Its bike to work week this week, from my place to work is about half an hour drive through the highway.
Day 1 - Nicole got a ride with Gord Day 2 - Nicole biked to work with Sam - 1hr 20 mins (19Km) Day 3 - Nicole was home sick because of extra extra hot Nandos she had for dinner last night. Day 4 - Nicole drove to Shane's house and bike to work with Shane and Ada - 45 mins (8Km) Day 5 - Nicole gonna drive in herself, coz Gordon is biking to work.
There has been alot of family dinners lately, which is good for me! i dont have to cook and get to eat good food, yesterday we went to our favorite Taiwanese restaurant.
Occasion - Uncle Rick n his wife visiting from Australia, they bought us yummy chocolate and this yogurt treats for the doggies!
I finally found some imported prawns from thailand with the prawns head on!
Yummy finished product! taste very similar to the prawn mee behind my sentosa house!
Last night we went to Irish time to celebrate Pez's 27th birthday party! Happy birthday Pez!
Irish time is known for their irish beers, all different kind, from light to dark....(Harp, Kilkenny, Smithwick, guiness stout) - and i got a taste of everything !
Rasberry martini
There were list of 1912 Titanic meals for the cost of $19.12
This is one of them- I dunno what is call, belfast or something
There's homemade turkey pot pie.
This grilled halibut burger, isnt that good according to Bonnie
And I had cod fish and chips - the fist is incredibly fresh! but the batter just sucks! wat a waste for such good fish to be handled that poorly
Big ass nachos - perfect to go with ur irish beers!
Everybody digged in! Last but not least, Pez's burger, I dunno whats in there coz he was too far away, i had to zoom in to take this picture.
Daniel refused to share his dessert with Harun
Big guys arm wrestling
Lastly I wanna apologise to darling about my behaviour last night, so sorry and thanks for your understanding...love you
I heard about this very interesting news on the radio this morning - a 71 years old man has been living or camped in this park which owns by the government for the past god-knows-how-many years. And because of the squatters right, he now owns the land worth 4 millions , but I bet this man doesn’t want the money or anything, I mean he’s 71 years old, he just want a place where he can “squat”.
And someone called reported there is this similar case in BC, his friend’s parent own 2 acres of land, and didn’t realized that there are few street bumps been camping there for the past 3 years, and when the land owner intended to make use of those land and apparently they cant get rid of those peoples, because of squatters’ right!! As long as they been there for more than 2 years they have the right to stay on….
Isn’t this crazy? Even though the land belong to somebody else, im talking about private owned?!? If this law is being enforced in some countries with nice weather, I will go “squat” for couple of years and then own the land, (oh by the way in BC you can only own the land if it is a government land.) and I’d be rich!!! Is too cold here to do so, and the crappy weather during winter…wind storm, *GASP*
Oh well.
As I was driving to work yesterday morning on the highway, I saw this car pulled over on the fast lane, and then I saw this dog rushed out from his car and bolted across the street! I mean is a highway and all the cars came flying down, a van nearly knock him down, then the van driver pulled over to help getting the dog, but that small car just drove off ?!?! I wonder if he is the dog owner or what or maybe I mistaken, that dog didn’t came out from his car, he was also just dodging the dog and pulled over to the fast lane, it was too late for me to do anything because I was way up there and seeing everything else from the rear mirror.
Is almost 10am in the office, and I came in early this morning to check on my test which has been running throughout the weekend, not very good results though – However, I had set up another test and is running right now. Basically that’s gonna be my whole week if nobody hand me anymore work, I will be running this test over and over again at different speed and depends on the speed, the fastest require at least couple of hours to run, and set up only take 5mins if no other issues come up during the setting.
That means, in between those time I am very free! Which I completely dislike, when im at work I need to be working in a certain pace, I love when tasks kept coming on my way, doesn’t matter what it is. Guess im just gonna bump around to see if anybody needs anymore help.
