazy to thaw and refry the noodles or rice in the wok. Too much work. (Yes, this is lazy me).

Yesterday we had cell meeting. I wasn't feeling too good, so I called to say I won't be attending cell. Feeling very sleepy even at 7-ish pm, I procastinated. I didn't want to sleep so early. I think sleep is a waste of time. But by 9.30pm, I cannot "tahan" (stand), I went to bed. At 10.30pm, Mctc called, saying he will pack something back for me, and groggily I answered... "no need. I'm sleeping". Then he said something about microwave oven, but I had already tuned off and said goodbye.

Early this morning I woke up and tried to go back to sleep again. It was so difficult, my eyes and brains refused to cooperate. I was wide awake. At 4.20AM, I told myself "FINE! YOU DON"T WANT TO SLEEP, THEN STAY AWAKE, DO SOMETHING USEFUL". So I brushed my teeth and wash my face. Then I went to do some scrapbooking. It took me a while before I remembered the telephone conversation with Mctc last night. I went down to check.

WAH!!!! I saw the microwave oven box. I was excited.

Then I checked the refridgerator. Mctc packed some food home. Looks like fried rice and fried kuey teow. Later he told me that Dr Peter gave it to him last night, saying that there's no excuse not to "ta pau" the left-overs.

At 7AM I went for a hike up at Bkt Kepayang with RW.

This is the first time I noticed what beautiful flowers some hikers planted up at the hill.

It was slightly misty. The air was fresh... except when the cars and motorbikes passed by us.

The beautiful flowers. I can't help but show you 2 almost similar pictures that I took. They look so lovely.
Don't you agree with me?

Then I notice something else...

Take a good look at the picture. Just above the centre. Looks like there's a faraway kingdom in the sky.

Zoom closer... ai yah... they are just communication towers. Ceh...

I had lunch with Mctc and RW. Then I went home and open my gift. .. the microwave oven... remember?!

Cool eh..

Ok lah, ok lah... I know most of you have microwave ovens at home... but have any of you receive one just for fun? :) (Hah!)

I love it.... now waiting for someone to test it.. just in case it explodes... haha.

Wanna know something else... Ruth gave me her oven too. That was I think, over 2 years ago.

A small but useful oven. It's for baking. I love it too.

Now with 2 ovens (1 for reheating, 1 for baking), my concrete table top looks so untidy. Sigh.. will think of something...

Friday, June 20, 2008

Otherwise we would have summited today!

In December last year, we planned to climb Mt Kinabalu during a full moon. Looking at the 2008 Chinese calendar, June 18 was chosen. It was the 15th day of the 5th month, where the moon was at it's fullest. We counted, 18th fly to KK, 19th, hike up to Laban Rata, and 20th early morning hike up to the summit. Well, that's the plan. But the plan changed when we found that Airasia wasn't so accommodating. The price wasn't right. We spend some time in Airasia's website looking for a suitable flight, one that was cheap and flies on a Wednesday. We finally found July 2nd, flight to KK was only RM6 (excluding taxes).... but... no moonlight during that time. Anyway, we just book July 2nd and informed everyone to buy headlamps. :)

Thursday, June 19, 2008

My phone bill arrived today..

Recently, I've been making a lot of phone calls. I didn't know I made 6 calls to Airasia. Out of 6, three calls were more than 13 minutes. Okay, guess how much my bill is?

I underspent my allocated amount .:(

The alloacted or monthly commitment charges is RM50. I used up RM46.81....should have called more.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Class Canceled!

And what did I do when class was cancelled? Make cookies. :)

Semester starts this week. I'm taking Church History (18th century to 20th century) and Introduction to religions 2 - Islam.

Class is on Wednesday - Church History 9:00AM - 10:45AM
Intro to Religions 2 - 11:15AM - 1PM , 2:30PM-3:30PM

The lecturer for Intro to Religions 2 told us that he had to go to KL in the afternoon, so no classes in the afternoon. Yay!

