Ex HPSM get together 23 Jan 09

Having worked for more than half my life now, there are many people in the past who never fade away. Their paths and mine will cross, either intentionally or accidentally. This Thursday night, I accidentally on purpose got invited (gate-crashed??) to a gathering of ex HP Sales Malaysia gathering. Ah Luan from Finance (still with HP in Australia) was back for a visit with her fiancee and Mei Poh organized a get together to meet up with her.

Dinner was at Duck King in Jaya One. Even that was not confirmed until Wednesday morning. Maybe it's all the preservatives that we eat in our food. Maybe it's the good life that most of us live. Maybe it's just the humidity in Malaysia. Whatever it is, the faces looks almost like the ones I found in a 20 year old photo. 2 of them (Ah Luan and Eleanor- circled above) were present tonight. And Malaysia being the place for food from all cultures meant that for many of us, the body from the neck downwards could do with a little bit of help to get toned up and slimmed down.

The ones who could make it for this get together were (Back L to R) Marion, Soo Han, Mei Poh, Ah Key, Ah Luan, Paul. Front (L to R) Yours truly, Kuen Kuen and Eleanor. Ah Luan's fiancee, Paul was here with her to celebrate CNY with the Malaysian relatives. So we had 2 roses amongst the thorns.

Ducking seems to specialize in duck dishes, but the only duck dish we had was a roast duck. Not many people fancy duck. We started off with a salmon Yee Sang (2nd one in the day for me). The one at Oriental Pearl in Mont Kiara tasted better. That was followed by a sour spicy steamed fish, the roast duck, a special tofu dish with mushrooms and seaweed, a green vegetable (supposedly dragon's tongue and something else), steamed chicken and topped off with a sweet dessert. While chatting with the ladies, I forgot to photograph much of the food until they were almost all eaten up!!.

There was quite a bit of catching up with these ex colleagues of mine. For instance, Soo Han is back in the workforce after a hiatus of 10 years. She works for IBM now. Some, like Marion has her own business. Many of them still work for HP (and it looks like they will retire from there too). And of course there are the Tai Tais who has retired from working (not that they are old - just that they can afford the retirement).

Eleanor - thanks for the dinner. And it's great to meet up with all of you again after so many years.

Pre CNY - the closing office meal

As you can see, I am already in a CNY mood! My cubicle has the air and flavor of an impending festival!!.

Traditionally, in Chinese societies, there is a designated period where the office shuts down for Chinese New Year (CNY). The management will treat all it's employees and some key guests to an office closure lunch or dinner. In our case, the Sales Manager decided to have this today - Thursday 22nd Jan. Oriental Pearl in Mont Kiara Equestrian club was chosen because it served halal food. We had to reserve 2 tables in order to seat everyone.

First up is the Yee Sang (or live - as in uncooked) fish. This dish used to be served on the 7th day of CNY but over the years, due to commercialization, it is now served even before CNY starts. The significance of this dish is that it is used to wish for a new year of hope, wealth, health and anything else that you fancy. We wished for quota performance, pay increment, promotion and maybe someone secretly wished to get a boyfriend or girlfriend! It is a dish of grated vegetables, like carrots, mixed with fried fritters, honey, oil, fresh fish (like salmon). The diners then toss this up to get them all mixed up. The higher the better while making known your wish for the year. We sure did justice to this dish.

This was followed by shark fin soup, smoked chicken, steamed pomfret, broccoli with mushrooms, abalone, fish maw. Then there was steamed prawns, lotus fried rice and sweets to top it all off.

And that's only lunch. I still have a dinner along similar lines tonight.

Burp!

7 days to CNY - a look at some shopping malls

I would think that Sunway Pyramid was probably the first off the block. A week into the new year, they still had Xmas decor up in one side and CNY decor up on the other. The CNY decor was at the main entrance of Sunway Pyramid.
Gardens also had a pinkish decor all over. During my trip there, they had a group playing contemporary music on harmonicas. And there was one really huge double harmonica at play that day.

Over at Mid Valley, they had a paper cut design all over the complex. During this trip, they had a troupe of drummers in action. This is the first time that
I tried using the video recording function of my camera and I definitely need a tripod to get better results.

Over at 1 Utama, they had a red mansion looking facade in the new wing. The old wing was sporting a rather bland red/pink stage.

Tried uploading the videos and am running into gremlins.

Oh well, maybe next time.
Update: tried uploading the Harmonica Trio again (playing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Seems to work. Dare not try moving it's location on this blog.

One more week to Chinese New Year and I am just over gastric pains

With a week more to the year of the Ox, all the shopping Malls in town have been decorated with CNY decor. It seems that pink is in vogue this year. Maybe this will help put all of us into the pink of health. Red is auspicious, but under current circumstances, may not be the best color financially.

I have been down for almost 6 days due to an overenthusiastic approach to losing weight. On 4th Jan, I decided to make a change in my meal habits. Breakfast with the gang was OUT. I was having breakfast with office colleagues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was with the Shiseido crowd (Madeline, Yen Yen, Stephen were the regulars). So breakfast was changed to a cup of oatmeal in the office. That was bearable.

Lunch was normal. Whatever the gang decided to eat, i tagged along - eating in moderation. Dinner was another matter. I had cut off rice (carbo) for almost a year of dinner with no appreciable difference. So this time, I just cut off dinner altogether and went for fresh juices. I had bought a new juicer which was pretty efficient. It could get quite a bit of juice from a whole apple (no cutting into smaller pieces required).

I experiments with a mish mash of juices with apple, orange and celery as the core. We added carrots, ginger and a local fruit called kedongdong to the mix. I was getting used to juices for 5 days straight. On the 6th day, problems started - I had GASTRIC pains. Unbelievable!! That was coupled with a low grade fever. Over 2 days, my internal pipes were scoured clean with every visit to the washroom feeling like I had a faucet installed. And once the pipes were emptied, gas traps were happening all over. I could even hear the gurgling every so often. Doctor treated it as just hyper acidity due to my juice intake.

Just when I thought it was getting better, I got floored again and had to go back top the doctor for another diagnostic. This time, in view of the low grade fever, he reckoned that I had somehow gotten some bacterial infection as well. A course of antibiotics and today, 8 days later, I think I'll go back to my original plan - juices for dinner - with less acidic fruits in the mix.

The good news (if you can call it that) is that I seem to have dropped off at least 3 kg for January.

A dinner to start the New Year

The Wongs decided to hold their year end dinner on 1st Jan 2009. So instead of a year end dinner, we had a New Year dinner. Food was great and I really had to control myself from over gorging.

Everyone enjoyed themselves - especially the dogs.

Woof woof!