Alishan National Scenic Area is a mountain resort and natural preserve located in the mountains of Chiayi County in Taiwan. It is 415 km² in area. It includes, among other things, mountain wilderness, four villages, waterfalls, high altitude tea plantations, the Alishan Forest Railway and several hiking trails. The area is popular among tourists and mountain climbers, and Alishan or Mount Ali itself has become one of the major landmarks associated with Taiwan. The area is also famous for its production of high mountain tea and wasabi. - Wikipedia (link)

As usual, we woke up early and had our breakfast nearby the hotel before we set off to the famous tourist spot. We managed to capture a few more shots of Sun Moon Lake as the weather was good and the skies were blue.

Initially, we thought of travelling by bus to the our next destination but after some thought (short one, actually) we opted for a hired transportation instead. Travel by bus will take us more than 5 hours which is not really ideal for our tight schedule. We managed hired a van (including driver) which was offered by the hotel personnel and it did cost us quite a sum to get us to Alishan.

Along the way (to Alishan), we felt that we were chauffeured by a F1 driver. Though the chap was good and chat alot but the driving was a lil on the dangerous side. We were literally swaying inside the van!! We even recorded our final will during that trip up to Alishan. It was hilarious thrilling ride I would say. Hehe.

The driver did stop at a few stops for us to shop and sight seeing. He even brought us back to the place whereby they sell the herbal egg. On the other hand, I managed to catch a few shots while he was driving along the mountain as the scenery was breathtaking.

We stopped at final stop which ’showcase’ an old tree trunk. The surrounding was cold yet spooky as the place was covered by mist/fog.

…. to be continued

Since we decided to stay in Sun Moon Lake for a night (according to our draft plan, remember?), we left Taichung in the morning hoping to arrive Sun Moon Lake early so we could get the most out of it. Besides, the journey to Sun Moon Lake will take hours by bus, according to the guidebook.

Little did we know that we will take a cab instead of bus because of time factor. Since, the fee difference between bus and cab ain’t that much, we opted for cab since we could save time (but not money). There goes our backpacking principles. Haha.

When I first saw Sun Moon Lake, it did remind me of Lake District in United Kingdom. Beautiful sceneries, mountains, and boats. The only difference between them is the size of lake. Having said that, Sun Moon Lake remains a popular tourist spot for one who is in Taiwan for holiday.

It was easy to find accommodation as the cab driver helped us to locate a relatively cheap hotel. Mind you, the hotel we stayed in is not the one shown above.

We went to grab lunch once we checked into our hotel. But before our meal, we went to the information centre to checkout some information about Sun Moon Lake.

After all those, we wandered around and began our photography session. Needless to say, the scenery in Sun Moon Lake was breathtaking. The only downside was the weather. The skies were dull and grey. Hence, there aren’t any clouds in my photos. 

We bought boat tickets to travel across to another side of the lake. The travel took us more than 1 hour as we stopped at various pit stop.

These are herbal eggs. According to my friends, they were so good that they bought twice (in different day). I didn’t eat any as I don’t like hard egg yolk. 

After all those boat riding and walking and photography session and eating, it was beyond dusk already though it was only 5pm!! We ate our dinner somewhere near the lake and decided to call it a day.

At the beginning of the training on the first day, we were given a piece of A4 white paper and were told to fold an ‘origami stand’ so we could write our name. It was for the trainers to address us easier. And so, I made mine which looked like this…

Nothing fancy about it. Simple and yet ugly presentable. On the second day, when things started to get better (or fun), I modded my ‘name tag’…

Yes, I added “My Name Is” by using Post-It paper. Thank god, the trainers saw the humour side of it. After seeing my ‘name tag’, my colleague went a step ahead and modified his to this…

Now, this is what I called NBTD…

It is pretty famous as it was the last box in the refrigerator and it really did justified its popularity as it is really delicious.

After whacking all of those, we headed to Hsinchu Municipal Image Museum for a look. But it was closed (for lunch, I think) and hence, we rest at the entrance for a good 45 mins or so before we head to our next pit stop, Taichung.

And yes, we boarded the train again for free, IIRC. Don’t ask me why again. This time, my mates knew where to stay. Hence, it was rather easier for us to find the hotel as recommended by one of the guidebooks.

And again, we left our bags in the hotel and off we went for another drink and early dinner at a place opposite of the hotel.