Something funny happened yesterday – I woke up pretty late and went downtown to shop for anniversary gift, and I bought a photo album and card – made this album for darling. Which contain the pictures of us at different seasons and of coz our babies. Then I went down to the store sweating coz I had also been running around town looking for this phil colin concert dvd that darling love! But of coz couldn’t get my hands on any! My final stop was the store, darling looked tired and beat, well of coz we partied till 3 in the morning the night b4, well not really party but we went over to jim to watch a movie on his dad’s projector, this machine is so cool and I want one!! Is like watching movie in the theater! Up till now I still haven’t tell the funny story – geez I am really naggy.
Anyway, I was at the store and darling went out for a walk, this couple came in and picked up an opium pipe and asked “ is this some kinda smoking device?”
In my heard , I was like “smoking device? Geez do you have to be so politically correct?” I laughed and answered “yes that’s an opium pipe made out of buffalo bone, and I ve never heard anyone call it that b4”
Geeez smoking device!? Haha sound so technical. But of coz she didn’t buy it. We do carry a lot of unique goods that peoples will find interesting, but just wont buy coz is unnecessarily or they sometime cost too much? Sighhhh we went to a new Thai restaurant last week and it was super busy , which increased our temptation of operating a Malaysian restaurant – say if we do, what kinda menu do you think we should have? Any suggestions ? definitely not asam laksa coz it wont sell here! Come on you floggers, gimme some ideas! Low cost, popular by different nations, and easy to make! After wedding we will plan more about it.
By the way mom had received her ring, pheeeeeeeeeeew! I can sleep well now, and she was sooooooo happy and she loved it! Im so glad
Today is our 9th year anniversary - zeng soh wai cheong cheong kao kao :)
Happy Anniversary darling!
Thats right, 9 years baby!
To celebrate that, I thought of giving him a surprise by bringing him to this obstacle course in south Nanaimo, I know anniversary is a two peoples thing, but if you gonna go on this obstacle course, what fun is it if t was just the two of us? so i recruited 12 of us! Drove up north in 3 cars!
x
as the cute instructor helped me to strap on my harnest, I smelled booze, so i said out loud :"*gasp* you had beers didnt you!"
and he looked panic :
" well it was last night but you cant tell my boss or else im fired!"
me:"*ting!* well i dunno, it depends.....*evil grin*"
him:"well how much do you want?"
he was actually serious!!! ahha
me:" well just make sure you return us all alive, and i smell some tequilla in that backpack, r u gonna share some?"
"laugh"
Gearing up and listening to safety instructions
Then we tried out a little demo course for kids just to get the hang of it
Me on the go, i think we started from 10feet and gradually increased up to 60feet!!!!
There are tonnes of challenging swing bridge and zip line was super fun!
This is another challenging one, you swing across like spider man and hop on to the net! (see video below)
Some quiters taking pictures of us from the ground, look how high up we were!
Is kinda blurry here, but if you enlarge it, is actually picture of wei slipped and fell, he was then sitting on the swing and gasped for a while b4 he climbed up again! this was the most challenging and scariest part to me, my hands and legs were actually shaking after i gone through this there were 12 of us and only 7 completed the full course, some stopped way early coz of high issue, some stopped right at the end coz their hands really sore.
Then we chilled out by the bungy jump place to catch some action and had lunch!
will you do bungy jump? i kept asking myself then, if there were two of us maybe I will..
I packed some simple snack for everybody, we were starving!
Some of the crew from left "wei, Darryl, Shane, Ken, Trunk, Kenny"
There was Jim, Daniel, Candyce, Me, weiwei, Pei yu missing from the picture
i ve been having problem putting video here through You tube, anyone came across the same issue too?
You know many of us - when talked about vacation, we wanna go US, Europe, Japan, Korea or ....even Singapore!
How many of us will actually consider East Malaysia - Sabah or Sarawak as one of their destinations?
Lets look at one of the seven wonders of the world - Grand Canyon
Beautiful isnt it? with the sun set n everything....
