Hangover after Friday Night's out...

First, it was a late dinner for Jo at Piccadilly's. Had a beer each before we headed over to Ipanema...

Opened up this Aussie wine - Brown Brothers *something* for RM104. Her pick, and it tasted pretty alright...


then came this ciggie girl selling this promotional Dunhill MY Mixture box set, whom Jo conveniently directed to me as she knew I would probably buy it... and yea I'm a sucker when it comes to girls promoting ciggies to me...


After we were done at Ipanema, it was only about 1230am, and not wanting to go home yet, we went to Junk Bar as she claimed that she still had an unfinished bottle of Glenmorangie Single Malt, and wanted to habiskan-nya before heading home.


There was only about 4 - 5 shots left of the bottle, and we mixed it with ice soda. was a bit tipsy already when we reached there, and by the time we were done, it was past 2am (I think) and I was seriously on the high side... was lucky that I still managed to drive home safety...

had a bad hangover headache during my sleep that night and luckily I wasn't feeling that much the effect the next day compared to her, who dragged me to go swimming just so that she could swim off the headache... ''-_____-

Note: despite knowing that one shouldn't take in beer, wine and liquor all in one night, sometimes you just ignore that fact, and ended up with a headache as big as the Airbus A380 the next morning...

Monster Tongue

It was lunch time, and Hedo suggested going over to this new place called Monster Tongue for for a change. It's next to KFC on Plaza Walk, and it used to be where Road House Grill was. The place was nicely done up, fully air-conditioned, and the best part is that smoking is allowed... perfect for the humid Friday afternoon...


comfortable sofa set at the corner...


nicely arranged... with a pool table at the side. We were the only customers that time, so I would suggest that the place probably gets its crowd during dinner time and happy hour time at nights...


Hedo ordered her Chicken Spaghetti. RM12


my Fried Seafood Noodle. RM5.50. the portion was generous, in fact the taste was also quite good and the price is very reasonable, considering the fact that the place is air-conditioned, and we didn't have to sweat all over having our lunch at the usual kopitiams.

also, I bought this new pair of FILA sandals during the lunch break at Tun Jugah as FILA was having their all-year-round stock clearance sale. The discount was as much as 70%, and I paid only RM50.70 for this pair.

:))))

house warming

was invited to my cousin's new house warming dinner last Sunday. went over with my parents. for Kuching standard, the house is located very far from downtown. I'm not sure of the location name, but the residential area is called Semamba Park. it took about 45 minutes to get there from my house, which is only 15 minutes from Kuching city centre, so if adding that up during a typical work day traffic jam... well, it's gonna be one hell of a bumper to bumper more-than-an-hour snail ride to get to work and to go home...


the house is a corner terrace, so it's quite big. RM300,000. plus extension of the kitchen area and some renovation work, an additional RM120,000. For me, IF I were to spend RM420,000 on a new house, I'd probably be able to get an intermediate terrace of similar size (without having the extension/renovation work) 20 minutes from the city center. I'd rather spend that range of money on a place closer to town than spending it like how my cousin & the husband did.


the food was served buffet style - got Pork leg, fried prawns, Kah-Chang-Mah, fried chicken, noodles, fried rice, fish fillet and mixed vege. there were more than enough food for everyone.

makan-ing @ Food Avenue (update)

went to Food Avenue to join Hedo and gang for supper after my badminton session last week. I had a light dinner before going for badminton, so I was very much starving when I reached there. ordered this:

Fish Fillet and Chicken Don. The price: RM11. Expensive huh?? well I totally agree with FH2o: Kuching Kayaking about the price of hawker food there. I'm not saying that the food sucks ok, in fact it was pretty good, but I would probably be paying less elsewhere for the same thing.

[UPDATE]:
went there for supper again after my badminton session yesterday... and ordered this:


Fried Pork and Chicken Don. RM8. I ordered the fried pork just to see how it tasted... and it's just normal... nothing much to shout about.

lousy food, kong'ed iPhone and over-kiasu Kuchingites...

Han was back in Kuching to attend a friend's wedding, so us old friends went to this new place called Asian Recipe for lunch last Sunday. I ordered the Penang Asam Laksa (picture), which I seriously regretted. It didn't suit the taste bud at all, and was too sour to my liking.

appearance wise, it looked pretty pathetic already, 5 seconds later, the taste confirmed the lousiness of the food... and they have the cheek to charge RM5.50 for this kindda crap...


fortunately, I enjoyed the dessert that Han bought from Taiwan - the famous 凤梨酥 that I mentioned about last month when my parents too brought some back from their Taiwan trip.


