wedding of the century??

how many of you became a royal coach potato like me yesterday?? raise your hand. ;)

well, for once in many months, i stayed in front of the tv for almost 5 hours watching prince william wed kate middleton and dreaming of walking through the streets of london come june. wooohoo!!! the coverage gave a good tour from all angles from the city to some of the must-visit sites. do i still need to go there? haha....well, i must go into Westminster abbey, that's for sure. i don't remember passing there before when i was there, so this is a must-visit this time around. and the interior was just awesome!

image from abc news

love love love the wedding gown and the tiara. everything was so subtle yet exuded class and glamour. love the neckline. it is a strapless gown and it is not with the lace covering. brilliant! conservative enough yet sexy at the same time. and of course, the bride was so pretty that she could pull off any gown thrown at her. they look so good together. and her radiant smile. makes me wanna go and bleach my teeth too ;)

the abbey was so colourful with all the invited guests turning up in their best frocks and hats! wow, the hats was a sight to behold. i had fun scrutinizing the different made and colours and designs that i almost fell dizzy.

but the best dressed in my opinion is none other than her majesty queen elizabeth. she won hands-down! she always looked so impeccable and right for the occasion. the colour suited her so much! way to go your majesty!

well, my time in front of the tv had to be cut short at 8p.m. because the kids had come but i was not going to miss the famous balcony scene, was i? so thank goodness for the wide media coverage on all platforms. i tuned to youtube on the notebook and voila, the scene from outside buckingham palace was beamed for all of us to watch. and everyone of us saw the kissing scenes, yes, it happened twice kan? mom stopped in her track to watch with us too. the tv at that time was controlled by granpa who could not miss his daily nightly news. aaaaaaa.....a flawless wedding.

it was a beautiful wedding don't you agree? the weather stayed cloudy the whole morning although rain was forecast. there was a short moment of sunlight too. made me can't wait to get there now. i just hope the weather will not be that chilly as what i saw on tv. saw almost everyone still in thick spring jackets and sweaters. that is the unpredictable british weather i guess. i will be closely watching the weather from now on.

i am going to be all summery and all dressy when i am in paris and london. i will bring all my dresses and shorts!! i don't care when my colleagues gave me strange looks when they heard that i am going to wear dresses this holiday! what is wrong with wearing dresses? they are just going to be in plain trousers and tees. no way!!! i will have fun dressing up instead!!! oooohhh, if only i can walk in flats and nice shoes too!
so i got this 'vintage' dress from the closet just to get that excitement of dressing up ;P
this dress is perfect! perfectly cut as if made for me! this actually was my aunt's and she wore it in her twenties. so it is definitely a vintage right?? i don't have to iron it and the green is so right for this colour-block season. the legging (the one above is from uniqlo) or a pair of hosiery is a must with the dress because it is oh-so-short!

hence, the search for hosiery brought me to asos.com, a uk based website which ships free worldwide regardless of how much you spend!!!! woohoo!! i have tried looking for bright hosiery when i went to ipoh last week, but all they had was black! urrgghh so dull!
yes, i have ordered the pair of hosiery in the picture above for 12 pounds. haha... i wonder if i will even get to wear it when i am in london. what if the heatwave decides to attack suddenly? then it will mean another pair of new hosiery waiting to be used in the wardrobe ;)

can you feel my excitement??? i am looking for more euros!! the exchange rate is not that favourable now. i wanna shop in paris! i dun wanna use my credit card because that would mean losing count of how much i am spending and that will be disastrous when i get back!

so is anyone coming back from europe and want to exchange euro to ringgit???? contact me!

a day of receiving

yesterday was a day where i received small tokens from people around me unexpectedly.

first, was a packet of soya milk from a kid i ordered to run some errands for me. haha..instead of me buying him a drink, he gave me a packet of drink instead.

then 5 mins later, another boy came to my table and just gave me a packet of oat krunch biscuit.

later in the evening, there i was sorting out all the photos we were going to send to be developed with a bunch of boys when one of them suggested buying drinks. so i took out a piece of rm10 note from the wallet but they pushed it back to me. they bought me a bottle of 100plus.

after we called it a day at work, i reached the house and the neighbours were outside their house chatting. one of them gave me a bunch of banana. yummy.

quin came bringing a bottle of herbal drink her mom boiled. she had a bad sore throat so when her mom made her the drink, she took another big bottle for me.