Later at night, after a good short rest, we headed to a night market. It is a place whereby you could get a variety of things such as foods and clothings. We walked and stopped and ate and walked again and stopped again and ate again for everything that interest us. Our first food was this…

Boy oh boy.. It was one of the weirdest food I’ve ever tasted. Sweet, sour, bitter and salty. With combination of peanuts, pickles and meat, it sure did trigger all of our taste buds. But that didn’t stop us from ordering another portion. :P

The photo above is a dish called ‘Lala Jien’. Compare to our version, their’s is on soggy side with vegetables in it. Once we were done with night market, we headed back to our hotel…

And no.. The picture above is not our hotel. It is a junction of a crossroad which I took it while walking towards the night market.

We woke up fairly early in the morning and took the cab to the train station. But before we board the train, we stopped by at a small shop to grab our breakfast…

Here’s a warning to you all. You will probably see the same ol’ thing (breakfast) for the next 14 days because they have this ‘centralised’ menu throughout Taiwan. I kid you not.

It took us less than 2 hours to Hsinchu via train. Remember the rubber thingy that gives discount? Well, we boarded the train for free. Please don’t ask me why.

Once we were in Hsinchu, my mates whipped out their guidebooks again. They were searching high and low for this famous temple which is located in the city itself. Bear in mind that we were carrying our huge bags since we are not staying over in Hsinchu. Hence, mobility is an issue here.

We wandered around in the city, snapping photos while looking for the temple at the same time. What’s worst was that the weather ain’t doing any good to us. It was blazing hot as opposed to supposed end of Autumn season. However, having said that, the weather did give us good lightings for us to shoot.

I was pretty amazed with the said temple. Though searching for it might be a problem, with the detailed craftings on the walls, ceilings, and pillars, it was indeed a good place to have a look.

After looking and snapping and walking, we went for a drink and lunch. It was easy to look for lunch this time as the temple is located in the middle of somewhat ‘food court’.

During my sudden disappearance 4 weeks ago, I was actually on holiday. Some knew about my holiday in Taiwan. Some knew that I am going for a holiday but not sure where is my destination. Some didn’t know at all cause they don’t care about me. Anyway, my friend, Jason, asked me to join him for this trip. I gave a short thought (more like 2 weeks actually) and agreed with the plan of “backpacking” in Taiwan for 2 weeks. You might wonder why did I put the ” “ sign in between the backpacking but I shall explain it later in other posts.

There weren’t any plans at all. I was told that the draft plan (of what we are going to do in Taiwan and etc.) was crafted 10 mins before my arrival in KLIA. Shocking as it may sounds to be, I found it rather interesting and looked forward to it. My friends had a brief idea of where to go throughout the 16 days but do bear in mind that a draft plan can always be changed without any notice, which we really did change them. Hehe.

It took us approximately 5 hours to travel to Taiwan via EVA Air. The journey was smooth but the food was a lil below average. I reckoned that MAS serves the best food in the air. Seriously.

Once we landed, we went straight to the information counter to register and get this…

Well, it is said to give discount for train tickets. I wasn’t prepared for this as I thought we will be given a card instead of this rubber thingy. It looks more like a keychain rather than a discount card.  I lost mine at the end of the trip. :P

The distance to Taoyuan city from the airport was rather far. It took us more than 30 minutes to travel to the city by bus. With our bags in the hotel, we went for food hunting and found and ate these…

Stuffed and tired, we went to buy mineral water before we headed back to our hotel and called it a day.

Photos above were taken using my trusty 4 year old Sony Cybershot DSC-W1(below).

It still rocks…. to certain extend la. Hehe.

However, after much thought about it, we decided to head further down to the historical state. Since the journey only took us about less than 1 hour, we had to take this opportunity to go all out as this such ‘impromptu expedition’ is quite rare.

Upon reaching to Malacca, with all the hype and yada yada, our first itinerary of the day was to have the famous cendol at Jonker Street. The shop was packed with visitor from all walks of life and it was indeed hard to find a place to sit. Hence, we had to share a table with a couple other than waiting for god-knows how long for an empty table.

I’m not too sure about the pricing as they were paid by my friend. All I got to do was to order what I want while waiting to be served (by my friend) at the table. Hehe. This was probably the second time since my last visit.

