Quarter Life Crisis

It is past 12 midnight.

I can officially declare that I am having a Quarter life crisis. :( ... although this is assuming that i am going to live to 100 years old. (Judging by my eating habits ... maybe not).

Well ... have been wallowing for the past two weeks. Is it in anticipation for this day? The realisation that time is passing again and I am standing still ... *sigh*.

I need a compass...

Trip to Algeria

Finally blogging about the algeria trip in OCt ...


Had a rather long stopover in paris .. because was not allowed to go into the business lounge with Mr T, i had to rough it out in the cafe myself for (i think) 5 hours. There was cigerette smoke everywhere. And the sad thing is, I only had work with me :( So i did my work ... and was actually able to puzzle out the whole thing and produced a powerpoint presentation at the end of it. Good on me!! haha.


Then to Algeria. There was nothing there ... or rather i could nto venture out cos i was with *ahem* someone elderly and not very adventureous. Well .. at least on the last day of meeting we were ferried around the town area. It looked nice and interesting. I had many issues on this trip. It was Ramadan so many of the restaurants were closed during the day. And it did not help that I was in a hotel that was about 1/2 hour away from the city. Also, it was french or arabic speaking so English will not get you far.


But one thing i saw was that at least it was not the usual desert and white buildings. I find those rather depressing. There was a nice garden beside our hotel but it was closed for renovation so all i got was this picture.

Banana Crumb Muffin

Hi Mr Anus,

I have made my banana crumb muffin. It has had rave reviews although some have said that they liked my apple cinnamon muffins better ("but next time, hold the burnt bits and the overcooked top" :). Some have also mentioned that it is a little salty.

Too bad you could not try this one. Next time then. .. hee.
website
And for those that are interested, here is the recipe from the allrecipe.com website.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

My Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I have been looking for a muffin tray for a long time. Cos I am not sure whether I will continue to make muffins after the first try, I wanted to get a cheap muffin tray. Got one from some dept store in chinatown for $5. What a steal!!

Anyway made my first muffins - Apple Cinnamon muffins. (See pix).
According to pp in office and home, it is not bad .. some even ventured a "good". I find it so fulfilling to cook / bake!

The recipe if you are interested:
3 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups finely chopped tart apples

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix together.
3. Add all remaining ingredients and stir until flour mixture is moistened.
4. Spoon batter into 2 greased or paper-lined 12-cup muffin pans.
5. Bake at 375 for 19-23 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Back from Algeria + Paris

I know it has been a long time ... i have been busy (*ahem* lazy). Hee!! Well now that i have been on a trip i thought that it would be requisite for me to post something about it and put up some photos for the pp that are reading this blog (I highly doubt that though). haha.

So once i got the photos to my comp, I will blog about it. Till then. .. hopefully it will not be two weeks from now.

K800i

i finally got it after two weeks of agonising :) .. so far, it has been fun using the camera. Fun thing is that i can take a photo and blog it immediately. Havent used it yet though. More photos from the phone later.

Wondering about the urinal

Things i have always wondered about urinals:
- why the urinals have a big "TOTO" on top of them? It is prob the brand of the urinal but goodness, it is so strange to be peeing into Dorothy's dog (from Wizard of Oz). ladies, you have to see it to believe it. Maybe one day you should just sneak into the male toilet, esp the one on 23rd floor ;)
- why pp in the toilet (male) never stand side by side in the urinal? When there is 3 urinals and two males, both would split up and go to the urinal 1 and 3. Urinal 2 is left empty. [One time i went in and there was 2 pp already at the urinal. Urinal 2 was empty so I slotted myself in and then persons using Urinal 1 and 3 starting talking over me. Most strange experience.]
- pp tend to look down when they pee? Like they would aim wrongly even though the urinal is such a giant mouth.
- {this is not about urinals but closely related} women can do the hovering thing on the toilet bowl .. (all the better to avoid touching the seat .. can't imagine? Go ask your friends). They must all have strong abdominal / gluteus / hamstring / thigh muscles. It is akin to doing the horse stance ('ma bu') for at least 1 min. Amazing :P

Finally ... i have managed to change my template.

it has been a struggle but i have finally tweaked my template and got it to work with the blogger system .. yippee. I think that this new template is nice :P comments?

my Virgin DQP with cheese

I finally got off my ass to transfer the remaining photos of the peru trip. Actually these are the few photos that i took after returning from machu Picchu. The most exciting one is actually a photo of a Double Quarter Pounder (DQP) with cheese. WTF ... you would say. Well, let me tell you.

Long long time ago, when i was in sec school, my indian friend Mr N Swami. told me about the greatness of a DQP with cheese. "Did you know that Singapore used to have a DQP with cheese but it was taken off the menu of Macca's because it was toooo unhealthy?" But apparently Mr S has tasted this ambrosia in the States and he swears that it is soo good. So because I have never went to a country with a macca's selling a DQP with cheese, I have never tasted one. Then when the Macca's here put the DQP with cheese, Mr S commented that it was not the same, it cannot compare... it is NOT REALLY A HALF POUND burger (for those mathetically challenged -- 2 quarter pounds makes half a pound).


