Valentine's Day

Another long due post. Admittedly this year I did not put in as much thought in planning the V-Day as last year. That being said, the celebration is still a memorable one...

Since I acted late, most of the restaurants on Main Street are already fully booked. We ended up going to the Yotsuba Restaurant for dinner. I ordered a duck ramen (of course it's not the instant noodles), while Pei Ying had the Yotsuba ramen. We also ordered some sushi and desert. On top of that I got the chance to try warm sake for the first time :P

Duck ramen, which according to PY was just so-so..(of course since she tried far better ones in Japan...)

The dumpling that came with the ramen

Sushi!!

Dessert and sake (quite strong IMO)

After the heavy dinner we went to Briarwood Mall for a walk, and it was snowing when we came out from the building!! Guess it's time for another episode of Winter Sonata :P

In front of "May's"...

Since the night was still young when we got back to U-Towers, we decided to join the rest for a bubble-tea session in Bubble Island.

Yet another Bubble Island gathering...

So that's our 2nd Valentine's day. Hopefully there will be many many more to come! PYILY!!!

一位國文老師的告白

小学造句:

１。題目：一邊……一邊……

小朋友寫：他一邊脫衣服，一邊穿褲子。

老師批語：他到底是要脫還是要穿啊？

２。題目：其中

小朋友寫：我的其中一只左腳受傷了。

老師批語：你是蜈蚣嗎？

３。題目：陸陸續續

小朋友寫：下班了，爸爸陸陸續續的回家了。

老師批語：你到底有幾個爸爸呀？

４。題目：難過

小朋友寫：我家門前有條水溝很難過。

老師批語：老師更難過。

５。題目：又 又

小朋友寫：我的媽媽又矮又高又胖又瘦。

老師批語；你的媽媽是變形金鋼嗎？

６。題目：你看

小朋友寫：你看什麼看！沒看過啊

老師批語：沒看過

７。題目：欣欣向榮

小朋友寫：欣欣向榮榮告白。

老師批語：連續劇不要看太多了！

８。題目：好吃

小朋友寫：好吃個屁。

老師批語：有些東西是不能吃的。

９。題目：天真

小朋友寫：今天真熱。

老師批語：你真天真。

１０。題目：果然

小朋友寫：昨天我吃水果，然後喝涼水。

老師批語：是詞組，不能分開的。

１１。題目：先……再……，例題：先吃飯，再冼澡。

小朋友寫：先生，再見！

老師批語：想像力超過了地球人的智慧。

１２。題目：況且

小朋友寫：一列火車經過，況且況且況且況且況且況

老師批語：我死了算了 @@

Malaysia 2009: Summary

A wrap up on my trip back home:

Family: This time around it seemed that there were more little kids around. And those who used to be little kids were actually Form 4 or Form 5 now, although they still looked like primary school kids :)

A particularly memorable event was a trip to the "Fo Guang Shan" near Klang. The journey there was unexpectedly long, but worth the trouble I guess. It has been too long since we had such trips as a family (and extended family)

Entrance of "Fo Guang Shan" (mum was holding the camera)

Group photo (mum was holding the camera again...sighz)

Food: Had almost everything I missed the most when I was in the States. But of course, there is never enough time eat all you want :(

New Year Day's vegetarian dishes

Friends: Met 2 high school friends and bumped into one. Things have really changed, and now it feels like that chapter is so far behind me now...and it should be. Form 5 is like 7 years ago now!!!

The Michigan gang meeting was awesome. Prior to that had a 3-hour "paktor" with Wei Jie, which involved walking around in KLCC Suria, Berjaya Times Square, Sungai Wang Plaza, The Pavilion and back to KLCC Suria again. We met up with VS and Seremban folks (Kai Kiat and Mel) later and chatted for a while before the "reunion" dinner at Madam Kwan's. Had a pleasant surprise when Jin Ye brought her boyfriend too. Congrats congrats...

The new couple left early and therefore not in the group pic...and thanks Mike for taking the photo (congrats to both him and Poh Yi too :D)

Special Event: Went to Perlis and visited Pei Ying's parents and family members. Personally I think it was a good gesture, but a lot of people are making a big issue out of it. Some say it was like a "lawatan sambil meminang"....(......)

Conclusion: All in all this short trip back was a very memorable one. Quite surprisingly, I found myself getting used to everything rather quickly - the weather, the people, the culture...yes, there are so many things to complain about this country, and I did feel sad about the dismal state that the country is in, but hey, this is home after all. You keep your eyes closed to all the shitty things around you (corruption, ignorance, pollution, etc etc) and savor the delicious food first before you complain :P

Malaysia 2009: Mum's birthday

So it was my mother's birthday, and my sister came up with this brilliant idea: why not each of us cook one dish for our beloved mother? After some quick "brainstorming" we decided to prepare taro pork, sour spicy soup and vegetable mix. As you can see I'm extremely bad with dish/food names, but hey at least those are better than ridiculous and meaningless names like "Eight Stars with Great News" or "Eight Gods Crossing the Sea"...

Clockwise from top left: Sour spicy soup, Vege mix, Taro Pork, and Sour spicy soup in a bowl...

I would say that the outcome wasn't as expected. My taro pork was a bit too salty and the meat too cooked, whereas Su Khai's sour spicy soup was too sour...guess we all learned something that day.

To compensate my mum who had to tolerate our cooking, we went out to Pizza Hut for dinner that night. This is a family photo (first in quite some time) with the birthday cake before going out for dinner:

Birthday celebration with family is always good!!