New joint for get together

We had a father's day and a birthday celebration last weekend. What a group of people, all of us in the family turned up for the event, all the way from Ipoh and Singapore, and gathered in centrally KL.

It was a nice change from the normal dinner where we just sat and ate and chat while the children boringly sat at their places, trying to look for things to do. This time round, we did it aka karaoke style. I suppose it was too much influence from the TVB serials. Then again, it wasn't a bad idea at all as the children had so much fun running around in our private room, in fact too much fun until they were not willing to eat at all, while the rest of the people in the room rendering their favorite tunes, singing their hearts out.

I remember I first knew of these function rooms karaoke equipped, which serves meals, when we were in Taiwan last time. At that time, I don't quite understand why people would want to mix meals with leisure.. it's like oil and water... they shoudn't be at the same scene. Imagine eating halfway with your mouth full and oily and suddenly the song you picked is on air and you picked the mike to your mouth and... I think you get the picture alright.

Having finally been at one now, I think perhaps I had to change my mind about that. It certainly is a refreshing change of a family activity. We can have our dinner while the singer just sings all he likes to, perhaps we eating his share of food too. Best of all, the drink comes free flow, not like in karaoke outlets, where they charged you exorbitant fees for just a pathetic little cup of orange juice. In addition, we do not need to stay until the late hours of the morning and wake up the next morning looking like a poor dreary panda bear which do not belong.

These people are just brilliant. They have sold me the idea of dinner+karaoke, which I am dying to go for more! Anyone wants to join?

Old fashioned fairy tale

This is Snow White, her cousin sister Rose Pink and the 7 dwarfs.




Met 2 Mr. Nice Guys who wants to take them out for a date.


Oh no! The wicked witch is here!


The prince charming (albeit a bit too old) kidnapped them away.

Another friend fell into THE trap!

It's about time anyway. After all, when all the friends meet up for a drink, you would be out of place as the topics would be dwelling on family and relationship issues. So, to be "IN", you ought to join the bandwagon and get married, just like us. hehe..


Here, the friends who travelled all the way from KL and Spore to congratulate him. Vincent was taking notes to prepare for his big day too. Hui Ling, looking blissfully happy after her recent big day just a few months ago. Now, all of us wondered why they had to have their weddings in the same year. Sounds rather fishy, don't you think?

Imagine these 3 people (oops! 4 actually, the youngest one still in her mommy's womb) gobbled up ALL the food on this table, alone, by themselves! (P/S, KM: This ain't fair! We want another "free" lunch)



A group picture with the new couple and their family. The groom refused to play any games, what a jerk!

To sum it up, the food was great, the environment, happy and pleasant, the get together, more precious than ever.

Delayed broadcast

I should have put up these pics long ago, 3 months late... sorry!

Only I realised later, I didn't snap enough pictures on my good friend's big day. I was busy carrying my videocam around, shooting at various angles to capture a good view of the new couple. Now I figured it wasn't of much use, the new couple had a pro to do that part, who wants to look at my video clip?

Here's the radiant bride that day..







And these are the friends to make fun of the groom before he came over to kidnap her away.





Nice "view", eh?

Homemade fresh bread

There's a new kid in town! And this kiddie makes freshly baked bread for the family.

From the manual, seems like these are just some of the variety of products I can achieve with this new kid. Doesn't it look yummy? Just makes you jump into the mood straight away to work on it!





Having brought home at 1pm, both my friend and I excitedly went to get some of the ingredients needed to make bread. Most of the names were unheard of before, luckily the shop assistant guided us to make the right purchases. It wasn't very exciting to try and make white bread, so we decided to be adventurous and selected the "Fruit and nut bran loaf" recipe to work on.

Measuring and weighing the each of the 8 ingredients separately wasn't too much fun though. How nice if there's another appliance which can do that for me.. I guess that appliance caould have only spelled something like "M A I D".

It was rather easy for the next few steps. Just dump the ingredients in, close the window panel, switch on, press select button to select the appropriate program and press the start button.

Only a dumbbell would take longer than 5 mins to figure how that works with the easy-to-use panel here. I guess I was the dumbbell, no doubt.



About 3 hours later, the aroma of the fresh bread can be smelled. The bread turned out like this...






Not bad for my very first try on homemade bread, eh? 3 people ate it and said "Ichiban!" "Very good" "Excellent!"