Then when i stopped over in LAX, I told myself I had to have one DQP with cheese. I begged money (becuase i have spent all my USD) from Ms L and then went to buy the burger. Please note that this was BEFORE i suffered my traumatic food poisioning experience on the way from LAX to SG. And NO it is not due to the burger. .. or at least i dont think so. I distinctly remember that I vomitted the soba .. which was something that I ate AFTER the burger. Unless of course the burger caused the food poisoning and then it was down hill from there?

I have to tell Mr S that the burger was good .. succulent and definitely seemed tastier than those you find in SG. Of course this could be the hunger talking .. well i finally tasted it. ... Mr S will be so proud of me!!

Addendum to "drool???"

Sorry if I have been absent minded .. but I can also 3G with dad, mum and of course Mr Anus too :)

Drool???

In yet another attempt to agonise about buying this phone ...

It is actually a beautiful phone with all the bells and whistles ... the fantastic camera at the back (I am still wondering whether I really need a 3.2 mp camera, or whether I will even use it in the first place ... but then I can be a japanese tourist sometimes) ... and the 3G function (who am i going to 3G with .. C-kun? Ms J?.) What i want in the phone is the mp3 function so that i can zone out on the way to and fro office. So nice just to have some peace and quiet.

I think i shouldn't have asked Ms Y to go phone buying with me. I was so settled on the w700 phone .. the bling bling titanium gold walkman phone but then she comes along and says the k800 is so nice, so new, so ...

I will wait till this sat to see what other offers i can find ...

A day of Thai, Arab, Malay food

Went to golden mile for lunch today with OY and JC. Amazingly, it took my foreign friend to point out how wonderful the Thai food in golden mile is. Cheap and authentic. yummy ... We had seafood tom yum, beans with pork, Kai lan with roast pork, and beef noodle, rice and drinks for only $26. CHEAP!! But the place really is dodgy and i cannot forget the toilet that i went to when i was there a few months ago (read the entry on KL trip). Later we went to Arab street to have a middle easter dessert. It was only so so though, nothing special. Dont want to waste time blogging about it.



Then for dinner, met up with WF and WX for nasi Lemak. Well, i was the only one that bother to queue for the nasi lemak. I have photos :) It took me about 15 mins to get the rice. And then they did not have the "full house". Only the chicken meal. :(



The rice was yummy - they used basmati rice to make the nasi and the chicken was freshly fried, ohhh the oil. And the chilli was good - sweet and spicy but not too spicy. And of course, my fav, the ikan bilis, was so delicate and freshly fried. I think cos they have such a large clientele the store can afford to just keep frying and frying to have fresh supplies of ikan bilis and chicken. But truth be told, once i had it, i thought that i wont bother queueing up again for the nasi lemak. Unless someone is going to queue for me. :)

Anyone??

What do you want to be when you grow up ....

I hate it when i have to think about the future. It seems to be happening more often now. It doesnt help that there is always someone that is asking you "what do you want to do with your life"? It makes me questions whether i am really happy. ...

Photos from Peru ... finally

after much procrastination and delay ... I attribute it ALL to work, here are the photos of my work trip to peru.

Downtown lima
click here to view the slideshow

Cusco and Machu Picchu
click here to view the slideshow

Because i have taken over 600+ shots and am still waiting for more from other pp.. I did not upload all my photos. So too bad for those pp who dont know me or have no access to my laptops. haha ...

Back from Peru ....

I am finally back from my trip to Peru ... The funny thing is that i was fine throughout the trip but then when i boarded the plane, i started to have diarrhoe and nausea. And then when i got back home, I had to worst case of Jet lag.

But it was WORTH IT :D

Peru is so freaking Fun ... some many things to do and see and BUY... hehe

I will blog later with more photos. They are all currently residing in the office lappy.

Next week ... Jakarta :P

KL - the rest of the trip.

Okay .. nothing much happend after the drama of the first night.

we did however arrive at 6 am in KL bus station (pudu raya) and since both of us are so gundu and have not been to KL alone before, we had no idea where to go at that time. We were faced with a choice of three roads - only on the second day did i know where the three roads led to: 1. chinatown area, 2. the HOTEL, 3. train station. We chose the train station and decided that it is early so we could go and queue up for the tix to visit the skybridge at KLCC. I can now say that i have walked around KLCC at 6.20 am - no one was there or at least we thought so. We saw a signboard telling us the opening time for the skybridge (8.30 am) and there was no one at the queue so we went to have breaky.

