Korean BBQ @ Kangsane Restaurant, Ampang

The power cut on Saturday had minimal effect on us as we had planned to be out the whole day, including dinner with Elaine and family. Besides Elaine, there was her mum and dad of course. Tagging along were her aunt, her boyfriend and her brother and sister-in-law to be (soon, very soon).

It has been a very long time since I was in Korea. And Korean BBQ is something that I used to look forward to whenever I visited Seoul. So for this round, in view of my very much belated birthday as well as Grace's (also belated), I decided to treat Elaine's family to Korean BBQ. There is an enclave of Koreans near Ampang Point, Ampang. Along with that was a plethora of Korean restaurants, supermarkets and so on. Not having experienced any Korean BBQ in town, I asked around and search other blogs for write ups on Korean BBQ.

I settled for one called Kangsane. We had pork belly, marinated pork, marinated beef, chicken, 2 dishes of fried gyoza, 1 plate of steamed gyoza, lala soup and whole bunch of standard side dishes which includes the must have Korean kimchi. Besides having green tea, 6 of us opted for Korean beer. Not bad (the beer I mean).

The bill came to a whopping RM554.00 for 10 of us. Will not be having Korean for a long long while more!

Powerless for a day

Tenaga Nasional (National Electricity Board or TNB) cut the power to a couple of streets in my neighborhood, including to my house, on Saturday, 26th July. I never really noticed it until I was affected, that TNB has been upgrading the power cables in my neighborhood!! As I looked around, I saw that most streets already had their power cables upgraded and that we were amongst the last few streets to be upgraded.

One of the electricity poles is right in front of my house. The TNB truck came along, dropped off a huge roll of new cables and distributed it's workforce all along the stretch of street.

Then a smallish sized wireman climbed up the ladder, maneuvered for half an hour trying to cut the 5 cables (3 phase + street lighting + neutral ) and then gave up after cutting 1 cable. The rest of the job was done by the truck lift within 5 minutes.

Power was cutoff until almost 8pm. Darn!!

Sis and Brother-in-law will be visiting in August 2008

Towards the end of August, my mum will be turning 69!! She is already having mobility problems due to the drying of her knee joints and it is unlikely that she would be able to stand another trip to London to visit my younger sister, Chooi and her husband Stephen.

So this year, I am paying for my sister and brother-in-law to come to Malaysia in conjunction with my mum's birthday. Unlike an advertisement currently running on the idiot box, I do not have to borrow money from the bank to finance their travel. The photo above was taken in Nov 2004 the last time mum traveled to London. Due to some scheduled activities, both of them will be coming and going back on different days. Stephen is scheduled to arrive KLIA on 12th morning and Chooi on 16th morning. Chooi leaves on 21st and Stephen leaves on 2nd Sept. And to complicate matters, I am in Singapore from 17th to 29th August. Bummer!!

Regardless, I am still squeezing some time for them by taking leave on 12th to 15th, before I go off to Singapore on a business trip. I have already booked an apartment in Equatorial Hotel in Cameron Highlands from 13th to 15th Aug.

And I am also planning for a trip to Ijok for beggar chicken when I am back from Singapore (before Stephen departs home).

The last time they were in town was 10 years ago. That was when the Indonesian haze was the heaviest. That was when KL was seething with unrest due to the Anwar sodomy trial. Looks like not much has changed. 10 years later, Anwar is again facing allegations of sodomy. The difference today is that with wide access to the internet, more people are able to get both sides of the news instead of relying on the Government controlled media. And the opposition controls 5 states!

2 more weeks of waiting!!

Agilent After School (AAS) 2008

This year's AAS was at Sekolah Kebangsaan SS17 Subang Jaya (SK SS17). The lesson for this AAS was Newton's third law, i.e. for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah - like if I slap someone, I can be sure that someone will give me a slap back with about the same strength!! But I don't think that is an example of Newton's law.