Look again, isnt that wonderful? except the picture ur looking below is Kota Kinabalu
The only difference I can think of - ermm off the top of my head, is Grand Canyon will cost you 5k? but KK 1K and you will have some extra pocket money for shopping...
Of coz another practical one is - u actually have to hike up to KK with all the mountain climbing or hiking equipments. Thats gonna cost you another big buck :)
Seriously! look again.....
This is Grand Canyon
And this is KK
I personally think they are equally beautiful....so why dont we support our local tourism?
Cuti-cuti Malaysia! I know blabbing about this in my blog arent gonna help contribute in the Malaysia's tourism coz i only have like average 5 readers a day.
Originally, our honeymoon destination is Pulau Sipadan in Sabah and i heard is not cheap but is gooooooooorgeous! but now since honeymoon is gonna be a gift to us. We gonna make full use of it....Tahiti maybe? or Fiji......wahh!!! hahaha see lah..
anyway back to my main point, so yea....support Malaysia tourism ok? next time you westies think of a holiday, think east malaysia, i will think the Iban and Kadazan culture will be quite different...according to my mom, she seen and learned alot during her visit in Sarawak.
If I havent got tight down by my job and family, i really wish I could take two months off each year to travel around, see the world, learn new culture, and meet new peoples. Just think of all the different weather, different currency, different language, different road sign.......
Just all the different things that you are about to explore? how much would you actually learned? I ve gotten comment like :"nicole, you obviously havent travel enough" when I freaked out about my travelling partner bringing a man to our room and threw the condom around.
Being well traveled doesnt mean you are well slept around. agree? But to some degree, I havent seen the world enough, the place I really want to go is Egypt, Rome and Greece. To learn their history. Sigh.......one day, one day.......
Monday, Ma and Pa made san tong sui kao, this is their ancestor's secret recipe - we all loved it!
Everything made from scratch n nicely wrapped
you can boil or pan fry them Everybody helped out in the kitchen
Finished products! yummm~ darling fried those sui kao, he's very patient in cooking and the things he fried usually looks very good!
Yesterday we went grocery shopping at Costco (kinda like Macro) and bought almost 300$ worth of food!! Pa mentioned something in the car, this is like 900rm!!!
Gosh I didnt realize that but after you convert it, that is really too much to be spending just on food, and we didnt buy any lebih stuff, just all very essential and basic necessities like meats, ham, cheese, rice etc...
Thanks to his lazy wife that hasnt been cooking much.... so darling came up with this idea to solve lazy wives' problem - how thoughtful? he suggested that we got whole bunch of meats and cooked them all then freeze them so we can use whenever we want. In that case - we always have food ready to go, just fry some vege or some other small side dish if I AM not too lazy.
So I split this mission into two days work, coz after 2 hours of grocery shopping, i got really tired on day 1 - but i still made whole bunch of masala chicken (I know i made this way too often but is everybody's favourite and our choice too!)
So now our freezer look like this - 3 big tubs of masala and some other uncooked meat.
Day 2- I made oyster sauce chicken with mushrooms n carrots just so we got some vege too.
and got whole bunch of cheap shanghai yu choy from china town.
Yea this is our normal portion for each meal, we do eat alot!
Lex was in this position for half an hour, he does enjoy his little sight seeing - seem like a very sentimental dog =), him enjoying his deep thoughts....
I had a night mare again last night, and it was one of those you woke up from it, go back to sleep and continue to dream about it....
I dreamt of Im friends with xiaxue and I was her bitch and she basically walked all over me !!!!!??
How could I let her do that to me in my dream? then there's this girl got blew up in an elavator and there's blood and human paste all over the elavator wall that i had to clean... i dunno is weird...
Brrr~~ anyway Mother's day dinner last night was a blast!!!! We went to "A taste of Tokyo" and tried out the buffet dinner - is pretty expensive $25 per pax compared to $10 in Vancouver, well what can I say is the only Japanese buffet on the Island. And only on Saturday....*rolled eyes*
I dunno how you floggers out there do it, but I was alittle embarassed when I was snapping picture around the counter where everybody trying to get food. So i didnt get to take pictures of everything....