at night, there was a sudden electric shortage and off i went outside the house to chat with the neighbour again who had come out to get some fresh air. when she knew that i was down with flu, she said she had flu pill. so she sent them over to my place and that night, i took one and slept like a log till this morning. i miss sleep.


and this morning, well, no more runny nose but still feel sick. i wore my jacket the whole day at work. it was unzipping and zipping the jacket as i walked in and out of the classes. it was hot and cold the whole day....but don't worry, it was not fever.

will pop another pill tonight and keep my fingers crossed for the next day.

bitten

have been feeling sick since saturday. dunno why, the flu bug just attacked. at first i thought i was getting some kinda sugar rush after eating peanut butter with bread offered by my colleague as i felt my head getting dizzy in mid-morning. however, it did not feel like it after a while and i began to feel weak.
then as i drove home after work, it was so hard trying to concentrate and stay alert on the road. i was telling myself i could not fall asleep. the consequence would be bad!

and when i reached home, i started sneezing and that was when the flu came. it was not a very bad one, but it was irritating all the same. my condition has been the same since yesterday. i did not even get a good sleep because of this flu. so i guess it did not help me recover. no pill, i only took manukah honey (neat) and drink lots of water.

i have a slight headache now but i am keeping my fingers crossed that i will get a good night's rest today and wake up feeling better.

to another matter now. a relative of grandma came to visit today and when they were talking about somebody's marriage, the focus turned to me pulak. why lah must the relative bring me into the conversation? i think you can guess what the question was: "when are you getting married?? do it before i die so i can attend it." i only smiled and said nothing because the question was asked in hokkien and it would be awkward for me to answer in cantonese or mandarin.

haiz....was she so desperate to attend my wedding?

and mom did not make it any better when she said that i have my eye high on my forehead. i hate it everytime people make this remark. i also dunno if i have but then again, what is so bad about having expectation? but serious..i really dunno when i am getting married or how i am getting married. i know i am not as desperate as those people who wanna see me get hitched.
but i do believe the society is changing now and a woman can now live without a man. we are independent and happy as we are.

oh, moving to another matter now. i remember a few pigs i met few days ago at a district event. i was surfing the internet when the debate competition was having a break. yup, remember those fb photos i posted?? that was me having fun during the break.
there were a few senior administrators from the religious school in the room with us eating the food prepared. and when these people saw me in front of my notebook, they asked if i was looking for 'CSL'? my friend and i did not know what is CSL but they kept saying i was looking for CSL.
only at the end of the day, we knew CSL=chua soi lek. damn i was pissed when i knew. their question and remarks were deragatory don't you think? does surfing the internet = looking for porno? i think in their case, it might be so. i should have shot them back with- "so were you always looking for AI when you were surfing?" no use talking to such pigs.

i better take a rest now. it is going to be another long week with endless activities from monday to friday. get well soon to myself and to those who are bitten by the flu bug too. take care.

a makan good friday

food.....today it is all about food. been a while. and i thought i had lost a few pounds after a good 4km jog yesterday alone accompanied by my mp3 player. sigh...i put on more than i lost, that is for sure.

but back to jogging first, i will have to brave myself more often to go jogging alone. the boys all screamed ,"NO, don't go alone! it is so dangerous!". but those i usually go with are usually not free nowadays and it is difficult to find new kakis to go. hence, the mp3 will be my companion and i have to be disciplined and quickly finish the run.

ok, let's recount what i had today since morning.

breakfast: usual lah, apple and fitline's basics drink.

then carmen put a box of salad on my table. gosh, i was very hungry this morning by 8.30a.m. but the thought of eating cold salad when i was starving was just not apetising enough. so i went down to the canteen and ordered myself a bowl of piping hot curry noodles. aaaaaah....i din care that i have a small ulcer in the mouth, the bowl of curry was damn good!!!

so the salad was kept for lunch.

reached ipoh at 3 plus and went to buy ticket at the cinema. i wanted to watch justin bieber's never say never. serious! i really want to watch that movie. i am curious. don't worry, i am not a fan. however, they only have it in 3D and the ticket is rm20. no way! so i guess my brother will have to download the movie for me. ;) thank you

image from:flicksandbits.com
this is the movie we watched. a dark adaptation of the fairy tale. not bad. i like the soundtrack. i will give it 3/5.

it was time to cari makan in ipoh after that. was craving for lamb chop. must be those examples of food i told the kids to write in essays and lamb chop was one everyone mentioned! haha....i could feel the meat and sauce in my mouth these few days.