Right after that, we walked around at the fort since it is quite near to the shop. Equipped with our cameras, we snapped away whatever we saw. It wasn’t that pleasant as the scorching sun was beaming away like there was no tomorrow. Having said that, it was good weather I would say since it was raining cats and dogs in Kuala Lumpur every single day.

It wasn’t long after we decided to call it a day. But before we left Malacca, we opted for Pork Satay as our lunch. After having the usual chicken and beef satay like every single time in Kuala Lumpur, it was indeed a good choice to have something different.

The only downside about the satay that was served during that day was the size of it. It was rather small. Smaller than my pinky finger and it cost RM0.55 per stick. It was smaller than those served in Kajang, approximately half of the size.

Oh wait, there’s another complaint about the shop. They cook the satay at the entrance. Be prepared to smell like charcoal when you are done with your food.

Bruise, battered, tired, sweaty and sleepy, we decided to head of back to Kuala Lumpur at about 3pm. Ok ok.. I was exaggerating the ‘bruise and battered’ part. But yeah, I’ve got to send them back safe and sound and in one piece… Besides, it was end of the festive period and I predicted that there will be massive traffic on the highway.

And so happened I do have such friends. And so, one fine day,  we went to Seremban for a Beef Noodles and Hakka Mee at Pasar Besar Seremban. And so we ate like there’s no tomorrow even the stench from the wet market existed throughout our food ordeal.

Our first meal of the day was, of course, Hakka Mee. I’ve to admit that was the first time I’ve ever tasted Hakka Mee even though I’m a Hakka. And yes, I don’t converse in Hakka dialect either. How proud I am?!

Anyway, that’s not the main topic. So, my very first impression of Hakka Mee was dry. Very dry. It was even dry-er than wantan mee. But then again, if you look closer, there was a layer of oil coating the noodles which made the noodles silky smooth when you glide it thru your lips. To top it all of, there was vast amount of minced pork on it. I’m not sure why they didn’t have black soy sauce in the minced meat nor the noodles, but I guess this is the way how Hakka Mee looked and taste like. One major turn off was; they only served one pathetic small bowl of soup which to be shared among 3 person. WTF?!!

Right after that oily bowl of noodles, off we went to another side of the market for a bowl of Beef Noodles. I found it odd in the first place because of the location between both the stalls. I mean, why can’t they open at the same place at the center of the market? Wouldn’t it be better since people don’t have to walk from one side to another side just to have their favourite bowl of noodles?

Anyhow, this bowl of Beef Noodles is a total different from what I had in Singapore. This one was dry type.

I’m not sure how to describe the taste. The sauce was like Char Siew paste/sauce. It was thick yet a lil sweet. In it, there were a few slices of beef meat as well as beef stomach (IIANM). The noodles was not like what you normally eat in other hawker stalls. The noodles was like a crossover between ‘lai fun’ and big yellow noodles (which is used to cook ‘loh mee’). Bouncy it was.

Overall, it was rather a great experience to try them out. Not because of the time that we went in the morning. Not because of the distance we travelled to have them. It was because of the place where they were located. Intriguing it was to have chickens making noise as your background music….

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And so, I went to La Bodega in Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur to have my western breakfast rather than eastern style. I love to have sausages, ham, eggs, mushrooms and hash browns with a cup of coffee for breakfast. I used to have it almost everyday when I was studying in UK. And it wasn’t as normal as it used to be right now due to time and cost factor.

I’ve heard of La Bodega’s breakfast menu from friends and family. I saw what they have to offer via blogs. And so, I’ve got to try it sooner or later.

Flat White Coffee

From the menu, they offer English Breakfast, Continental Breakfast as well as their signature ‘Big Breakfast’. They only serve the breakfast menu from 9am to 3pm only and so, it is ideal for those who wake up later than usual, but not too late-lah.

Fresh Orange Juice

Upon glancing their menu, I was having a hard time to decide whether to take their Big Breakfast or English Breakfast. They looked almost the same. However, in English Breakfast, you have to pick your choice of meat and vegetables (mushrooms, baked beans, hash browns). Moreover, you will be given free cup of coffee and fresh fruit juice to accompany with the breakfast meal. This only applies if you order the English Breakfast.

English Breakfast

In the end, I finally opted for Big Breakfast instead.