After the lunch, went over to Saberkas to try get Han's iPhone fixed. what happen was that the bugger, after getting the phone unlocked, went to upgrade the software, which caused the phone to kena locked again. Sommore he didn't bring back the data cable, so the guy at the phone shop couldn't do anything about it as there were no iPhone data cables around.

a note for all to-be/current iPhone users: If you wanna upgrade the software, do it before having it unlocked. once it's unlocked, you shouldn't upgrade the software as doing so will cause the phone to lock itself.

Lastly, I drove past The Spring during it's first day of operation (Thurday, January 10). The traffic jam was horrendous, as if the entire Kuching population was trying to squeeze into the mega mall. The newspaper reported that over 110,000 people went to The Spring on the opening day, and that was about 15% of Kuching's 700,000 population.

That building in the picture is only one of the two buildings connecting to each other... Look at them cars causing all the jams!! There are 3 entrances into the mega mall area, and all 3 roads were jammed up, causing residents around The Spring, typically those living in Kenyalang Park (including ME!!!) a hard time getting in and out of the area...

Verdict: Kuching people damn KIASU lar... I'll give The Spring until after Chinese New Year, then the volume of shoppers going there would probably be reduced to the state that I could park my cars sideways in the 1200 parking-lot basement without causing a hoo-haa...

new year, new phone...

it's all Jo's fault. Spending half a day at Saberkas accompanying her looking at new phones eventually made me succumb to the fact that my Sony Ericsson K800i is somewhat out-dated. Plus, having it hanged halfway through photo takings and web browsing a number of times recently got me into considering to change it while the trade-in value is still high.

two days later after Jo got her Nokia 7500 Prism, I got myself this:


The Nokia N95 Classic


I initially wanted to get the newer N95 with 8GB, but after weighing the pros and cons of both phones, I decided to go for the Classic instead.

Reason behind: the N95 8GB is running on hard disk, so if ter-drop the phone, habislah... Plus, the 8GB version does not come with extra memory slots while the classic can support till a max of 4GB micro SD. It makes transferring of data easier as I could buy a few 2GB or 4GB of microSD memory cards if needed, and make use of card readers rather than having to connect the N95 8GB to a computer/laptop through USB every time for data transfers.


gotten this i-Tech Clip II mini Bluetooth earpiece. it can connect to 2 different handphones at one time... neat stuff...


went out with Hedo and BF to McD downtown for some fatty food on a weekday night. they ran out of Beef Prosperity Burger, so I settled for the chicken burger...


this photo was taken using the N95. it takes pretty good macro shots... and I don't have much complain about it. I have yet to explore the GPS function of the N95... might need to do some read-ups at those forums to decide which software/maps is the more ideal ones.

Last Day of 2007

I was still on leave on December 31, 2007... so had brunch with Alex at this new road side kopitiam *forgot name* after the Simpang Tiga flyover. Ordered Kopi-Peng and this Otak-otak toast. Turned out pretty good for both my orders, and the place was quite cool due to the constant breeze...


Then at night, I kena "left aeroplane" (放飞机) by 3 parties of ppl who were telling me earlier that they wanted to go out to sort-of celebrate the 2008 countdown and asked me to join (I was wondering how am I suppose to show up at 3 different locations if I were to say OKAY to all the invites).

However, it turned out that Hedo can't make it early as she got dinner with family till late, Cow didn't call me *forgot what his reasonings were*, and Ah Nong ended up at DB (which I didn't wanna go) rather than the earlier said SOHO...

I actually decided to just stay home for the night and was watching some TV shows when Jo called, saying that her supposed party with her friends was postponed till later (what kindda party was that I dunno lah, as it was already 10pm+, and all party goers should have been out already). She asked me to hangout at FEVER because it was FEVER's last night operating at Jalan Bukit Mata Kucing as the taukeh - Willie is having it relocated to a to-be-announced location.

It started to rain after we reach FEVER, and then it turned into this downpour which didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. We were given free party packs each, thanks to Willie. Despite the rain, the atmosphere was good, and the live band at FEVER really had the crowd pumping and grooving to their music - both classic love songs and the newer raps. We had 2 beers each until it was almost 2008 when she needed to cabutz to Hilton's Senso while I joined Hedo and BF at the Majestic Cafe, Crown Plaza.


It was still raining like no tomorrow after midnight. We were hungry, so decided to go grab some food at those 24 hours kopitiams at Jalan Song. All the way from downtown, my car went through at least half a dozen flooded roads before reaching Jalan Song... imagine the volume of rain water that night...

