How I Spend Christmas 2007...

Tuesday, Dec 18

It all started in the office - everyone was so excited with the dinner and all the gifts underneath the Christmas tree. By 4:00pm, don't think any of us was in the mood for anything. We all got dressed up and headed to Lemon Garden @Shangri-La Hotel.

DRAMA #1 - They fucked up our reservation and decided to setup a table for us, outside the restaurant. Come on, it was a bloody buffet... I'm not walking in and out of the restaurant just to get my chicken!
Fortunately, they managed to arrange a table for us inside. Everything was cool thereafter... Secret Santa was uncovered. I love all the gifts I had - crystal bracelet from Meiling; "I need a jawbreaker" T-shirt from Corina; pink Polo-T from Vicky, love it love it; and a "How to Waste Time in the Office" toolkit from Beatrice. Love them all.. And I was crowned the Diva Textie, and the prize for the award was a pair of Umbro shorts for my gym session. Awesome! :)

Look at the presents underneath the tree...

All dressed-up

Fridge Magnets - I'm so broke this year I have to hand-made their gifts.
Each represents a word/ phrase that they used frequently
The pink Polo-T from Vicky

Thursday, Dec 20

I got another gift from my best friend, Mun Yee... a unique Buddha sculpture. It's the upper-body of a Buddha in a dark wooden frame. One more item to add to my quest for Buddha sculptures.

A glimpse of her house

Friday-Saturday, Dec 21-22
Trip to Bagan Lalang, Sepang.

Saturday Night, Dec 22
Hang out at karaoke lounge, BJBS in Cheras. Had their usual funny Thai cross-dressing performance. Later that night, there were two half-naked Thai boys hired to dance on the bar top. Nothing unusual...

Sunday, Dec 23
Went to Pavillion for dinner at Tony Romas. Food was not too bad, service was great. A young part-time waiter served us that evening. That poor thing is under-18, and he's got no idea what kind of alcohol we were ordering. Being me as usual, I don't like to be confined to a certain menu, so I asked for customized order. Was being a bit too difficult for someone who's too young.

4 types of different BBQ sauces

Dessert - Chocolate avalanche

Thereafter, we headed to Redbox Low Yat for karaoke until 5:00am.
DRAMA #2 - Sam got drunk and wanted to leave, but we didn't allow him to do so. He left though, but came back with much anger, a little bit of depression and...
It was great though.

Sam forgot to take his jacket, and I think it looked better on me

Monday, Dec 24 - Christmas Eve

Had to attend Wai See's wedding dinner. At SAUJANA!
DRAMA #3 - It was really bad to drive to Saujana, massive traffic jam. And being me, I didn't even know where to begin my journey in the first place. So, I had to crawl all the way to LDP, turn in to Federal Highway and ooopss... I missed the exit. As a result, I headed to the next exit, hoping to find a u-turn and I ended up driving in Glenmarie. Still couldn't find the place until I reached the toll that took me to NKVE and back to SS2. My journey to Saujana started all over again.
It was quite a quiet wedding, non-traditional Chinese kind of wedding dinner except towards the end. The special thing about the wedding was that every guest was given a bottle of soap bubble. As the newlyweds walked into the room, guests were supposed to blow bubbles to welcome the couple, unfortunately, Malaysians weren't too keen on the idea of "blowing" so no bubbles! I can imagine it being quite romantic, but damn these people.

After the dinner, I went to La Queen with Daniel, Herma, Herma's friend from SG Claire, Bryan and Adeline. Honestly, it was my virginal experience there and I thought the bar was completely dodgy. Smelly, wet, packed, people are fugly, rude and stupid. Music was not even gay enough to be a called one.

A lovely sight of Herma

Herma & Claire with their sexy dance

DRAMA #4 - These drunk gay bastards beside us were inching towards our table while doing one of their lame dances. The table was not stable and so did their weak sissy legs that couldn't even stand for fuck sake. They bang our table and the next thing I knew was drinks all over my shirt, and glasses shattered on the floor. Bloody bitches!

DRAMA #5 - Enough of the puss, then came Bryan who was absolutely drunk. He was too, knocking left right center and I had to stand guard at the table to make sure the incident earlier is not going to happen again. Being drunk as usual, Bryan had a lot to talk and a lot of mothers to fuck. And we had that the entire night until he left.

Bleaaarrrk... Yours sincerely, Bryan

Tuesday, Dec 25 - Christmas
Nothing really. Went to the gym at Pavillion with Daniel. It was the only night we did not touch alcohol. Very peaceful... rather quiet, nothing interesting.

An Unusual Vacation, but Pleasant After All

21 December & 22 December 2007 at Bagan Lalang, Sepang

We first planned to coincide with each other's holiday as we were expecting some sort of vacation. A trip, and our initial plan was to go up to Cameron Highlands. After all the research and headaches deciding for a place to stay, it was rather unfortunate that the trip remained as a plan due to the rainy season - roads up may be blocked, it could be a bit risky as land collisions may happen... and we thought it's not worth dying together, so we moved on to somewhere safer.

I spent a couple of hours on the Internet and found this place called Bagan Lalang in Sepang. Pretty awesome - it's near, away from flood and new. There are some good and bad comments about this place on the Internet - some said it's dirty and "kampung", some said one of the best places to watch sunset. What'ever. Bottom line, we got free accommodation - Cyrus managed to get hold of his relative, who owns a house there.

The trip was rather unusual, in a sense that the decision (including accommodation, which always takes up a huge amount of everyone's reserved budget, considering it's nearing Christmas and year-end) was made in less than 48-hours. Now let me describe the typical situation - once everyone agrees with the location, there will be a few options for accommodation. Then we will take like a few weeks to discuss, argue, rest, realign budget, before it's confirmed. Thereafter, traveling mode - behold the divas on and on and on...