Big Breakfast

The portion was pretty big, if you ask me. According to them, they gave 2 eggs with the choice of how you want it to be cooked; scrambled, omelette, or sunny side up. However, it appeared to be more than 2 eggs. Or maybe their eggs were larger than what you can get in supermarkets.

Beef bacons, scrambled eggs, baked beans, mushrooms and sausages, that’s what I called western style. There was also a toast bread to go with. You can’t see in the pic because it was hidden under the large amount of eggs.

Iced Mocha

To wash it all down, I ordered a Iced Mocha. Nothing special about it but it was sufficient to fill my stomach with a shot of caffiene. LOL.

As I’m writing this, the Big Breakfast costs around RM 22 while the English Breakfast costs around RM27. Both prices are excluding tax, so you do the math for the final price. It was great breakfast, I would say. And I might return if I get bored of eastern cuisine again. But I’m sure I won’t be going there every weekend!!

Will be resuming my post shortly…

I’ll be back in 2 weeks or so…

Many thanks to talented Jian Akiraceo for producing the artwork above.

Though it won’t be the cheapest tripod in the market, but it is one of the best tripods. The sturdy-ness, the durability and best of all, the ballhead get my vote. I will definitely get this if I ever use it frequently.

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

I was forced asked to do this…

Shot with Nikon D50 & Sigma EX 30mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

Shot with Canon EOS 40D & Canon EF 50mm F1.4

According to various sources, let it be blogs and/or photography forum, Putrajaya is well lit up during the night. However, having said that, the lights will be switched off by 12 am. I’m not sure how true it is but I wouldn’t want to gamble on that since the journey to Putrajaya takes more than half an hour just to reach there.

We spent about 3 hours in Putrajaya in total. But most of that time was spent on the first place, the bridge, Seri Saujana, near to the convention centre. After that, we managed to cover the other famous bridge, Seri Wawasan, and the row of office building heading towards the Prime Minister Office only.

There are many other bridges to cover but I shall leave it to my next trip, that’s if I have the mood and time and tripod to use. These shots are the ones which I think they are usable. The rest are either blurred or not symmetrical. LOL.

One of many conversations during that day;

Me : “Fuck!! The fucking (tree) branch is blocking the mosque view. MCB!!”

L : “LOL. I forget to mention about that to you”

Me : “Why can’t they trim it off?! CB betul…”

——

Me : “The bridge is too far and not well lit. Celaka betul!!”

L : “LOL”

Me : “I want my tele (lens) back!! T__T”

——

Me : ” Hmm.. There’s no place to park”

L : “Yeah. How?”

Me : “Arrghh.. Fuck it. Let’s go KLIA for Burger King.”

——

Anyway, bigger resolutions are available in my flickr

Tiramisu as birthday cake

Birthday (like my previous ones) to me is like any other day but not this time. Thanks to my friends and colleagues, they reminded me of my birthday today. I was flabbergasted to receive so many well wishes from them (some as far as from Singapore & UK). This time is probably the highest ‘collection’ of all time. Hats off to them and I’m truly grateful of their efforts for reminding me that I’m a year older now. Also many thanks to those who wished me earlier than I expected to make me feel older.

View outside of Cova

There aren’t much celebrations, I would say. I went to work like I used to and went through the day like the usual me. Nothing unusual about me nor did I wear any bling-bling to work.

The wall

Truth to be told, I struggled to think of something that I can buy for myself as my own birthday present. You know, sometimes you need to reward yourself with something. Heck, it is even harder than buying a present for someone else. Due to the fact that whenever I buy a thing, I’ve to make sure that I make full use it. Besides, after splurging vast amount of money lately, that somehow adds +8888888 to my difficulty level.

Rum and Raisins from Baskin Robbins

I’ve even came to a point of challenging Robin to ‘down’ 1 tub of Haagen Daz ice cream within 30 mins. But of course, loser has to pay all. But he was not up for it. Apart of that, I’ve thought of spending myself a (or many) good meal but Jason didn’t take my offer seriously. Oh well, I can’t blame him since he is having his exam soon. Real soon. Hence, I’ve resorted to get myself a scoop of Rum & Raisins from Baskin Robbins after work. Besides Thortons which I had during my stay in UK, I think they (Baskin Robbins) produce one of the best Rum & Raisins. So yeah, that’s my birthday gift to myself…. at the moment.

