Another week of losses - weekending 31st July

There must be something about what we eat, the air we breath, the water we drink - that is causing higher incidences of cancers in the urban population. There must be something about the way we work, the expectations from the employers and the nature of work itself that causes many to be stressed to the max.

Early in the week, an arguably talented and brilliant film director (by Malaysian standards), Yasmin Ahmad passed away due to a stroke. She had undergone emergency surgery on her brain but still succumbed to the condition. She was only 51. Many of her works transcended racial boundaries which Malaysian seems overly obsessed with.

Then another friend Noeline C passed away after battling with cancer for 2 years. She was only 49. For Noeline's family and relatives, this was the second death in as many months due to cancer. The first was her cousin Siew Lin.

For both Yasmin and Noeline, may you rest in peace.

At work, the IT department finally instituted a no access policy for access to games (notably games on facebook). So for many lunch time FB games enthusiast, there is nothing to occupy them except .... lunch. What else?? Somebody should tell those powers that be that a little access to games especially during lunch hours or after office hours can be stress relieving!.

And today, my sister in London tells be that she just had a biopsy done on some growths on her neck, shoulder and arm. Hoping for the best that they are just benign growths. Her physician advises her to keep herself covered from the sun at all times, even in winter. She will need to put sun block on the exposed areas.

Bummer!

An old friend takes a new direction

A couple of weeks ago, Lai Ping SMSed me with an interesting message - We sincerely invite you to a food tasting session at our to be open cafe on Sunday 26 Jul 09. Place RuChi Kitchen,
97, Jalan SS15/5A,
Subang Jaya.
Time 12noon to 2pm RSVP :) c u there.

A few questions popped into mind - who is we?? Is Lai Ping a co-owner or just the dish washer? What kind of food is served? Does the invitation include my family, etc.etc. So I replied back via SMS - yes - confirmed - 3 from my family including myself would be coming.

On the day, Elaine C also joined me in my car as she was also invited. We tried to avoid arriving on time (don't want to look like we were a bunch of hungry ghosts!!). Even then, everyone else managed to arrive fashionably late (like around 1pm). "Food tasting" was a buffet styled lunch.

Initially we were not too sure what kind of food RuCHi would be served. I went online and found that there was already a Ruchi Kitchen serving Indian food. But that was not the site that Lai Ping and Minz Leong had. To help us pass the time, Lai Ping served us a concoction of Taiwanese bubble tea. Essentially it was flavored drink with gooey pea sized colored balls in them. We tried Peach, Sour Plum, Grape and something else I couldn't figure out.

Lai Ping has definitely been in HP/Agilent too long. Admittedly, I had attended very few food tasting sessions, but this was the first one where
a) we had to indicate which were the top 5 dishes we had "tasted". To do this, we just dropped a red star into the cup next to the name of the dish.
b) provide feedback on an A4 size paper. Elaine C dutifully filled up her feedback form and I declared that it would be representative of the feedback from our table :).

The day was also a good opportunity for some ex-staff get together. Many I had not met up with for quite a while. Khun Nong (the late Soo Aun's wife) also came along with her kids. Poon brought them there.

RuChi will start operations on Tuesday 28th July. They will open from 7am onwards, serving nasi lemak and English Breakfast.

Good Luck Minz Leong and Lai Ping. As Minz says - it would be a long journey. But every journey needs to start with a step.

The week before 20th July

1) Flew to Singapore with a last minute arrangement. Joined the class as an observer (since I am not registered for the class). Class was more like a discussion forum. Very useful to air out issues and problems faced. A lot of sharing of information. And of course there is always the food. This time, the dinner was with the Singapore Support team. I guess I was invited since both trainers and I are from the same team.

2) On the local political front, a political secretary was found dead after "interrogation" by the anti corruption commission. Most people believe he was murdered. I learnt a new word - fenestration. One definition is to throw someone out of a window!!

3) Overseas - 2 bombs went off in Jakarta, targeting the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriot. A colleague was in Jakarta at the same time. After checking to make sure he was okay, just left it at that. So - to the extremists who got nothing better to do than to blow themselves up, why don't you organize a blow yourself up party somewhere remote - like an uninhabited island and go make everyone happy.

4) And on Friday, as part of the management committee, I was asked to attend a meeting with the property management team for the office which we are leasing. Someone tried to sabotage the office by leaving a smouldering cigarette wrapped by toilet paper and created a potential fire hazard in the gents the previous week. The property management team managed to view the security footage and concluded that it was not people from our office. So the "meeting" turned into a beer party from 6pm to 9pm. We met at Carerra at Uptown 5.

Again - burppppp!

Most unexpected turn

Friday - found out that 2 team members in Singapore. Really need to discuss with them on a new release of a tool that seems to get the Japanese all riled up. A difference of 1.6 vs 1.7!! "Hey think you could be down here in Singapore?" one asked.

Let me check with the boss first - travel restrictions are on now for cost savings reasons. Didn't expect any approvals to come through as this was already Friday afternoon.

Saturday - checked my gmail- what do you know - approval way from the top given for me to be in Singapore till Wednesday.

Sunday - flying off to Singapore on the 3.40pm flight.

Holy Speed, Focus and Accountability!!!

