what an early saturday night i had yesterday. i hit the sack at 10.30p.m. and slept like a log till 8 this morning. what could make me so tired and exhausted on a saturday?
firstly, i woke up before 6.30 a.m. to make that trip back from tm to bidor. we had a compulsory in-house training course where all staff had to attend. it started at 8 and ended at noon. a hearty breakfast was provided...only hearty if you take nasi lemak. so it was not filling for me lah. will never like nasi lemak because of the smell of the coconut milk rice. i just can't bear with the smell. i only had 2 pieces of papadom (love them...and i always wonder why can't they fry more? do they always allocate only 1 piece for everyone?) a hard-boiled egg and chicken rendang. the rendang was yummy. gosh, i sounded like such a big eater.
next, it was off to ipoh. we had a function for the retirement of our vice P. his retirement would not come until 19 may but we had this function earlier. it was just a makan thingy we had at hotel excelsior. no big budget so that was how we ended at this pathetic basement function room of the hotel. i heard the food only cost rm18 per head but we paid rm25 because they provided us with a 'room' instead of being put at the common coffee house at the lobby.
but before things started at the hotel, we couldn't help making a detour to kinta city for some shopping first. u know lah women. i was on a quest to fill my tummy with desserts after the breakfast. so my mind had already settled on mcdonald cornetto's dessert sundae (strawberry- rm3.70) and big apple donut. yes, you can satisfy your craving for big apple now in ipoh at the newly renovated jj food court. sales was brisk but the queue was moving too slow. i got a chocoring donut (yummy choc)...aaahh...bliss. see the lady in black behind the counter? i think she is most likely the owner...but i had the urge to tell her to plesae wear a cap for hygiene purposes while serving the customer. so what if you are the boss? please adhere to the hygiene rules.
makan was scheduled from 3 to 6. the function officially started at 3.30. i wasn't hungry anymore so the later it started, the better. food? well, it was ok lah for the price we paid. buffet spread. we had assam laksa, ice kacang, fried cuttle fish, fried chicken, fried chicken balls, mee goreng mamak, fried rice, fried cucur, fried popiah, sandwiches, cakes, kuih, fruit rojak and coffee. as usual, i started with dessert. filled my bowl with jelly, cincau, kidney bean, cendol fruit cocktail and then only pilled on the shaved ice and finally gula melaka. my colleagues said the bowl of ice kacang looked disgusting with its mixture of unsightly colours but what the heck, my favourite toppings for ice kacang.
din try the laksa, but i had the fried noodles with chicken balls, fried chicken and fried cuttle fish. yummy. these were all i had.
many colleagues and ex-colleagues turned up, some with their spouses too but unfortunately, they were also some who din. i know some had valid reasons but the others not sure. so sad to see this happening. but all in all, it was a good first outing for us in ipoh. yes, the first one outside bidor.
the man we were celebrating. i still remembered the first time i met him. he was the one who went to pick us up when we went to report ourselves at the workplace. that was 7 years ago. he had with him a stern and unsmilling face. so deep down inside then, i was worried...would everyone be so serious and dull at the workplace? my fears were unfounded luckily, he was a really nice man with a good sense of humour. he is the role model for me and i do look up to him at the workplace despite some complaints once in a while. a responsible, dedicated, caring, approachable and friendly man, he is one everyone will speak with compliments.
i am going to miss him. i hope we won't be running like headless chickens without him. he and his wife are very hospitable too. once during the durian season, i saw him carrying a few durians into his car and i asked him if those were for us. it was meant to be a joke. then he spontaneously extended an invitation to me and a few other gals...us being the single and kuat makan ones to go to his house the same night and he would prepare a durian feast for us. he was serious with his invitation. so that night we brought ourselves to his house expecting durians but nooo....he had more durians, mangosteens and his wife even prepared fried meehoon for us. how we managed to fill everything in our stomaches, i could not remember, but it just showed us how good he was to his staff. he would always buy us chocolates everytime he went for courses in langkawi. once he went to london for a course and he did not come back empty handed. you know how expensive the exchange rate was lah. he got everyone (and he made sure that everyone got it) a key-chain of famous london landmarks. he had to get about 90 for all...so that must have been quite a bomb he spent on those key-chains. till today, this good deed is still talked about among colleagues. being half as good as he is will be more than enough for me. and i sincerely hope he will enjoy his retirement years. too bad the PM's announcement on the extension of retirement age to 58 did not come few months earlier.
the function was filled with speeches and lucky draws. there were 46 prizes to be given away and there were only about 70 of us. almost everyone had a chance. my housemate got the last give to be given away. this clay pot. and while she was busy taking photos after that of the function, we at the table wanted to play a trick on her.
we put in the pieces of cakes and cucur no one touched on the table into her pot hoping that she would discover them only at home. but our excitement only lasted for 3o mins. she decided to throw in her lucky draw number '16' into the pot as well just before we went back. sigh. plan tak jadi. in the end her pot was filled too, but with fried cuttle fish and fried chicken.
and i being one of the lucky ones as well, got my number (7) called out ...and i went back with two gifts. the food container (zirafah brand :P) was what i got. a colleague who wanted so much to get this food carrier was shouting saying what use i have for the carrier since i do not bring food to school since they know i havve my bread at home before i come. haha.a...nasib lah. and gift number 7 was given by a male colleague who already had it at home. he was the one in charge of buying all the lucky draw gifts. it is a toothpaste squeezer.
my carrier was filled with many pieces of fried chicken too. wei and jet had them back home.
so that was my saturday. reached home at about 9. had my bath, finished reading that day's papers and off to bed.
now it is almost lunch...will be meeting friends. so see you all.
i finished reading the bridges of madison county by robert james waller there while waiting for my 'entourage' to finish browsing their chinese books. it was by accident that i found the book but it was purely intentional when i decided to pick up the book and finish it there and then. one of the greatest love stories ever and the story still lingers with me. my only regret is i have to browse through the words on the pages quite fast and not have the time to let every word, every phrase and every quote sink in. this is one book i would like to read again in the comfort of my own room without any disturbance. the powerful love felt by the 2 characters really moved me and if i were not in a big exhibition hall, tears would have flowed for their story. actually tears welled in the eyes but din make it out of the eyes at the hall. this is one love story everyone should pick up and it is easy reading as well because it is less than 150 pages.
off to suria klcc after that. as busy as ever after office hours.
