2011

Overall, 2011 has been a good year for us.

We completed our new project in August 2011 and were very thankful that it went smoothly with only 1 minor setback.

Similar to last year, we did not venture out of Malaysia for the whole of 2011 as we just couldn't bear to be separated from our guppy fish and garden plants although I did spend the last week of the year away from them.

I met up with three of my ex-coursemates in Penang after having not seen them for 5 years and had a wonderful time. I am happy that they made time for me.

Goodbye 2011! Hello 2012! Happy New Year everyone!

Season's Greetings..

..from Penang. I will be spending the New Year in Penang at my brother's place. Just got here last night. Please recommend - any must-see places or must-eat food?

view from my room this morning

Snap away

I see Christmas decorations everywhere - so what else is there to do but to take lots of photos of the pretty displays. Here they are:

Pretty lights surrounding a lone snowman

Seashell angels 

Can you spot the Santa Claus?

Giant Toys

A white Christmas

What is a green rabbit doing here?

Christmas in a Castle

A Fun Fair

Giant Candy Canes

Where are Santa's reindeers?

A golden Christmas

An A-maze-ing Christmas

Lots of presents

Lovely Chandeliers

Tiny Christmas Trees

christmas wreath

A different kind of christmas tree?

An elegant Christmas tree

Alvin and the chipmunks

Santa and his reindeers

Stop at love

You can find love at this traffic light.

Tasty

When my family and I dine out, we make it a point to try different cuisines so a few days ago, we ended up 20km (about 13 miles) away from our home just to eat at this restaurant that serves Middle Eastern food.

Two of us ordered the set meal (a plate of Kabsa or Mandy rice with a piece of chicken, a bowl of vegetable soup and a glass of iced lime tea or syrup) priced at MYR9.90 nett.

A small pot of Arabic tea with mint (MYR6) and two glasses of iced lime tea.

Left: Special chili sauce. Right: Vegetable soup.

Left: Mandy chicken rice. Right: Mandy rice (MYR5)

Left: Kabsa chicken rice (the piece of chicken was hidden underneath all those rice).
Right: Madghoud Lamb rice (MYR 18).

Tagine Musaq'ah with lamb meat, fried eggplant and fragrant chili served with bread. (MYR 17)

All in all a delicious and satisfying meal. Not to mention affordable too (total bill for 4pax: MYR68.20)

PIP Joint

Two days ago, while I was sleeping, I could feel a throbbing pain in my index finger joint on my right hand and the pain woke me up. To be exact - it is the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint. Then the pain was gone but reappeared randomly on and off. Just that one joint and there is no swelling, no redness, no numbness and no stiffness.

Just forty and experiencing the onset of arthritis so soon?

Edible?

Look at what I found in my plant pot - yellow mushrooms!

Details about them (from searching the web):

Name: Lepiota lutea or Leucocoprinus birnbaumii
Edible: No, they are poisonous.
Precaution: Although the mushrooms do not harm the plant in the pot, if there is a danger of small children or pets eating them accidentally, they need to be removed from the pot.

As I have neither in my household, I let the yellow mushrooms be.

Maidstone 2001

Time to reminisce: Ten years ago (21-23 Sep 2001), my spouse attended a kick-off meeting held at the Mercure Maidstone Hotel and as usual I tagged along.

While he was having his meeting, I walked to the nearby Leeds Castle with two other ladies who also accompanied their partners to this meeting. We visited the lovely gardens, the maze, the grotto and had scones and cream for tea. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me at that time so I did not get to take any photos of the lovely place.

After the meeting, my spouse and I visited Canterbury and Dover before returning to Newbury.

Leeds Castle: dinner and drinks

Hotel activities: archery

Hotel activities: Clay pigeon shooting

Hotel activities: Air rifle shooting

The Canterbury Tales Visitor Attraction

The West Gate of Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral: Christ Church Gateway

The White Cliffs of Dover

Not too sweet

I love to eat ice cream, especially strawberry flavoured ones that are not too sweet with pieces of strawberries in them. Just bought two pints of this:

and ate a third of it in one sitting so they will only last me 3 days. Do you like to eat ice cream? Any recommendation?

Sunbathing

One sunny morning, I spotted three kittens enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Can you find them at a glance in the small photo below? If not, just click on the photo to get a better view and you'll see them.

On yet another sunny morning, there they are again. They really know how to enjoy life!

Hanoi 2008

Time to reminisce: Three years ago (25-28 Aug 2008), my spouse went on a business trip to Hanoi and as usual I tagged along. We stayed at the Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel.

Hanoi Opera House (next to it is the Hilton hotel)

After we checked into the hotel, we walked to a nearby cafe for lunch. I find it difficult to cross the roads in Hanoi as there are many road junctions without traffic lights and the local pedestrians just weave through the traffic confidently.

The cafe where we had our lunch

After lunch we walked to Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword). There were many people resting or exercising around the lake. We continued walking towards the Old Quarter and when we were there, we just walked a few streets before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

Turtle tower in the middle of the lake; Lovely big trees around the lake

We had dinner at Ba Mien Restaurant in the hotel before calling it a night.

Our meal at Ba Mien; The hotel room

Day 2-4: For the rest of the days that we were in Hanoi, I would accompany my spouse to his office where we would eat breakfast near his office and then he would go to work while I would walk back to the hotel which is located about 2km away. Then I would continue to explore the Old Quarter by foot with a map in hand. When it was about time for him to leave work, I would walk to his office to wait for him and then we would have dinner together before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

I walked past the St Joseph's Cathedral one day; The many motorcycles on the road

We ate at Quan An Ngon Restaurant many times as the restaurant is near his office and it serves a variety of traditional food of Vietnam.

Quan An Ngon Restaurant; One of the stalls

Alas, I can't remember any of the names of the dishes that we had.

Need to wrap the rolls ourselves;  Waiting for food

All in all it was a walking holiday for me as I did not buy any souvenirs nor did any shopping.

The many dishes we had at Quan An Ngon

Lived 14610 days

After reading so many blog posts about ladies turning 40 this year, finally it is my turn today. No celebration nor gifts for me because I am trying to live a low-keyed life. I just bought a slice of chocolate strawberry jam cake because at this age, one slice of cake is all that I can manage before feeling satiated (although I love to eat cakes). So here's wishing myself a Happy 40th Birthday!