Mr and Mrs Kong - the updates

Finally!!! The official photos have been released for public consumption. The whole lot took up 4.3GBytes. I managed to compress the whole lot down to 250MB. I'll just post up the photos here that have Agilent people in them, so they can see themselves in all their finery of that day. As Godfather, close friend and colleague, I get to be in many of the group photos. Like the saying goes - a picture paints a thousand words.

Week ending 5th July- the feasting continues!!

At this rate, I am going to double up again in a relatively short period of time. Time to go for an apple a day diet!!.

We start the week at Gardens on Sunday. I brought my family along to help setup the seminar venue for the innovation seminar that would start on Monday. After setting up everything, Soh treated the team to Madam Kwan's. I must say that the quality of food at Madam Kwan's has dropped.

Monday morning, I was there again. We had cookies and biscuits for the morning before the seminar started. That was followed by dim sum and finger food for the morning tea break. Lunch was at the Spread. They served buffet with a tag line - "eat what you can see. And what you can see is a very wide spread of good food. This place is way better than Hilton for seminars! And then there was afternoon tea break with chicken boxing and chicken gyoza. I am not sure if we are stuffing up our customers just to keep them fat, dumb and happy or what. Thankfully, the seminar moved on to Penang after the Monday session and I did not participate. We had to quickly dismantle, pack and send the instruments to Penang by road. I heard that they had durians on the same Monday evening, followed by Nasi Kandar at the original Kayu. Much as I love that, that would be way too much!!.

The rest of the week passed rather uneventfully (food-wise) till Friday. Friday afternoon, Elaine W had to pick up her car after servicing was done. So I sent her there. First stop was Oriental Pavilion at Jaya33. We had roast pork and a really delicious Sang Har Hor Fun (big prawn flat noodles dish swimming in prawn roe). This was followed by a Tong Yuen in Ginger tea. Burrrpppppp!! No photos taken. Didn't plan on this lunch.

Evening, we drove up to Ipoh in preparation for a Malaysia Sales/Support meeting. First stop was Pusing Public seafood Restaurant in Ipoh town. Despite all the years of visiting Ipoh, because my 5th Uncle stays there, I have NEVER really explored Ipoh for it's famed food. This time, I was going to try as many famous outlets as possible. Pusing's captain was ethical!! She actually asked us to cut back on our orders as, in her opinion, we would be wasting a lot with our original order of 8 courses. The servings were big!! Even after cutting out 3 dishes, we were still full to the neck! Some of us had made plans for supper later that night. Obviously that plan was scuttled.

Next morning, a few of us (not all as that would entail logistics for almost 26 people) made our way to Foh San for Dim Sum. Foh San used to be located somewhere else in Ipoh and we visited the new site that had just been opened for 3 days. Congratulatory garlands were all over the place. It was only 7am and car parks were jammed, traffic was crawling and there were hordes of people waiting for an available table. It would seem that Foh San is so popular, the people in Ipoh don't mind waking up early to grab a table. They open at 6am and I hear that at that time, almost all the tables are packed.

After stuffing ourselves, we waddled back to the hotel for the meeting. Before the meeting started, I took orders for the famous Aun Kheng Lim salt baked chicken. You had to reserved in advance or they may not have enough chickens to sell to you. I had orders for 30 salt baked chickens! During lunch, we managed to park nearby, had lunch at a place that Kah Leng recommended - for Hor Hee and then picked up the chickens. Try to google Hor hee to see what this is all about. I did not take note of the name of the restaurant. It is near to the Salt baked chicken place.Hor Hee dish is a flat noodle dish in palatable, tasty soup, with meatballs and fish paste. I don't mind going again.

After we had collected the chickens, we stopped over at a "drive thru" soya bean outlet. It's called the Funny Mountain Soya Bean.It is so popular that we ended up waiting in line for almost 15 minutes. Then it was back to the meeting again.

After the meeting was over, the team split up and most went back to KL. A few of us stayed back longer to
- buy Heong Pang (fragrant biscuit) from Gunong Rapat. I have always depended on my Ipoh friends to supply me this Heong Pang and today, I finally found out were the correct outlet is. You can get the same at many other outlets, but getting it from the original outlet is always an experience. Even Roger from Singapore bought quite a bit.
- purchase Pomeloes. They look like over sized grapefruits. Again, in all my travels to Ipoh, I have always been buying this (and getting slaughtered price wise) at the Sam Poh Tong (or caves). Today, Kah Leng brought us to the wholesaler at Tambun. Prices were cheaper by at least 20%
- And dinner before before we headed home. My uncle stays near the Ipoh Stadium BUT he had never brought me to this place near his house. Locally they call it Toong Koo Theng (mushroom stalls??). Officially, the place is called Gourmet Square. The place is appropriately named. Good food can be found in almost all the outlets. The locals in our team recommended Meng Wa Seafood for its' oyster sauce crabs and fried lala (a bivalve) in sauce. We also had Sotong Kangkong (Squid with morning glory) and ikan bakar (BBQed fish). The fish we had was stingray.

And after all that gorging, we all said our goodbyes and headed home separately. I see opportunities to visit Ipoh more often to try more food at different outlets.

Burrrrrrppppppppp!