so off we went searching for restaurants serving good chops and steaks. got a few recommendations. in the end, we drove to sunway city. passed by this huge limestone hill. it is the one backing tambun lost world and the haven, an expensive and expansive condominium project in ipoh.

so at last we chose this: italia mia at sunway city. look at my car ....so clean after sending it for a wash at jusco car wash. i admit- i am lazy to wash car. the tyre rims were previously covered with a thick layer of grease and dirt......haha..now it is all silverish again.

the simple interior of the restaurant. we were the first to arrive at 7.30p.m. the owner, an italian served us. read this : http://www.j2kfm.com/ipoh-italian-food-italia-mia-ristorante-sunway-city-tambun/ and that is how i get to know a little bit more about the restaurant.

there was no lamb chop on the menu, booohooohoo, they only had rack of lambs. so disappointed. in the end, these are the things we had.
bruschetta. very expensive at 19++ my comments are not as kind as the blog given above. i find the food here only so-so. it was lacking an oooomppph.....it was just mediocre to me and i feel the prices are slightly on the overpriced side.

spaghetti with bacon and anchovies and dunno what. the name is in italian so can't really remember.

pork fillet.

i ordered pork chop. this is better than the fillet because the taste is heavier. but it was nothing special. rm39.

tiramisu for dessert-rm19.95. it is not that bad. not too heavy and just fluffy enough. i don't mind another piece.

our meal came to rm185. we did not order any drink. only had 2 glasses of warm water and an earl grey.

the area is quite quiet and by the time we left at 8.30, around 15 other customers were there. it is closed at 10p.m.

maybe i should try the chicken dishes instead next time like what the blogger, motormouth had. but i doubt i would return. i wanna try other restaurants in ipoh pulak. indulgence is a better experience to me.

from correction fluid, we now have correction tape. and the latest to be introduced in the market is glue roller. how convenient and clean. i love it. no more wet paper and fingers.

a small sharpener for my own use. i love sharpening pencils haha! was hoping to get them in lucky draws, but had no such luck. so i have to fork out my own money in the end lah.

short break on pangkor island

bestnye- got to travel for free for 3 days last weekend to pangkor island. i think the last time i stepped foot on the island was in a secondary school's trip. and then no more.

80 kids went with us, 10 adults. so imagine our group. we went in 2 buses. departed at 11a.m. from bidor. the sole reason for the camp- to toughen them and build characters. yup, they were going to sleep in tents, but not me. phew!

arrived in lumut just as it was starting to rain. but the boat ride to the island had to wait for, it was time to fill the stomach first. almost everyone went to kfc. that was the thing that caught their attention as the buses reached the jetty.

and so we became luggage keepers while waiting for our take-away to come back. the queue was horrendous and some even waited for almost 30 minutes. poor thing.

arrived on pangkor at 3 plus. i had no recollection of what pangkor looked like previously, so it was a surprise to see the jetty so new. but don't look into the water around the area. rubbish is floating and bits and pieces of whatever you can make out is around the pier. we even saw a bloated bolster!

the white ones are ambulance ships to transfer chronic patients to the hospital in manjung. well, i did pay a visit to pangkor hospital. more to that later.

the antique school bus which transported us from the jetty to the campsite at pasir bogak. man, everyone was awed that such vehicle still exists.
time to set up camp. all d-i-y. but the tents nowadays are easier to put up. just make sure the rods go into the right whole and they click, then u are done. the weather was rather cloudy the 3 days we were there, so it was really a blessing.
however, it was the 13th day in the chinese lunar calendar, hence it was full moons three days in a row and that meant 3 hot days with minimal breeze.
those kids complained that they went to sleep soaking wet in their own sweat and woke up drenched in it. i told them, you did not pay for 5-star accomodation and the weather was not within our control. such whinies.


my accomodation for the weekend...err no....only for 1 night. it looks cosy huh? NOT! it was not well-maintained and we found 3 nests of ants at three different corners. eeeewwww....the campsite only had limited insect repellant. so it was the broom that swept all the ants out of the room. i brought my own pillow, bedsheet and sleeping bag. kiasu mah. they provided bedsheet but i still put another layer. haha.....luckily the room is air-conditioned. but the others who came without a pillow complained of cold. i would suffocate if the airconditioner was switched off. imagine putting 10 ladies in the room and switching off the air-conditioner. oh, another school joined us.