As school starts early for the morning sessions, the trainers and volunteers were scheduled to be in the school by 7.15am! And with the price of petrol today, we decided to car pool from the office. I was at the office by 6.05am to pick up my passengers by 6.30am. Even had time to squeeze in breakfast at the local coffee shop opposite the office. Marya, Elaine and Joseph pooled with me.

I was not supposed to be in town as I had a trip to Germany, but as fate would have it, all non essential travel was canceled. So I got my original role as the MC back with hardly a day to prepare. I flubbed the opening where the headmistress requested us to sing the national anthem followed by the doa (Islamic prayers). I totally overlooked that and went straight to introducing all the speech-makers, starting with the headmistress. Whoops!!! I think the headmistress isn't too happy with me for that!

We had 150 students to take care of - distributed over 16 teams. Some of the trainers said that teaching these students was more difficult than working. We even had a few kids crying because after all the effort they put in, their Newton rocket car just wouldn't move. As you can see from the people featured here, the trainers were totally absorbed and earnest in their assigned roles. Ee Chia was the only one whose ego was a little deflated. Some of the kids called her Aunty instead of kakak (big sister) or chegu (teacher). That's Ee Chia in the photo above!! Aunty-ish looking! Haha!!

Oh, I forgot to mention the project!! The kids were each given a piece of foam, some sticks, 4 round light weight disks (to be used as wheels), straws, scissors, glue and balloon. They are suppose to cut the foam to a kind of traingular shape, push the sticks through the straw, stick 2 wheels on each end and then stick that to the piece of foam. They would then have to stick another piece of straw to the body, with a balloon tied to one end. Once completed, they have to blow the balloon, put the whole contraption on the floor and as the air escape from the balloon, it will propel the "rocket" in the other direction. Hence the project name - Newton's rocket car. Some of the kids even attempted to place a double engine to their car (2 balloons instead of 1). The finale was to race the cars they made. 1 finalist was chosen from each team.

As one overused cliche on blogs goes - a picture is worth a thousand words!. So I have a few thousands here.

Bee Hive in fruit tree

I have a very fruitful chiku tree in my garden. Sorry - I have no idea what is the common name for a chiku. It is a fruit about the size of an egg, brownish color and when the fruit is ripe, it is sweet with a slightly woody taste. This particular tree has been fruiting sweeter than normal fruits.

Bees decided to make it's hive high up on the branches about 6 months ago. This swarm of bees have been making hives all over my garden and then abandoning them because they were too close to the ground. We kind of disturbed them whenever we wanted to prune the bushes.

Today, as I was trying to harvest some chikus, I accidentally came too close to the hive with the pole. The bees were super fast. Within 10 seconds (or less), they were swarming around my head. I honestly did not even see them coming at me until I heard buzzing around my head. Ran as fast as I could - but still got a couple of bee stings in my right ear lobes.Last time I got stung must have been more than 40 years ago!!

The things that good hotels offers

Most hotel offerings are kind of standard. From the moment that you step into the hotel lobby, the whole hotel experience starts. Do they have a record of your reservations? Are the front line people at reception courteous? Do they even speak in a language that you understand?

Go up to your room, and the next thing you you expect is a clean room, airy, no musty stale smell. Bed should look comfortable. A reasonable sized television with at least some international channels (especially if you are in a country that had a very different language). A work desk or table for those evenings when you need to catch up on work. I actually had the misfortune in Bangalore to have been assigned a room which turned out to be occupied. Luckily the tenant was not in his room when I opened it. I saw clothes strewn over the bed, shoes and luggage opened in the cupboard. That should never happen!

Then you have a quick check of the bathroom/toilet. Are there toiletries provided? The only ones I I really need from the hotel are normally the shampoo. I bring my own toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, razor, etc. Some of the classier hotels provides branded toiletries. Sometimes I bring them home for use during personal holidays.