I went to my mother's house. Between 1AM to 8PM, I got nothing to do. So I decided to make shortbread cookies for Aunt Pang, Gee Lian and Yoke Chan. I told them if they were to provide me with butter I would turn them into cookies.

They gave me 5 blocks of butter more than a month ago. Since the afternoon class was canceled, I thought, why not use this time to makes the cookies. So I did. I added 3 more blocks of butter and made 8 recipes... roughtly about 800 plus bite sized cookies.

Started at 2.30pm ended at 7.30pm, just in time to go for prayer meeting at 8pm.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

2 weeks more to go....

The climb is just 15 days away.

Question : Am I excited? A I looking forward to it?

Answer : No feeling lah.

Two days ago a would-be climber pulled out from our team of 20. No worries about replacement because we have at least 2 ladies who wants to join in. I called the first lady. She approach me some time back in April at the Blossom pasar malam. She planned to organise a Mt Kinabalu trip next year and having her in our July team would benefit her greatly.
I gave her a short deadline for her answer and yesterday, she told me to count her in. I started checking the airasia flight charges. It's so much more expensive than ours. We paid only about RM241. If I were to book her on the same flight as the rest of us, she would have to pay RM415. Well, that can't be helped. So this morning I booked her tickets online with Airasia.
Flight was not the main problem. Because a guy pulled out and this lady was his replacement, we had to work out the room sharing at KK hotel and also the insurance that the guy paid, whether his name could be changed to hers. I made a lot of phone calls and smses these past 2 days. Now waiting for my phone bill.. :(

These few days I've been scrapping... LAST YEAR'S PHOTOS. I'm so lagging...

International Food!

Last Saturday was a hectic day. A group of us hiked up Bukit Kepayang, had breakfast at FS-Oakland, then I went to Minch's house to bathe. Rach picked us up at about 10.30AM to town. We had some errands there. We went to Seremban Parade first. Bought sandals, shoes and a warm jacket for the Kinabalu climb. After that we went to Terminal 1(to check for green or orange accessories for a party's Rachel's attending that night) , KM plaza (to mend a belt) and B-Strong to confirm the climb's T-shirt artwork and colour.

Rach planned to go to Jusco to get some green and orange accessories, but since she found them in Terminal 1, we had a lot of free time in Jusco. Minch was hungry. Rach was thirsty. We examine all the food outlets, the pros and cons like price-wise, taste-wise, etc. We decided on Igentis. Both Rach and Minch were ignorant about the wonderful "mother of pearl" bubble tea they have on their menu.
Not satisfied with her nasi lemak in FS, Minch ordered nasi lemak again. I wanted black pepper udon mee with beef. Yummy!. Rachel decided on a combo meal - chicken, fish and chips. We ordered the famous mother of pearl drink, but they sold out. Wah.... so fast sold out already. But then Rach was thirsty, so she ordered some oatmeal green tea. After like 20 minutes we saw a waiter bringing a glass of mother of pearl to another table. Minch then ask the waiter for some explanation and was told that they ran out of one of the ingredients and were boiling it just now. I was really promoting this drink and it wasn't cheap - RM4.50 a glass. Minch ordered 1 glass. After tasting it, she categorised it as "yummy" but will not order this drink again because it's expensive.

We shopped at Jusco till 4 pm then headed down to Tesco. Minch took over the driving when we left Seremban Parade. She didn't seemed to mind driving us around. Bless her.

We didn't stay long at Tesco. Rach had to rush back to get ready for the party. She dropped me at the hair saloon. My hair was growing past my shoulders already. I wanted to keep it long for the Kinabalu climb.... but I cannot "tahan" (stand it) already. Yes, I know, it's 2 weeks before the climb, but my hair was really messy. So snip, snip... I asked the hairdresser (do you still call them that?) to cut it short, but not to short. So right now my hair length is just above my shoulders. Should I colour it? Still thinking about it.