one of the activities you can do, but we did not climb the walls.

after the tents were set up and we settled in our room, we were brought to a hanging bridge outside the camp.
saw many hornbills along the way. this was feeding itself on rice lft by the locals on a pillar.

my favourite photo. the kids asked me- patung ah? when they saw the pic. the hornbill was just perching there, not moving and i had the dslr with me. brilliant i think.

some seafood restaurants at pasir bogak. i had supper here of fried mee sua. pangkor's mee sua is thicker than sitiawan's and it is yummy.

i think this is the poshest hotel here. perak's menteri besar had a function here the next day. i heard this hotel belongs to an ex-politician.

the destination for our hanging bridge walk.



well, it is just a short bridge.

aahh..the beautiful sunset. we strolled along the beach to get back to the campsite. the campsite is just located next to the beach, but we did not allow the kids to leave the camp unsupervised of course.

the next morning, all the monkeys seemed to have been informed of our arrival that they came to pay a visit. you have to see them to believe what they are capable of performing. if you have food in your tent, say goodbye to them. these monkeys know how to unzip tents and zip them back after finding what they want. they only leave a mess inside. gosh, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner were missing. food of course lah. so keeping food in the tent is definitely a No No.

my combat gear for the 90-min jungle trekking. pants in the socks, applied medicated oil on the legs, socks and shoes, and the arms and the neck. then i was ready. ;P no leech attack for sure.

off everyone went.

trying my hand at some micro-photography. well, just point and shoot only lah because i really dunno all the more advanced functions in the dslr camera.


a leech finally, not on my palm. this just dropped in and had not made any hole in the finger yet. so a little sprinkle of salt and off it disappeared. if there is no salt, try using your saliva or last resort- urine.

we exited to the beach from the jungle.
look carefully and you can see chalets on water. see them? that is pangkor laut resort. so near, yet so far.

attempt to capture wave breaking at the shore.

there was no crowd at this side of the beach in the morning. people only came out later in the noon, but the tide rose very fast when noon approached, so this part of the beach was really quiet.

the kids cooking.

and this is what they made- onde-onde. i only like them with a lot of gula melaka inside. unfortunately, the kids' onde-onde are very crunchy instead: with grains of sand!!! everyone ran to me asking me to try theirs. i stopped after 3 because i could not take in any more sand!

a dead jelly fish washed ashore. i saw quite a few in the water. that is why it is advised to enter water not in shorts.

aaahh......the kids were cooking, i was enjoying the cloudy day and breeze. this is life!

at noon, we had flying-fox. the tower was about 3-storey high and it was quiet scary when you first accelerate down the line. or maybe because i am a coward.

last activity before twilight, kayaking and water confidence. ok, this was taken a few seconds before the wave hit my kayak and i tumbled out. hehe....no photo. i left the photography duty to someone else who is scared of water.

in the evening, 3 other friends and i rented motorbikes to go sight-seeing.


can you guess the name of the petrol station? there is still such petrol station in malaysia huh. well, i think this is shell.

well, we did not get far on the island because we went back to the jetty and stopped at a shop selling local seafood products. apa lagi, shop lah!!! we were worried that we would have no time to shop the next day. hehe...typical kiasu syndrome. anchovies, fish maw, dried squid, satay fish, fish cracker, etc......so many varieties of each kind to choose from. pening!

we returned to the campsite at 8 plus and that was when we were told one of the girls had very high fever. a car was on its way to fetch her to the hospital and i went along. another girl with mild fever also followed. gosh. how a serene evening could just change in a few seconds.

well, told you i was going to sleep in the dorm for one night. this was my bed on the second night. the girl was admitted because her temperature reached 40 C!!! the other one with the milder fever only reached 38 C and she also wanted to stay in the hospital. apalah!!! the doctor only admitted one but 3 ended up staying in the small ward with only 4 beds.

the girl was put on 3 packs of drip- sodiom chloride and she was improving as soon as the first pack reached half. phew!

only returned to the camp the next morning and all our things were already packed by then. hehe....no packing to do!

finished the closing ceremony and brunch, it was back to the jetty. but before boarding the boat, we let the kids loose to do some shopping.





the shop where we shopped.

together for the camera! everyone satisfied with their purchase and making the till ring.

all in all, it was a good break, despite having to spend one night at the hospital. i missed the night walk but it was ok. felt so tired on sunday night but after a good night's sleep. i was rejuvenated.
i will definitely go again if there is another time.