They have...... Sushi (duh!) but very very fresh! fresher than those in the mainland
Tempura and Chicken Kaarange which i believe it means fried chicken?
Fresh steamed king crabs! Remember sometime ago i blogged about the most tender lamb? this is the most tender steak - exactly how i like, medium rare.... Then we have baked oyster, and mix of seafood in oyster shell with mayo and cheese
This is soooo refreshing, some kinda cold noodle dish
There is also gyoza and Korake (fried mashed potato) where butch used to make for us when he was around...yummm~ but i still cant help but starred at that piece of bloody steak (literally!)
Mom was very happy - happy mother's day
I cant help but wishing happy mother's day to myself too - geez all the good food!!! haha i can say from Pooky and Lex
Special shout out the all the moms in the world : " Thank you and Happy Mother's day!"
To me, My mom is one helluva special mom - she's cool, she's funny, she's pretty, she's a party animal, she's a head chef at home, she's fierce and spicy...she's everything in my life !!
I love you mom!
You can be "pah tou" sometime, but as your children, we will try our best to comply to everything you wanted....
You are real funny sometime, we laugh and we wrestle - I love it when the house is filled with your laughter..... You are beautiful and elegant sometime, and your sense of fashion is always different than other moms. I really hope you get the ring I sent out - Im sorry that I cant spent mother's day with you. But like you said, you'd be happy to receive a little card from us. and Im surprised to hear that you been keeping all the cards we gave you on every occasions since young.
In the card this year, I put a little message : -
" Mother, since young, i always wanted to buy you a diamond ring but cant afford - now i finall could fullfill this dream of mine, in the future I look forward to fullfill many more dreams of mine to make you happy, Happy Mother's day"
And I kept quiet and could totally understand when you said you wanted my wedding banquet to be as grand as possible - after years and years of being looked down (thanks to my lovely father). I saw how hard you worked to raise all of us, you hardly nag us - all you did is talked to us once in a while
"you guys have to work hard and be successful in the future - cant let peoples around looked down at you anymore"
And you said to me on the phone yesterday
" I know I am very "ai bin" (oi min) but I really want send a message to those peoples who used to look down at us "
Again I comply as much as I dont think those are important at all, but if it is to you, if it meant so much to you, you can go right ahead.
But honestly mom, I dont think it matters anymore, we all have to learn to let things go.... maybe I dont understand what you REALLY been through. But holding grudge will hurt nobody but yourself.....I am still yet to find a way to tell you all these.
Then again mom, Whatever makes you happy...... Thanks again for trying your best to be a great mom and a dad at the same time all these years.
Isnt this weird - you wanna do some good to the kids? go pub crawling and drink more! This is schneider's yearly event, well is not organized by schneider but this guy with such big heart, all the donations will go to the kids. For their summer camps or wat not.
You are partying at the same time doing good deed, WHY NOT!?
We arrived at the first pub half an hour late and realised there wasnt anybody there yet? feel really strange so went wonder around downtown, bought a miki of vodka and cranberry juice - mixed them all up at a back valley (drinking in public is extremely prohibited) but no it only looks like we r drinking cranberry juice right? hahaha went back 15mins later, still no sign of our pub crawl crew, only another bunch of high school pub crawlers. Got a little bumped, went to the mall and have fries half drunk, finally 830pm which is the time we suppose to hit the second pub, then we see them! good rashes they are at the roof top!
So we joined them at the second pub - Hugo's (darling, me, Ken, Austin, Martin, Amanda, and Jasen)
Me and Andrew, I tot i ll put this picture on its own coz of mr annonymous at the back :)
Austin's drunk face
Darling, me and Jasen were chatting outside of the pub, and Jasen is a big salsa dancer, so i told him to show us some moves - he crossed his hands and offer me to grab them, so i figured ok, im gonnna be his dance partner i guess, he twisted me and turn and flipped me 360 degrees in the air!? I was horrified! at the same time embarassed coz i was wearing a skirt. I promised to get back to him for that one!