Breakfast - the indian waiter preson only understood Malay so WF went safe and chose the nasi lemak that was on the table, those packet ones wrapped in banana leaf. Me being the brave and intrepid advanturer (well .. not really :) chose to have roti prata. BUT in malaysia, it is Roti Chennai and not prata. The waiter tried to ask if it was roti and with planta (which i guess sounds like PRATA but) or kaya. I thought that he meant Roti (as in toasted bread) so i chose kaya. What came out was roti prata (chennai) with KAYA. yummmm o_o ... but then it tasted not bad .. kinda like roti prata with sugar.

we madea pit stop to the toilets .. and we chose to use Mandarin's toilet. :) FYI their toilets are nice. If you are ever caught out in KLCC area with no place to go, visit Mandarin's toilets and there are sofas outside for you to rest/sleep/chat. Pretend that you belong and noone will come and bother you.. hehe

Skybridge - opening time was 8.30 an we arrived at 8.20 and saw no queue. We thought "great .. we are the first". Then i noticed that there was a map .. "You are HERE .. QUEUE up HERE (as in go left. then right, then down the escalator)" and what do you see... at least 60 pp in the Q already. BUT we were lucky when we reached the counter, someone gave up their tix and we were able to get the 9.15 am tix. BEWARE - there is a very LAME video at the holding area where they tell you that the twin towers is the first kind of project in malaysia. DUH ... WHERE ELSE WOULD IT BE?? PENANG? JOHORE? MALACCA? .. please...

We were able to finish up the skybridge walk and then the shops open. We walked till 12 plus and decided that we should go to the hotel. We walked out and there were LOTS of touters which got us irritated. We thought we should just take the monorail as it was near our hotel. We asked 'information" where it was and we followed the directions and walked to the station.

We wlkaed and walked and walked ... and walked .. but there was not station in sight. Then i saw that we were reaching bukit bintang and then we reached the area where our hotel is. We stupidly walked all the way to the hotel... my feet hurt but then now i KNOW where the bukit nanas monorail station is (exit the KLCC where the office lobby is and walk towards the open university building and then follow the road to the left. :) Lesson learnt!!

Nothing else stupid happened. Just that we were able to shop (i bought a few shirts/t-shirts, ties, and a cufflinks) and we ate a lot.

we got back at 11.45 pm sunday evening and then i went red-eyed and zombie-fied to work the next day. At least it was fun :)

KL Trip - first night and we are not even there yet

As some pp may know, i recently went to KL but i decided that i should go there and fully enjoy myself and stuff myself silly with the food and shopping :P .. so off i went with WF over the weekend.

The drama started in tryign to book the ticket. Being the DIY (anti-tour group) person, I thought i will book the hotel and bus separately instead of going to get those package. I went to Transnasional to get the bus tix - it was painful to get the tix as there was some prob with their system (more on this later) and also they do NOT accept credit cards or Netts (and the only atm was 10 mins away .. arghh).

So on the day of the bus to KL, WF and I rushed down to the bus depot to catch the 10 pm bus. We reached at 9.45 .. thinking that we were on time (or even early), contgratulating ourselves that we were on time and saying that we were going to sleep thoughout the trip to KL. BUT .... (dum dee dum dum ... this is the part where there is a flashback to the scene where there was a system error on their comp when issuing the tix) ... there was ANOTHER TWO PP BOOKED ON OUR SEATS!!! We stood in the bus while the bus driver (who cannot speak a word of english) go and check on the status of our seats. The tix seller basically told us that we cannot take the bus cos there was only one seat remaining and she will refund us the tix. I thought of cancelling the trip altogether and demanding that the bus coy also pay for our hotel (yes HH ... i did think of that :) ) BUT she offer to book us on the morning bus ride which would get us into KL at 1 pm, which is not good as we will waste half a day.

SO .. ala amazing race ... we had to rush to golden mile but the taxis were not picking us up. I suspect that they were all rushing to city hall area cos they will be able to get city charges and booking fees (BOO!! to all the taxi drivers that refused to pick us up). Luckily I went up an SBS bus and the driver told us his bus does go to golden mile. Even better .. there was a nice lady on the bus that gave us directions and said she will press the button for us when the bus stop comes.

We reached golden mile and went door to door asking if there was a bus going to KL. This was already 10.30 and the last bus have already left at 10.30 pm. The only other place was this travel agent that had a 12 midnight bus. We went there and we told that there was only two seats left but one of them was on hold by someone. We had to wait. Only at 11.15 were we told that the seats were available and we relaxed enough to go to toilet (BTW the toilets in golden mile are FILTHY, DISGUSTING AND CROCROACH INFESTED... DO NOT GO THERE!!).

No more dramas that night. ... the bus came and we went on it to KL.

If you like danae and lucy...

Go read this collection of comics of them ... hilarious. Just LOVE danae!!

Congratualtion Mr Chiam

You are an institution. :)

Would vote for you if i was still in Potong Pasir.

More pictures from Oman

These are pictures that you would not normally associate with a desert country :)

- nightscape when we were having dinner.

- this is their fantastic Al-Bhustan hotel. 6-star ... very chi-chi. Felt like as though we were in some kind of Arabian jewel box.

- another photo of us in front of Al-Bhustan

- the tunnel through the hill and shangri la was on the other side of it.



- the BEACH at Shangri la. It was an amazing view and there were a lot of caucasians sun-bathing themselves till lobster-red. Found out there that Oman is a popular beach vacation spot for Europeans.