Cova

Thanks to a bunch old friends, they arranged a dinner at Cova because of Beer Buffet offer as they wanna drink like the Brits of the location.

Stuffed Chicken

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents. My mother only remembered yesterday night when I told her that I won’t be going back for dinner. She doesn’t cook anyway. Hehe. She promised me a present over the weekend but I shall remain skeptical about it, based on my previous experience. My dad gave me red packet (a.k.a. ang pow) while I was happily chomping down my nasi lemak with pork curry (bought from morning market). Not sure how much though cos I have this habit of not opening red packets till I really need money or when I decided to bank in. Same goes to Chinese New Year. Please don’t ask me why.

Kilkenny

Many thanks again to my peeps (friends) for the wishes.

One of my many resolutions of the year is to quit smoking. Let’s see how well I fare in this ‘challenge’. Free Teh ‘O’Limau Ais for those who caught me smoking. Seriously.

The best birthday wish so far…

Speechless but LOL at the same time…

The view from Tasik Titiwangsa.

Up-close shots.

I used both my Canon EOS 40D and Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 for shots above. Without checking their EXIF data, which are the ones do you think they are from the said cameras respectively? Have fun…

Outside of Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre

We met up at around 7.30pm and we had to wait for table. It didn’t take long though as we only waited for 5 minutes or so. And as usual, while waiting for our table, I snapped this….

We were very hungry at that time and it didn’t take us long to choose what we wanted for our meal once we were seated at a small table. And when the drinks arrived, we whipped out our cameras again and snapped these….

G’Day Iced Coffee

Macchiato

G’Day Iced Coffee was my drink while Huey Yee ordered a hot Macchiato. Yes, it is not normal to drink coffee at night but I guess we are kinda immune to the caffeine. My drink tastes like a normal coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream in it. Nothing special but it contained less ice than I expected. So, it was just cold but not icy cold, if you know what I mean.

After finishing taking those, the food arrived and so we continued what photographers do…

Garlic Bread

Homemade Pesto Spaghetti with Chargrilled Chicken

I opted for those above. Though I like crispy/crunchy garlic bread, but they were a little too hard for my liking. Besides, there was a faint taste of garlic on the toast as the garlic spread they put on the bread was too little. Too be honest, I had trouble finishing them. I managed to finish 2 out of 3 slices only.

As for the spaghetti, it was prefect. Though it looked a little disgusting with the greenish colour sauce, it doesn’t taste anything close to what you might think it is. The spaghetti was cooked perfectly while the pesto sauce was creamy. It tastes something like carbonara except this is in green colour. To top it all, I requested to add chargrilled chicken as there was no meat at all. And yes, you do need to pay extra charges for the chicken meat. Overall, I find it great and I would order it again whenever I visit this restaurant. Heck, I think I did order a couple of times during my previous visits.

Sirloin Steak Sandwich

Shoestring Fries

As Huey Yee said, “I love this sandwich. Each time I come to Delicious, I would order this. They are awesome.”. So, I think I don’t need to describe any further. Hehe.

After completing our main course,  I looked at  Huey Yee and asked “Do you want to order any dessert?”. She answered with excitement as she was craving for their dessert in the first place.

Black Forest (in a glass)

Chocolate shavings on top

While I was waiting for our table to be ready, I peeped at the desserts which were conveniently placed in the refrigerator in front of the counter for customers to look at. I eyed at the Black Forest for a long time and somehow, the name was burnt into my brain and that I must order that if I were to have dessert later even though it did not look like a cake at all. And indeed, I did order Black Forest (in a glass). Curiosity gets me at last.

First few scoops were alright. But later on, I had this weird feeling about it. No, it was not spoilt product. However, I felt that the tasteless cream was not smooth. It felt like there were lumps in the cream. Maybe it is their original way of making it, but I didn’t really like it. In between those creams, there were blueberry sauce. It tastes sourish and it did subdue the tasteless cream. But then again, I didn’t not bother to finish it which I think I might throw up upset my appetite instead. Huey Yee felt the same way as I did so the glass was half empty only.

