If everyone is busy trying to safeguard their position (with all the murder, exorbitant car maintenance, corruption and sodomy accusations), who has actually got the time to run the country?
Malaysia’s gone to the dogs…
*sigh*
Food in Kuala Lumpur, especially near my work place which is just a stone’s throw away from Pavilion KL, is definitely not cheap. I can’t afford to eat at the food court in Pavilion KL everyday because a meal there can easily cost like rm8 (excluding drinks)! My budget for lunch is less than rm5 per day.
The closest vegetarian stall I can find is actually at the Wisma Genting hawker centre but I try to avoid going there because although it is a ‘hawker centre’, it is not cheap. A packet of rice with three vegetables can cost me rm5.50! I have asked the uncle before how he got rm5.50 and his reply was that it is based on portion I have taken, the type of vegetables (mock meat or real greens), etc… He also added the prices of vegetables goes up and down each day, so its hard to actually say how much each on costs!
Errrr… You think this meal is worth rm5.50?
Or what about this rm4.80 meal?
Nearby, there is a building called UOA (I think) with a food court. Again, it is not cheap… Rm5.50 for a plate of rice with just three vegetables… And no soup.
Luckily for me, a colleague of mine introduced me to this place called Chinese Village. It is about 5 minutes drive away but parking is free. Yes, it is FREE… Hard to believe but yes, parking is free for the first 90 minutes, if you are patron there.
You must be thinking… Food must be super expensive, right? Well, you’d be surprised to hear this… I’ve been there like more than 10 times now and I’m just paying rm3.30 for a plate of rice with three types of vegetables AND a bowl of soup. Yes, THREE RINGGIT AND THIRTY SEN. Tiga ringgit tiga puluh sen. In Kuala Lumpur.
Hard to believe this is only rm3.30, huh?
Chinese Village is actually a food court. So you can find lots of other types of food there. My colleagues who join me for lunch have remarked that the food there is good and more importantly, cheap!
While waiting for the Certificate of Fitness (CF), we have been looking around for a contractor to do up the grilles, kitchen cabinets, electrical wiring, etc… We have also been going around looking for lights, furniture, electrical items such a refrigerator and fans, etc…
For the first time in my life, I think I’m going to actually pay for grass! Not the one that is used to smoke, but the green thing that we see at the roadside, etc… I’m not too pleased with the cow grass and will probably look into planting pearl grass instead.
We have not decided on anything yet. We’re just looking around for the best price. We have been told that Puchong is a good place to source for lights, in particular, this place called Top Ten. As for electrical items, Puchong also comes up tops. But I’ve also been told there’s a shop in SS2 that is quite good (next to Murni).
See how it goes… Mega Sales is in August… 
Oh ya, CF is expected in the next 1-2 weeks. That’s when we can officially move in or start our renovation works. Yea!
When we collected the keys to our new home last month, we were given a set of house plan as well. With that, I downloaded Ikea’s Kitchen Planner and got busy. And a few weeks later, this is what I managed to come up with…
What do you all think?
A few weeks back, my brother suggested that the whole family go for a holiday… So, after taking into account the number of people, the budget he had and logistics (one uncle stays in Singapore), we ended up at… A Famosa Resort in Melaka.
It was a 2D/ 1N trip… In on Saturday and out on Sunday. We arrived at the resort around lunch time but since we could not check in first and we wanted to try the ‘local’ food, we headed to Melaka town. The drive took the makan place took us almost 40minutes! 
So it was lunch, sight-seeing, shopping and then dinner at Jonker Street/ Walk. We then quickly headed back to A Famosa as we wanted to catch the shows at Cowboy Town. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived, it was already almost the end of the show. We only got to watch the parade and then the fireworks.
We walked around the area… Its more like a funfair. You have your carnival games, a bowling alley, some trapeze thingy and bumper car (yeah!). We almost trashed the car. My bro and I would drive around the ‘ring’ first to gain speed and then go head-on… We could hear the metal crash against each other. We came out with aching backs… No kidding!
We had brought decks of cards… But dunno why… When we got back to the 4 room single storey bungalow, everyone was tired and just went to sleep. Next thing I knew… It was morning.
We then headed to Animal Safari for our breakfast. Nothing really great about dinner. You either choose porridge, nasi lemak + rendang chicken or western breakfast (egg + baked beans + sausage).
First thing we did after breakfast was rush over to watch the Elephant show. I have to say… I feel sorry for the elephants. *sigh* My aunt said she even saw an elephant shed tears… I mean, they were dancing and shaking their heads (looks as though they were on ecstasy) and being poked with what looked like quiet sharp objects. I guess they animals suffer because people like us continue to visit places like these… But the elephants were really great!