Anyways, back to the trip. Yes, everything was impromptu! Our journey got delayed because we decided to cook our dinner, so we headed to Tesco Puchong to do some marketing. Ideas of the dishes came in like snap, "Tonight, we're cooking this..." and the shopping cart moves.
We reached the house at about 5pm. I was like, wah lao eh, it was a single-unit, almost bungalow house, in a gated community! Such a perfect place to stay. At this point, there was no sight of the beach throughout our journey or near where we were. Some of us had not even rest our feet, and straight away started preparing for dinner. Obviously, it was quite an incident back there, but to cut the story short, the result of the Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver wannabes was not that bad, except for:
1. My experimental Tom Yam that tasted like some sort of cleaning detergent
2. Herma's Salt-baked Crab, quite delicious actually but she forgot to remove those stomach sacs and the gills. Those are not edible
3. Adeline's Sambal Prawn cooked with instant Brahmin chilli mixture... very salty and guys, please don't buy any of Brahmin's products. They're terrible.

Other than that, we had some good stuff too:
1. Of course, my Curry Chicken that I learned from another friend of mine
2. Daniel's Stir-fried Long Beans with Sun-dried Shrimps
3. Herma's Sauteed Mushrooms that is just nice
3. Adeline's Luncheon Meat with Fried Eggs
4. My Fried Eggs with Shrimps - too salty, but they walloped it :D
5. Dessert - Glutinous Rice Ball in Spicy Ginger Syrup

Altogether, NINE dishes. Not kidding. Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing Chef Wan and everyone enjoyed the dinner - they'd better be!

We spent most of our time in the house actually. Well, we drove out to the beach after dinner and hoped to find a 7-11. Unfortunately, we figured the nearest one should be in KLIA, so let's not go there. The place is really, really "kampung". The beach was wet and muddy when we were there at night, just about time as the tide is getting higher. Mat Rempits were also speeding around the area, how I'm not surprised.

After the beach, we headed back to the house and started drinking Tequila in a small hut built at the backyard of the house. Quite cool! No one was extremely drunk, everything was fine, the TV remained where it was.

The slut before we leave the house

The next afternoon was simply annoying - garbage flies were all over the house, buzzing around us like we're some dead corpses. We woke up, cleaned the house, had breakfast (Herma's fried rice with tap-water-washed-yesterday's- sambal-prawn). We left the house and went to a small Chinese shop-house for lunch, where apparently they sell very delicious curry noodle. Nothing exciting, except flies again. According to the shop owner, wherever there's a huge durian farm nearby, there will be flies buzzing around.

Final stop - at last, the beach. It was an entirely different experience as compared to the previous night. To be honest, the beach is clean and *beautiful*. The view is excellent, some huge pine trees are planted along the side of the beach. The sand is soft. Don't expect blue sea water like you can get in Langkawi, but the water is definitely cleaner than Port Dickson the way I see it. We had a great moment there, took some photos, filmed a Christmas video, briefly watched the sunset, smoked and threw the butts at the shores... fantastic!

Overall a unique vacation, awesome, one of the most peaceful, less painful holidays for me. No drama, nothing went wrong, just getting everyone together and spend some special moments for the nostalgia. As for Bagan Lalang, I wouldn't mind going back. It's away from town, panoramic, absolutely perfect for family trip or even a short get away. Don't expect a lot of water activities and adventures, those masculine activities though. And finding alcohol at night is quite a challenge - so go there with a whole barrel of beer!!!

More Pics...

One of the activities at the beach - go fly kite!

Dark circles most probably caused by serious food poisoning the night beforeSunset
Bagan Lalang - isn't it better than PD?Of course, can't miss our scandalous photo

M by Mariah Carey

The inspiration for this fragrance was Mariah's magical presence and artistry. By combining two very contrasted notes, an exotic Tahitian Tiare flower with a deliciously warm marshmallow, we wanted to express Mariah's utmost femininity and undeniable sensuality in one strong statement. We then incorporated other facets, such as a Moroccan Incense Amber accord, to bring an element of mystery that lingers on skin. This harmonious balance of Mariah's favorite scents and memories is at the heart of this creation." - Carlos Benaim & Loc Dong

I'm probably the laziest person when it comes to blogging, but this post is a must as I'm about to share one of the most *beautiful* possessions of mine - M by Mariah Carey, the latest signature scent that the songbird dedicates to her fan. Not an expert in fragrance, but boy, this is the best fragrance I've ever bought for myself to date. Well, loving Mariah Carey did influence the decision, but I got to love it anyways.

Believe it or not, the first sniff of M at the Robinsons was enough to infuse my brain with sweetness, love, passion and finally the signal that said, "Get it, bitch!" One thing that I love most about M is the smooth, slightly creamy scent of vanilla it carries. I'm always obseSSed with vanilla, but it has been really hard to find one that is original, unique and natural. In my own opinion, M has it for me.

I later discovered that M combines 2 very contrasted notes - exotic Tahitian Tiare flower (god knows what the hell is that, must be something that won't survive in Malaysia) with marshmallow. Interesting! I didn't really care about the bottle actually, honestly I was only thinking about the scent. It has a glass cap of a butterfly resting upon petals of a blooming flower, with a silver roped collar. Something like that. Nice, but not really practical in case I need to pack it for my trips. What'eva... I have been using it since last week.

Yesterday, a reporter friend asked me what fragrance I was using. And I told him Mariah Carey. I think he was shocked. And the next question of course was, "Is it for male or female." That was a tough one, so I said, "I don't know, it looks unisex." In my mind, I was like thinking, "Obviously not for any men." It probably got him thinking too, "Faggot, you must be kidding me."