For this update, I want to mention about something a little different that I got from Crowne Plaza in Gurgaon. I have only seen similar offerings from one other hotel in Beijing. Crowne Plaza has a pillows menu!! Almost every hotel has room service but a pillow menu is a refreshing difference. They had a "wheat pillow", an "anti-stress" pillow, a "contour" pillow, "synthetic" pillows of varying softness and so on. I was pretty satisfied with what was provided when I checked in but I am sure that many people would appreciate the pillow menu.

Crown Plaza also provided a little blurb about keeping fit nutritionally. That's always helpful for a regular traveller (like yours truly).

Last but not least, the hotel also offered spa and massages, even in-room. My only gripe is that the prices are way too high.

Another visit to Delhi and Bangalore

After an aborted attempt to visit the team in Gurgaon in June due to my passport running out of pages for the Indian visa, this trip went off like a breeze (with some very strong odors in the winds - sometimes!).

For the past 6 months, the New Delhi airport has been a mess. It seems like they have constant renovations going on and it never seems to end. My arrival on 6th July was no different. several flights landed around the same time and that was a guaranteed recipe for near disaster at the immigration checkpoint.

Those who are familiar with the layout of the airport knows that after you deplane, you need to go down the stairs or use the escalator to get to the immigration checkpoint. With the crowd building up rapidly, it was just a matter of time before the exit from the escalator was blocked because the crowd could not move further. Then the people at the foot of the escalator started stumbling and falling over, even as the escalator continued to deliver its load. Local security people just stood and watch as more people fell over until someone hit the emergency switch to cut off power to the escalator. Unbelievable!

Contrast this with the new airport in Bengaluru. Where you ask?? Bangalore lah. Bengaluru is the Kannada word for Bangalore. And Kannada is not the same as Canada. Kannada is the language spoken in the state of Karnataka. One of many languages. The Bengaluru International airport is truly the first airport in India which has a look and feel of a modern airport. They have been operational for the past 40 odd days now. Delhi - I reserve my comments until their endless renovations can be completed.

The week that I am in Gurgaon - it rained 2 days out of 3. And when it rains - it has heavy downpours for half an hour to an hour. Then the roads floods - inside the Agilent compound and the road outside. Then traffic starts weaving left and right to avoid the deep potholes caused by heavy trucks movement in the area. Unbelievable!!

During my visit, it was Nisha's birthday on the 10th. I took the team to Barrique (pronounced as Barrick) near the Microsoft building in Gurgaon. I had my favorite - Murgh Tikka Masala with Naan. Nisha had this eggplant (which was very mushy!!). And here is the birthday cake for Nisha.

Sorry Nisha - you are now ONE year older - you need to behave!!.

Panda Kung Fu - Awesome!!

Finally got around to watching this show. And only because I was going to be out of Malaysia for 2 weeks and when I get back, the show would probably have been removed from the local cinemas as it has been running since early June.

I now realize why so many of my friends online suddenly became so philosophical. I must have seen at least 6 different people put this quote in their MSN id or facebook id. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present"

And also a couple of smart alecs who asked me " can you see your toes?" I was wondering what brought that on!! Now I know.

I am not going to write a review on the show. God knows there are more than enough sites online which has somebody's opinion and summary of that. All I will say is - if you have not watched it, go now before it gets taken off because there are a whole bunch of other new movies being released.

Looks like I will either be Totoro (My neighbour Totoro - Ghibli Studios - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro) - as Loony Looby thinks I am OR I can also be Po. I can relate to the big Panda!!

Awesome!!

More photos from Madeline's wedding dinner

The photos above were taken by the official photographer Sam Yap. His original format was raw files. Had to convert to JPEG and then compress them. Photos posted WITHOUT his permission. Do first - seek forgiveness later!!

Goto my facebook to download these and more for your own retention.

For the morning wedding shots goto
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23242&l=62cd8&id=754289412

For the wedding dinner shots goto
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23199&l=06320&id=754289412

If these links don't show up automatically, just copy and paste lah.