When is time to hit the 3rd pub, I was pretty much done, but theres free drink at the 3rd pub, so we went ahead got our beer sat down and im ready to pass out, darling saw that and tot it wouldnt be a good idea to let my co-workers especially my boss to see this behaviour of mine -
So we left without finishing our free beer!!! I collapsed on the bed as soon as i got home.
I dunno what it is im such an eating maniac today! is like nothing can ever fill me up! woke up 10 in the morning extremely starved, so fixed myself some Unagi with some left over rice n miso soup.
YUMMMM~~~
After my breakfast, i lay on the bed watch "Friends" with some left over "cranberry juice" from last night - hahahha gosh im such an alcoholic i mean who drinks at 11 in the morning!?!?!?
Soon I passed out again and woke up 4.30 in the evening and starving again!! Gosh im such a pig and a bum!
What should I eat , what should I eat? looking back at my food pictures collection - I really want this!!! is one of the buffet dinner at the Hotel in Mexico....I would kill now for those grilled chicken, grilled fish and beef!!! hmmmmmmmmmmm MEAT!
k gotto go find myself some real food - pictures aint gonna fill me up, cya bye!
Sorry about the images problem we had here before - i ve re-uploaded them =) Here you go!
We made pasta for dinner again and we had KFC for dinner last night -so nothing special about that coz I ve posted the pasta picture just few entries ago....
Anyway - This is my all time restaurant - Moxies! their food is affordable and absolutely delicious!
The Starter Platter - steak and goat cheese salad and Extreme burger (darling's must have everytime he goes)
Tandoori Chicken Pizza without cheese that my sister order sometime ago when she was here, I mean , how can u eat pizza without cheese?!?!?!?
Fettucine carbonara
And this is my must have! mustard roast lamb - the most tender lamb i ve ever tried in my life....sooo goooooood!! So good that I had to tah pao one home - and by the way, thats the best mashed potato i ve ever had in my life too!!! geeeeez how did they do that ???? I wanna learn to cook like them!
Grilled chicken with hollandaise sauce
Perfectly roasted chicken
Bye Bye Ring................
So I shipped out the mother's day present, and I only paid 7 dollars but with insurance only up to 100, so if the ring got lost *touch wood*, i will only be reimburse for 100$. The next thing up is 50$ and I duwanna be paying that........sighh i know im being cheap but am I being stupid?
After work yesterday, It was super hot and sunny out there, is like 20degrees!!! So I suggested we go to the beach! and since we need dinner, we can have picnic there!!! We invited Chris too coz is his last day in town, he's going away the whole summer into the woods for tree planting - apparently is quite torturing being in the woods for so long, but you are doing a good thing chris!
When you are really desperate for mayo for your potato salad, you really have to korek
We were so hungry, so we dug in b4 i even remember that Im a flogger now?
so unprofessional hor.
My eye gotten worse
Pooky took a dump and I had to dig a hole to bury it - such a dirty job!
Lovey dovey MTV....(*shrug!!!*)
Aiksss, wha whaa? someking skuck in my keekh..
Doggies having good time!
Good bye Chris!!
(he got his hair cut, unfortunately not long enough to donate)
Pooky and Lex went for their first summer swim, im really surprise Pooky went down coz he hates water! but look how cunning he is? just letting Lex do all t he job n he wants to share the credit
I gasped when collegue mentioned about mother's day gift, completly forgot that is this coming sunday!!!! I havent really gotten my first pay check yet - but i finally fullfilled the dream of my childhood - getting a diamond ring for her on mother's day instead of 916 gold earings.(that also have to chip in with sisters and after long saving)
I hope you like mom, cannot really afford a big one
Yesterday morning - Darling made this new fabolous breakfast!!
he fried the hashbrown and mushed them then fried with eggs, onion, green pepper and swiss cheese on top, gosh YUMMMM!!!
Thank you darling, I love you!