Then we went for the safari ride…
Lots of deers too… Not tiger food though
After that, I went to this chicken place… You see different types of chicken. I saw lots of cute chicks there too…
There’s actually lots of animals here and I have to say I enjoyed this place more than I did at the National Zoo. I went to the Zoo about 3 years back and don’t recall enjoying myself this much. But of course over here, I got lots of vegetarian kaki…
All in all, I think we all enjoyed ourselves. It was a well needed break for the family. But would we return? I don’t think so… Cause it just don’t have the pulling factor. I don’t see why I would wanna return to the cowboy town. The animal safari… I can always go to a pet shop… Or the Zoo. Still, its a nice place to go and relax if you’ve never been there. But make sure you go in a group. I don’t think you’ll really enjoy if you go alone or with just a friend.
Anwar Ibrahim has been arrested. Not that I’m a supporter or anything.
Of late, I find our local politics to be very ‘entertaining’.
I just hope he does not fall down the stairs or something and get a black eye…
I arrived 30 minutes late to office today… Not because I left my house late but because of the stupid road block by the police. I think it is becoming very annoying. Of late, every time there is a rumour of a protest, the police will start to block every road to the Kuala Lumpur. What the heck?!?
The cause of the long jam - police decided to have roadside picnic
I thought this is a scene of a war-torn country that I would only see on TV… You know, the scene where the soldiers carrying machine guns would block the roads… I guess Malaysia is reaching for new levels everyday. For the past few weeks, newspaper headlines have been explosive amazing! Accusations of bribery, conspiracy, murder, sodomy… I think X-Files can learn from us!
The thing is, I think the road block is actually meant to delay or prevent cars (especially the protesters) from entering the city. In that sense, the police are doing a good job! They almost managed to stop everyone from entering the city. I was supposed to have two meetings this morning and it ended up with one meeting postponed to the evening and the other one got canceled. Are the police trying to drive away investors as well? If they are, good job! Keep it up. Very soon, every investor will probably be looking at Thailand and Vietnam instead.
I have to also add… Those managing the ITIS (Integrated Traffic Information System) should really get a good grip of what’s happening…
The radio mentioned that the jam stretches all the way back to Klang… That’s definitely more than 1km! In fact, it’s more like 10km!
We were walking around at Subang Parade earlier this evening, looking for accessories to decorate our home, when we saw this…
Suddenly my heart just sank… I miss Seraphine.
I had dinner with my in-law’s place… And Mrs Tai followed me back home… Yea!!! Someone to pamper me…
I have been looking around for the Thai triangle cushion and have been asking family and friends visiting Thailand to keep an eye out for me. Latest was Sherman who was in Thailand for a short holiday just two weeks back.
Anyway, he was being extremely helpful to the point that he texted my just a few days ago to tell me that he saw this triangle cushion being sold here in Malaysia — Carrefour Subang.
So off I went this evening to Carrefour to check out the Thai triangle cushion and bring one home. At the same time, took my mum to my friend’s diner located close by (the e-Tiara Apartments). My friend owns and runs the diner — Ben and Nick’s Diner. They serve good Western food.
After dinner, we rushed to Carrefour, got the cushion and went back home… I was all excited about the Thai triangle cushion and the four new Wii games I had just bought earlier today. Mum was just as excited and curious about the Thia triangle cushion and pestered my to unpack it and try it out. I have tried out the Thai triangle cushion before at a friend’s place — that’s how I first found out about it. I find it very useful and plan to get a few of this for my new home. Mrs Tai and I will probably buy these Thai triangle cushions instead of sofa sets, provided they are really practical and useful. And that’s why I just got one first… To try it out.
After unpacking it, I rolled it all out and it becomes a bed!
This is really cool, huh?
Then it took me another 15 minutes to figure out how to turn it into a chair… Surprisingly, there are quite a number of combination and I recall getting it right after just the first few tries. Then I remember folding the cushion back into the storage position (all folded up) and then trying to unfold it back into the chair position… That’s when I realised it’s not as easy as it seems… You can tell I’ve never been good with Rubik’s cube…
But anyway, after 15 minutes, I finally got it…
We’re still testing out the Thai triangle cushion. Getting my family and friends to try it out over the next few weeks and see what is their feedback. If everything is OK and I don’t get any sore neck, I’m going back to Carrefour to get more of these Thai triangle cushions… If you wanna try out the cushion, do drop by my parent’s place…
And in case you are wondering, they cost rm69.90 each. Well… Since I can’t find it anywhere else at the moment, I think it’s a bargain.