I have to give the credit to the bread maker and the easy to follow recipes.

Also, the bread maker not only make loaves, it is programmed to make
1. french bread
2. cakes/ quick bread
3. dough (pizza, naan bread, croissant)
4. jam as well

Like to bring this kid home too?

Look back in year 2000...Wuxi and Suzhou

It was roughly Oct 2000. I went to visit KT while he was working in Wenzhou. Joshua was left in my mom's care. What a nice break it was from the routine babysitting days!

Most of the time, I sat in the hotel room where KT stayed and worked. Wenzhou doesn't have much to offer in sightseeing. Furthermore, it was rather difficult for me to blend in to to the Chinese way of life. The way they smoke even in the lifts, the way they jumped queue.... I prefer to stay in the hotel room with my book I prepared before the journey.


We went to Wuxi and Suzhou for the weekend though. KT took Friday off, and we went by train to Wuxi on Thurs night first. It was a ticket with a bed, where the journey from Wenzhou takes one whole night. When we reached the town, we found a tour bus which only costs RMB20 for a whole day's ride, I think. But once we hopped into the bus, they asked you for about RMB200 per person for the entrance fees.

The gardens were neat and pretty, just like what we see in the pictures and movies. That was the impression on the first garden you were taken to.. After a few of them, you would realised most of them are more or less looks the same.








We stayed for one night, and early next morning went to Suzhou. Hopped into a tour bus, we were subjected to the "additional entrance fees" on the bus again. No point arguing with them, it's their culture.
Suzhou was slightly different. It looks somehow tasteful and authentic with the canals and water boats running around in that city. Perhaps it's Venice of the East. Shopping was a lot more fun to as it offers more variety. Spent one nite there and took a domestic flight back to Wenzhou. By the time we got back, our feet were numbed from walking and muscles all over the body aching. It was surely an exhaustive short trip to cover 2 towns in a short time.

Like parents like children

Our babies... can identify who is who? (The first one is done for you)

Any resemblance to us?

A special message

I have a friend over for a visit last week.

"OK, my darling, shall we go home now?.... let mommy take you off the swing, good boy"

























"BOO hooo hooo hooo hooo..........WAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
























"OK OK... I'll tell daddy to buy this swing and let you sit in it all day at home, you want??"

*HAPPY* now.

(Daddy... get this message clear?)

Always a class below

Last time, in Lido, there was a "special" class for the privileged, or perhaps more for the rich people. It's on the upper floor, and a person at the staircase below would be checking tickets to ensure only the people who bought the pricey tickets can go upstairs.

I always wondered what there was at the floor above. The most obvious, very first difference I observed was that, if you were holding the "cheap" tickets, you had to queue up to go inside the main hall of the theatre. Sometimes, the queue can be freaking long too! There wasn't any queue to go upstairs, as far as I can remember.

One day, I finally get to see what was there on the floor above. I think I sneaked inside, I can't afford to pay for that entrance fee.

There was a lounge in front of the doorways. A bar was there to serve patrons whatever drinks there could be. Some sofa chairs were available to let the guests rest their feet while waiting for the show to start.. no need to stand like the people downstairs. How nice, I always used to think. Being rich is such a nice thing, being pampered and paying for all the luxurious comfort.

The seats on the upper floor are of better quality too. They won't need to stress their neck and tilt their head up to watch the big screen. (Needless to say, we always come home from a movie with a pain-in-the-neck, last time.) And most importantly, there's no heads to block your view too. (If you were seated behind a tall person, at the ground floor, though the big screen was higher up the view, at the very least, the bugger's head blocked part of the screen and that was enough to spoil the whole movie.)

Lido has since ceased to operate with the new concept of cineplexes and the popcorns. However, the concept of "special" class is still here. With GSC, it's named "Gold Class". With 4x of the normal priced tickets, you can have the luxury of waiting in a lounge with papers to read before the show starts, and a bar to serve drinks of your liking. I haven't been able to peek at how the seats looked like, I am wondering if the chairs are made of fur and can be reclined to make a bed. And perhaps the screen is 3D.

Anyone been there? Please let me know if my guess is right, as I am still in that "mainstream of people", and not the "special privilege" or "rich", not before, and certainly not now as well. Sigh..