Berrilicious Chocolate Pavlova

Huey Yee kept mentioning about their pavlova from the very beginning of the conversation till the end. So, it was no brainer that she indeed ordered one as her dessert.  The base is made of egg whites, sugar, chocolate and probably vanilla essence. It tastes really good especially when you eat the pavlova together with the cream and strawberries. The sourness of the berries offsets the sweetness of the pavlova. And the whipped cream, let’s just say it is the same theory as eating ice cream with whipped cream together. In fact, we definitely paid more attention on this pavlova rather than the Black Forest. This shows how good it was. Hehe.

It was great meet up again as we yakked non-stop throughout the night. From bashing Canon to praising Nikon’s D300, from about bokeh to travelling, we just couldn’t stop yakking and taking pictures whatever we could find on that day. Best of all, I managed to steal borrow her Manfrotto tripod (Thanks Huey Yee!! Owe you one sinful meal. Hehe.). Moreover, as she said “I couldn’t be bothered about diet. If I do, I would not enjoy meals like that”, and hence, it is always a great pleasure to have meal with her.

On the other hand, I was totally stunned when she unveiled her evil laughter. Real terrifying. *tsk*

And the casts were :

Jeremy

Julian

Aileen

Ryan

While waiting for the food to arrive, I took these :

Upon entering the restaurant, I did not have this Thai-feel due to the arrangement and settings of the restaurant. As shown above, the restaurant adopted simple yet modern design rather than what you normally see or get in other Thai restaurants. With all the sofas and pillows lying around, it somehow projected the ‘make-yourself-at-home’ feeling instead. And yes, the chair freaked me out due the printed face. Hehe.

The food did not take long to arrive…

Extra Spicy Tom Yum Soup

No Thai meal is complete without having their Tom Yum soup. Celadon offers two type; clear or milky (coconut milk based). Upon ordering the soup, I cheekily told them to bring their spiciest soup they have from the kitchen. Oh boy, they did not fail me at all. Ladened with chili padi (tons of it) with its seeds in it, the soup, filled with prawns, mushrooms and lemon grass, was indeed an extra spicy one. I told my friends to try it which they did but they did not bother to take a second sip. It did numb my throat for a while which was a good thing because I was having sorethroat at that time. I can barely feel the pain after downing the soup. Hehe.

Pineapple Fried Rice

I guess it is a norm to order Pineapple Fried Rice too whenever one visits a Thai restaurant. The portion was alright as it could possible share among 4 adults with two or three spoonful each. Prawns, cashew nuts, mixed vegetables and pineapple, the rice was cooked to perfection. Sadly, the dish was not warm enough as though they were pre-cooked even before customers order it.

Green Curry Chicken and Pita Bread

Yet again, another famous dish by Thai restaurants. Celadon offers either beef, chicken or homemade fishball filled with eggyoke. Yes, you read that correct. Fishball with eggyoke in the center!! Unwillingly to take the risk, we opted for the safest choice; that was Green Chicken Curry. Chicken chunks, eggplant, onions and other vegetables in it, I’m not sure whether it is normal or not but I found it rather sweet to my liking. Some of my friends said that green curry chicken was supposed to be sweet. Oh well, I just went with the flow.

Crabsticks

Mango Salad

I did not have the opportunity to taste the Mango Salad as the portion was rather small. But, from what I saw, the salad must be good as it was gone in quite a short while. As for the crabstick, it was normal with nothing to shout about. The good thing was that it was not entirely made of fish paste, which could typically found in other places. Suffice to say, at least 80% of it were crabmeat while the rest were fish paste.

Sizzling Black Pepper Beef Steak

Since we are carnivores, we needed more meat. Hence, we tried their Sizzling Black Pepper Beef Steak. This has got to be one of the best black pepper steak I’ve ever eaten. The meat was tender but not overcooked/chewy. Not too sweet nor not too overpowered with black pepper, the sauce was prefect to go along with the meat. There were around 6 to 7 small pieces of beef, I don’t think it was enough especially when there were 5 adults there.

There were 2 more dishes like Phat Thai and Kangkung vegetables but the (photo) shots were horrible. Most of the photos turned out blur so I didn’t bother to put up in here. I struggled alot while getting the shots above because the lightings were very low. I was forced to use ISO 1600 most of the time to get decent shutter speed. Thank god, I managed to capture a few or else, I’ll be stabbing myself.

Another thing to note is that you are forced to order bottle of mineral water instead of they providing free flow of chilled water. I’m not sure how much the bottle above costs, but I’m sure it would be 200% more than what you can get in supermarket. It would definitely be not enough especially when you are about to experience spicy Thai food.