Message to Ruth - When are you going to dye your hair black? Come on... I dare you... haha. :)

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

My Poor Grass :(

I've been neglecting my grass for 5 months. It's full of weeds and insects I've never seen before lived there. I can hardly see the stones too. It was time for the grass to have a hair cut, I thought to myself a few months back. My one and only excuse is I was busy. Well, I WAS.

So last Friday, I decided I had to do something about it. I took out the grass cutter and, well, before I could start cutting the grass, I had to remove the stones first. That took some time. I started at 5.45PM. Little did I know that removing the stones took up A LOT of time. I chatted with my neighbour too.. about the petrol and electricity prices. We compared our utility bills. Her electricity bill was slightly more than RM100, and mine about RM30+. Her water bill was RM80 and mine was less than RM10.

Okay, there's an explanation for the huge discrepancy. She had 4 more people living in her house. She does laundry EVERYDAY in her large washing machine. She cooks for the family. And most of the time I can hear her washing her porch floor or the back of her house.

Hmm.. as her neighbour, I am embarrass to live next to her. Her house and compound is always clean and neat. Same goes for my opposite neighbour. Sometimes I see her sweeping just outside my house compound. She even trimmed my mango tree, the one where I asked her to plant just outside my house.

Sigh.. what kind and good neighbours I have.

Anyway, back to the topic of cutting my pathetic grass. I didn't manage to cut all the grass. Just did half of it only when I noticed the sky was getting darker. I quickly clean up and "chin chai" (simply) wash my porch floor.

By the time I was done, it was already 7.30pm, time to bathe and go for cell meeting. 4 days has passed ... I'm thinking when can I summon my lazy bones to finish the other half of my tiny garden.

It looked so awkward now.....

Monday, June 9, 2008

Dumplings

Yesterday was dumpling day. Exactly was it is all about I don't know. I only know that's when so many "congs" would be made and sold at the shops/street. I asked Min Chee and Rachel Wong what was the significant of this celebration. They also don't know.

Wikipedia shows me something else. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I just love eating them.

I'm adding a little note here. For some of you who don't know what "cong " is, It's also called "Bak Chang" (Saw it in the newspaper). It's made of glutinous rice, pork, dried mushroom, chestnut,salted egg yolk, dried prawns ad green pea. I found a recipe online. You can try it. Just click -here

It's celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month in the lunar calendar.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Yay! I've got a parcel from Ruth

Ruth called me last Monday. She told me to expect a parcel from her. On Friday, the church administrator called and told me that I have a parcel from Ruth. These are what's in it. Thanks Ruth. :)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Summited Gunung Angsi Again!

Another trip to Gunung Angsi. Did I ever told you that I hated climbing Gunung Angsi so much after my first experience that I vowed never to return here again?! Well, here I am again! :( Not by choice, of course. It's part of the training hikes for the big climb in Kinabalu come July 2nd. We had 4 pre-scheduled training hikes, 1 additional and 1 optional. This was the last scheduled hike.

19thth Jan - (optional)- Scheduled to go to Datuk. I didn't go because I had to do something in church.

20th Mar - Scheduled to go to Angsi, but changed last minute because it rained during the week and it was advisable to climb Datuk. I didn't go because we had gotong-royong in church.

12th Apr - Scheduled to go to Datuk. Most climbers couldn't make it, so we canceled the climb.

26th Apr - (Replacement for 12th Apr) - The organisers decided on Angsi. I didn't go because I had to bake cookies for BCM Open Day on the 1st May.

1st May - Scheduled for Angsi. It was too near the Apr 26 hike, so we decided to skip it. Messner (Peter Lim) organised a Nuang hike instead. From our group, Peter Lai and Doc James went for it.

17th May - Additional Hike - We went to Datuk. Weather was hot and no leeches were seen. Thank God.

7th June - Scheduled for Datuk but we went to Angsi because the organisers felt it was a better training hike than Datuk.

So here's my story :-

We left Agape Church at 7.45AM, Reached Ulu Bendul at about 8.05AM. Got ourselves registered, prayed and started our hike at 8.30AM. There were 28 of us, 11 from the Kinabalu team, 5 from DIGI and 11 others. (Who knows why they want to torture themselves when they could sleep in).