Sat at the kopitiam until about 230am, watching them kopitiam workers playing street soccer in the rain with chairs lined up as goal posts while hoping for the rain to stop... but gave in to the idea and ran back to our cars and headed home for a good night's snooze...

a pretty filling dinner & a new phone

Jo's phone went 'konged during Christmas Eve, and even though it went somewhat working the next day, the pissed lady was determined to get the LG Chocolate out of her hands. Then, half a day of phone searching, surveying and comparing ensued at Saberkas before deciding to buy that Nokia 7500 Prism. To her, it's a phone that is: 'If you like it, you'll like it, and vice versa. To me, it looked ridiculously weird at first, but after a while, it actually looked quite appealing.


Price of the phone: RM660.
Trade in price for the LG Chocolate: RM220
damage to her wallet: RM440
Pretty good bargain huh??


went to Chef At Home at Hui Sing area for dinner after a late evening swim, we order quite heavy meals - a sirloin steak for her, a lamb steak for me, a caesar salad and drinks.


food came shortly, and again my mistake of forgetting to take photos but started to dig into them hungrily. the portion was very generous, and together with plenty of tabasco sauce, it was sumptuous indeed. only after we were filled to the brim that I realize my forgetfulness, so here you go - the aftermath shot...

the next big happening in Kuching...

This is probably old news, but I'm still gonna blog about it anyway. Yeaps, the much anticipated new shopping mall in Kuching - The Spring is gonna be opened to public tomorrow (Thursday) while today at 3pm, it will be officially launched by some invited big shot ministers...


took this photo at the road entrance to the shopping mall last night...


the other side of The Spring... There were many workers still loading up things into the building even though it was already past midnight by then.

Say hello to Factory Outlet Store, The Manhattan Fish Market, Quiksilver, Sushi King and many more... yea I know this sounded lame, but what to do?? we Kuchingites here do not have those luxury that West Malaysians have all this while when mega shopping malls are concerned... but it's all gonna change after today... hehehe...

PS: My house is just 15 minutes walk from The Spring... Bwuahhahahaha...

Hilton Premium Club

A college friend of mine referred me to the marketing people of Hilton, and I got a call from one of them Hilton marketing staffs offering me the Hilton Premium Club membership recently. After all the introduction and sales talk, the marketing guy managed to convince me to sign up for the membership for a year with an addition 2 months of extended membership thrown in. I was RM588 poorer after the phone call... yea I'm such a sucker for these kindda stuff at times...


I received the membership package, which has the membership card inside after about 5 working days. It's all good. I won't go into too much details on the benefits of having the card, but basically I get a free stay at any of the Hiltons in Asia Pacific (premium room), 50% discount on 6 stays at any Hiltons, 50% on food and beverages, executive floor upgrades, 10% discount on all published room rates at any one time and etc...


The membership card, along with the dozens of discount vouchers... I'd probably try to sell off the free stay as well as the 50% discounted room vouchers, and fully utilize the discounts for the F&B segment instead... so for the next 14 months ahead, the chances are high that you'll probably find me at the Waterfront Café, Steakhouse or Matang Terrace for the Japanese Buffet at Hilton Kuching...

Christmas Eve 2007...

it was about 9.30pm after the Christmas Eve wedding dinner, and everyone else, except me had got themselves pre-planned Christmas countdown events/parties to go to. I gave Jo a call, and to my surprise, she was pretty much free that night, and asked me to meet her up at FIRE, a new pub taking over the previous location of Oregano at Travillion as she was invited there by the owner@friend. I reached Travillion, and manage to find a car park in front of FIRE after what seemed like an eternity of queue up with so many cars wanting to get into that area.


The DJ area up on the wall in FIRE. The pub was entirely jam packed with party people, and it was pretty much difficult to move around. Music was too loud, and it was hard to even speak. The situation was made worst when it rained, and everyone tried squeezed in for shelter. We were there for about an hour plus before deciding to change to a quieter place for a drink as FIRE didn't seem to cut it. FEVER was another option, but then decided against it as when we drove pass Jalan Bukit Mata Kucing, the whole place was full of cars and it would be impossible to get parkings.


YN Cellar at Merdeka Palace was where we ended up at. good atmosphere, nice soft music, and most importantly, not much people there... only 2 table were occupied before we were seated.


ordered a bottle of wine...


RYMILL Coonawarra SHIRAZ was the name... and pretty good it was...


the wine was then poured into a decanter... it wasn't until almost 2am that we managed to finish it and headed back home. the rain was still pouring at that hour... but it didn't really deter them Kuching party goes as traffic was still pretty heavy downtown...

despite spending over RM200 for the wine (we shared the bill), I think it was money well spent rather than opening a bottle of *insert alcoholic drinks* at a noisy club/pub and got drunk in the end. All in all, it was a pretty memorable Christmas Eve nights out, especially with great company...

lame car show that I attended when I was on leave...

went over to this car show at RH Plaza, BDC when a friend after he told me that he read about it in the local newspaper. we were there after lunch, and it was somewhat a disappointment. there were only 2 rows of souped up super cars in two large canopies, and all were Japanese makes except for one...


an entire row of Subaru Imprezas...


the row of Imprezas shot from the other end...


a white Nissan Fairlady 350Z...