Overall, the food and service were good. The attention to the detail was alright but I guess they could improve further on the soup. No, I’m not talking about the spicy-ness. I’m talking about the taste wise as it has this vague Tom Yum taste. Besides, they should serve their food warm rather than luke-warmish.

“OMG.. That looks great”
“Yeah. I like that too”
“Hey, come over here…. This one is better”
“Gosh.. You are right. This is fantastic”
“It looks classy and elegant. What do you think?”
“Yeah. You’re right..”

Best of all, the sales assistants assume that the guys are buying for one another.

And I know how it feels like because I was in that situation with my friend, Julian, a couple days back at Tiffany & Co. in Pavilion. They were chuckling all the way. Gosh.. they thought we were ………. *speechless* Anyway, they didn’t stop until we told them the gift was for a friend of girl. 

Lesson of the day : The moment you step into those shops, first thing you must mention is “I’m looking for a gift for a girl”. Or even better, try to drag a friend of girl along with you.

Not long ago, I bought a Matin Super Gaint Blower via an online store. Well, the function of it is pretty obvious; that is to blow off dust from camera’s sensor as well as dust inside the camera. It is effective I would say as it only needs a couple of blows to get the dust off my DSLR’s Pentaprism.

But now, instead of blowing off dust, it is ‘collecting dust’ in my bag because I rarely use it. Hehe.

It all happened when I managed to drag invite Robin (note : read more at his blog) out for dim sum session on Sunday morning. Yes, it was at ungodly hour. Haha.

Somehow, his photos looked more appetizing than mine though we were eating the same thing. Crap!!

Doctor : “Your BP (blood pressure) is high.”

Me : “How high?”

Doctor : “At the limit for your age. Did you sleep yesterday night?”

Me : “Not really. Woke up 4 times. And woke up early this morning.”

Doctor : “Ok. Take these and take some rest. Need MC?”

Me : “Yeah.”

At home;

*Take 6 pills*

*Switch off mobile phone*

*Switch off computer*

*Crawl to the bed*

*KO*

BRB…

While waiting for our food to arrive….

Yeah, that’s my her gear.

Huey Yee in action

Nikon D50 with Sigma EX 30mm F1.4

Sigma babeh…

Spicy Spaghetti Meatballs (Chicken)

Parmesan Cheese for my spaghetti

Chicken Steak (Can’t get a good shot of it. Sorry!!)

Choco Bloc (I think).

Warm chocolate gateau

Environment good. Food good. Dessert good. Drinks good. It was great to meet up with her as I have not seen her for ages months. Sadly, she doesn’t have a blog yet but you can checkout her flickr for collection of great photos. Oh yeah, she loves to travel too.

On the hand, her recent purchase, Sigma EX 30mm F1.4, is such a fantastic lens. Superb built with excellent bokeh capability. Yeah, she is a bokeh junkie. Hehe. Besides, 30mm is perfect for those who want to shoot portraits at a table length (approx. 1 foot away).

Fast forward to a couple years later, when I finally got my driving licence and a job, everything above doesn’t exist anymore. No more asking for money. No more asking for transportation. This is when I get to eat (sinful) foods like this

this,

this,

these,

and drink this,

But, the guilt was there because at times, they nagged like usual. But things got better (or worse) as time passed by because they, my parents, resigned to the fact that their son, the only one with big appetite in the family, couldn’t be bothered to listen to them anymore. Not only that, he, that is me, tends to rebel more and more by buying more and more foods if nagging occurs. Yes, I’m such a rebellious son. Bwahahaha…

I’m tired of this. Sigh….

Me : “You know… I could have ’shoot’ him during the meeting just now.”

Colleague 1 : “Why didn’t you do that?”

Colleague 2 : “Yeah.. Why? Somehow, I hate that guy.”

Me : “We need this deal. That’s why.”

Colleague 1 : “Yeah… True also. But at times, we need somebody to save us.”

Me : “Yeah. Just tell me when to launch an ‘assault’.”

Gosh, I was furious when dealing some suckers who think they are bigger than everybody. Their cocky-ness, their incapability to think before speaking and their ’sarcastic’ statement were totally uncalled for. Oh wait.. I’m referring to one particular guy that I met just now.