We walked along the stream for a bit, took pics while we still had breath. :) It was an easy trail. Just had to watch out muddy areas and of course, the blood sucking leeches.

Pipes along the way. This was just the start of the long hike. :(

Eh, why are we going down instead of up?!!

A short break. This is where KG would say "leech-check, everyone take off your shoes and check for leech bite". Okay, maybe he didn't say it this time, but I remembered him saying it last year. It was about 9.25AM when we stopped here. I gave Min Chee her wish. Earlier on, she wanted a cold fizzy drink. When we stop here, I pulled out my flask containing cold 100plus. She drank a cup full, but later regretted because it caused wind to develop at the sides of her waist.

At his point of time, Doctor James and Lu Ai and her friend decided not to continue the hike. Doctor James had knee problem and Lu Ai's friend had fever.
Crossing the 1st stream. Should I take off my shoes or not?? KG walked effortlessly from rock to rock, but most of us took off our shoes. Min Chee decided not to take off her shoes too. All of us arrived safely to the other side of the stream without any mishap. A leech managed to enter into Min Chee's socks and KG terminated it with salt.

After a while, KG went ahead of us and we didn't see him till we reach the hillary hill. Min Chee's leg started having cramps and had to stop once in a while.

This is the most difficult part of the climb.KG and Messner nicknamed it as the "hillary hill". I had trouble getting up. KG helped most of us,and little Nathaniel, who was only 6 years old got a piggy back ride up to the hill. Peter Chi'ng's mom, a 64-year-old lady managed to climb up with the help of KG and Karim. It took us 1/2 hour for all to climb over the hill. We resumed our hike at 11.35AM.


This is the 2nd part of the hilary hill. Not as bad as the first.

About 15 minutes to the summit, we saw Hendry and William descending. KG radioed for help because two of the youths who were with him had leg cramps.

After walking for another half an hour, we reached the summit. According to Karim's watch the time was 12.07PM.

The weather was perfect. The mist came in, and it was so cooling, like we were in Gentings Highlands or Cameron Highlands. We had our lunch there. A light drizzle made it all more cooling. Someone said it was like heaven.

We were so reluctant to leave, but when the rain became more than just a light drizzle, we started to pack up and head down. It was 12.40PM when we left the summit.

Min Chee started having leg cramps again and at one point, her knees refused to cooperate. She couldn't bend them. It was sheer torture for her having to rely on someone's help most of the time.


We managed to get down the hillary hill much faster. Little Nathaniel cried, maybe because he couldn't see his dad. But we assured him that his dad was nearby and he stop crying when he reached his father's side.

Coming down the hillary hill wasn't as bad as last year, but I still hated it.

We took a breather here. Min Chee's got free massage on both knees.

Most of the time, the pathway was flat. It was an easy walk here. RW and I walked ahead of the others.

The second stream. Water level wasn't high, so we were able to cross over without taking off our shoes.

I didn't any pics of the 1st stream when we descended, and this picture was taken opporsite the place where KG will called for leech check.

We were passing by the pipes when one of the youths (I think it was Benjamin) asked how long more to the car park. I told him, not long more. Then later he asked again. I told him "soon" because I can hear sounds of children and adults laughing and playing in/by the stream. It was a holiday, the King's birthday and the Malays ook the oppotunity to to have a camping day out with their children.
About one minute later, we saw all the cars haphazardly parked everywhere. I didn't care so much because I was glad the ordeal was over. No more climbing Angsi again. The fear of leeches and the hillary hill had put me off climbing this mountain.

It was 1 minute to 4PM when we reached the car park.

Those who arrived at the carpark before us. According to Hendry, he only came down 10 minutes earlier than us.

So let me summarise -

7.45 AM left church
8.30 AM start asending
11.05AM at the hillary hill
11.35 AM left the hillary hill
12.07PM summited
12.40 PM left the summit
3.59PM reached the foothill

3 1/2 hours to ascend and 3 hours 20 mins to descend.