This morning I had this for breakfast, well is 2.30pm i think is brunch
Authentic loh mee
Why did I wake up 2.30 in the afternoon? coz i was at a bon fire going away party for really late - yea after supper, i slept at about 5am.
I was bornt in the year of monkey - and I think this year we monkey have really bad luck.
First a vessel in my eye popped, then I cut my finger while chopping basil, then last night...
Some guy got really drunk and decided to hopped over this 5 feet bon fire, I was at the other end and he freaking head bud me in my left eye!!! Maybe it was the alcohol, I felt dizzy and out of it for a while. Then I went to sleep in the van for two hours and came out to continue the party.
When I got home the bum looks like this
Next morning, my left eye were all sepet and blue black, FUCK! how m i going to work again tomorrow!!!!???? now i gotto find my glasses.... I just created a label "accident" not too long ago, and i been using it very frequently , i wonder if my dreams the past few nights has anything to do with it - I kept dreaming of my ramping the van into a big bus or tree.
It has gotten alot worse hours later, the purple is getting stronger...and surprisingly the eye part doesnt hurt, just the head. now i look like i have a patch of eye shadow
Im intergrating my blog into a food blog. you dig?
Is 8pm and I still havent had dinner, starrrrrving! but lets put it this way - After visiting this entry of Joe's food blog (THERE! joe, i made it up by advertising ur blog here), I ve lost appetite to the home cook dinner I just made like 1o minutes ago.
And yet I got more and more interested about food blogging but just that Im way too poor to keep eating out.
So here they are - Homemade Asparagus fried prawns with garlic.
Minced beef fried oyster sauce (quite oily)
Today is my one week anniversary at work, and Im almost done with my training, is been real slow and I dont feel quite productive - and I guess my team leader or the senior guy sitting across from my room are not quite pleased with me. Maybe he saw me surfing net - checking emails or reading blog during work.
Today he said :" All of us are very busy at this moment so you should really go through the hard way about learning things, like go through the reading materials, coz sometime we really dont have time to show you everythings? I know this sounds mean but thats how we all started as well..."
I smiled and said :" I understand" and rolled my eyes till my iris were lost for quite a while as soon as I turned around. Freaking senior guy who knows everything!
SO the whole week - i ve been playing with this baby who worth $4000
Snap shot of my desk with the 19" widescreen - woot!
Darling is very good with western menu, he made the best speghetti, well actually he made the best fettucine carbonara.
Sometime last week, me made Pasta...
Looks yummy right? and it tasted even yummier!!!
And then yesterday he complained that I havent been cooking those rice n dish for quite sometime, so i tot tonight i'd make him his favourite dish - Massala Chicken (extra spicy)
Usually i only grind garlic, onion n ginger - but this time i backside itchy and wanted to add some basil leaves since we bought the whole plant last week.
U know I once used to say that I relief my stree my chopping chickens and I always imagine why if i chop my whole finger off?
While chopping the basil leaves, I guess i was half asleep and I almost chopped the tip of my finger off, well of coz i didnt! big part of my nail came off and it was bleeeeeeeding!! and guess it was the garlic, or wat not - it stings!!!!! gosh my tears started rolling down, hurts so bad!!!
Duwanna show you the gross flashy part - well actually we had to put bandage to stop the bleeding so no time or no mood to snap photo -
hahaha i suddenly picture this scenary -imagine i chopped my finger off and the first thing i yelled while holding up the bloody hand (literally) "BRING MY CAMERA FASTER!" that would ve been hardcore!
coz i cutted my hand pretty badly, i decided to remember what i cooked tonight
Lettuce+ sui choy fried chicken breast with garlic
Masala chicken
There's steam egg too but i couldnt wait to eat already - coz darling plug the wrong power for steamer
It ll be nice to eat with hand with some churtney right? but i didnt, maybe i cooked this with blood, i enjoyed it alot and it tasted extra nice!
Boys working out their abs, triceps, biceps chest after dinner...
I dunno what they were looking at but they drove me nuts 5am this morning barking at something out the window.