2 Skylines R34s, followed by 3 Lancer Evos and a Mini Cooper...

That's it... how pathetic I tell you, and it only took us less than 5 minutes to walk from one end and to the other end looking at them cars. Then we left for drinks elsewhere... sigh~~.... the organizers should try harder next time 'round...

two more weddings attended before 2007 ended...

I suppose it's the Christmas season lovey dovey mood that apparently led to a lot of couples deciding to tie the nod before 2008. The final two weddings that I attended to were of Thongs' on December 22 and Mok Vui & Patricia's on Christmas eve.


The biggest Christmas Tree in Kuching at The Travillion. Lotsa Kuchingites went there just to take photos of it...


thongs and the hubby exchanging their marriage vows on stage @ The Hilton Ballroom... glamor banyak...


Mok Vui & Patricia's wedding was held in this new *forgot name* restaurant at the Petanak area. the food served was seriously generous and good. It was sort of like a secondary school class reunion as we all get to sit together and update each other on things. Can u imagine I need to update 3 of their HP numbers in my phone database, and vice versa?? How time flies and things change...

anyway, more to come on the Christmas eve party, or should I say hangout...

tyre changed...

Just got back to work after taking 13 days off from December 20 till January 1. It has been one hell of a long break, which includes the Christmas eve and New Year eve celebrations.... *will blog about those soon*

Back to the topic:
After about 11 months of using the Michelin MXF Sports, I decided to get them changed as the two front ones are becoming botak, and that the rear right one has been giving out this strange noise due to the tyre surface becoming uneven.


off went the old set of Michelin MXF Sport... I'm so gonna miss those sexy treads...


up fitted the Dunlop Direzza DZ101 (tyre profile: 215/55/16). This set of 4 tyres are second hand ones, but still has about 70% tread left... the previous owner probably trade it in after upgrading his ride's rims and tyres. Cost me about RM400+ for all the tyres, which was pretty cheap because IF I were to get 4 new ones, it would cost me more than RM400 per piece - meaning I would be looking at a bill total of RM1600++ for the whole set. *gulp*

Then I went over to get the car alignment done. The total bill was an additional RM200+, inclusive of changing the chamber screws, rear (dunno what screws) as well as replacing some rubber stuffs to get the alignment at the front back to perfection.

Total damage to wallet: RM600+. However, I am very much satisfied after getting the tyres and the alignment finally fixed, despite some hiccups along the way, which I would blog separately.

Oregano Kuching moved....

Last week, I met up with Hedo and Thongs for a drink at Oregano, and it was then when I was told that Oregano, the one located at Travillion has moved to Central Road, behind Soon Onn Furniture. It wasn't difficult to find, and actually I think the place, despite being a bit secluded, it is pretty much a nice quiet place to hang out, have a drink or a bite compared to the previous location.








On a separate occasion, I attended another wedding dinner last Saturday (15/12), and that was already the THIRD wedding dinner in 2 months time, before that was Bui Siong's and my cousin's weddings. Yesterday (Saturday (22/12) was Thongs's wedding, and that was the FORTH wedding, with another one coming on Christmas eve (24/12) being the FIFTH wedding, and probably the last wedding that I'm attending in 2007.

Phew!!!... now you know why I'm so broke for the past 2 months??

different cigarettes...

For the past few weeks, I've tried different cigarettes, ranging from some Chinese Double Happiness, the new Dunhill My Mixture (green box) to the ones below:


one of my favorite cigarettes from the Land of the Rising Sun - 峰, Feng. It's something that I'd always buy from the duty free shops whenever I go traveling, or ask whoever going for holidays (and in this case, Hedo) to get it for me. Like always, it burns ever so smoothly, and the taste is just nice.


I bought another version of the Dunhill Mixture series at a nearby Petronas Kiosk, and this time I got the orange/brown version for RM12.50, just so that I could keep the box. It tasted somewhat like the previous green version, and can't really tell the difference lorr. The best comparison on the taste would be like the typical Dunhil Red.


Then, at the Petronas Kiosk, I saw another 4 more new packaging of Dunhil ciggies, each selling for RM9.20. I chose this Dunhill Fine Cut Lights, and according to the detailing at the back, it mentioned that this Fine Cut version is cut beyond the ordinary standards, into 46 cuts per inch, enhancing its smoothness. True enough, it was pretty good, better than that of the normal Dunhil Lights, and also it's longer in length. I'd probably go buy & try out the other 3 versions,... yea, I'm a sucker for nice ciggie boxes, and I'm so keeping them. :)