Continuous Sun for 36 hrs!

It is said that on the 17th of October, the sun will rise continuously for 36 hrs (a day and a half). Therefore, countries like the US will be in the dark for the same period of time.

This will mean that 3 days will now be combined into 2 big days! And they say this happens only once in 2400 years! How interesting!

Should this happen, aren't we lucky to witness it? Share this historic moment and information with your friends ... but if it does not happen on 17th October, please dont blame me yeah? I am also waiting to see if its true *smile*.

Double Turn Monster!

Read about Sasha's recent bundle of joy which she just realised had a double turn. When I read it, I could not help "sympatise" with her a little cos I have my very own "double turn monster" at home!











Remember those old folk tales that say that those born with a double turn are very very mischievous and quite a handful to manage? Well, how true!
Mine is such an hyper-active kid (see how large & prominent his double turn is!) and bad-tempered at times that it has even made me decide that one will be enough for me! No second baby although I long for a girl. Yes, its that serious!

Of course not all babies are that difficult to handle, but for me, having limited domestic support, I think one will be enough for me.

The Balloon Man!

Went to Ikea over the weekend and while on the way there through Ikano Power Centre, notice this gentleman who has a stall selling very creative hand-shaped animal balloon!


He can shape balloons into all kinds of animals like a Daffy Duck or the Pink Panther! He also shapes them into bicycles, sword, flowers and even into our national flower, the Bunga Raya! Cool eh? And he does it within seconds!

Should you wish to plan a birthday party for your little one, I guess this guy here can do wonders for the kids on their special day! You can find his contact at his stall.

Recycling Cartridges

Do any of you recycle your toner cartridges? I mean not recycle them yourself but sell the cartridges to the recycling companies?

Well I do. At least I know I am doing something good to the environment and not contributing to the already very rapidly growing rate of wastages be it in this country or around the world.

But these company pay you pennies while when they recycle and sell, they sell it for hundreds of ringgit! They are never willing to offer a better price although I tried to bargain for more, but on the other hand, its better than nothing.

Asian Food Channel

May I ask what is your favourite channel on TV?

Previously, I would only turn to the sports channels on Astro like 811 or 812 right up to 815 but for the past year, 703 is my favourite!

The Asian Food Channel is a pretty good source for all your cooking, baking and food needs. It consist of both local and foreign cooks with tonnes of recipes and tips for viewers.

My currant favourite is of course "Sugar", by pastry chef, Anna Olson. She makes baking look ridiculously easy and what I admire her most is that she hardly uses a mixer but instead uses just her magic hands. I really wish I had her talent.

I also enjoy watching Jamie Oliver's "The Naked Chef". He is such a character to watch, making cooking sumptuous food seem like as easy as ABC. Care to try his recipes some day?

Butterfly Award

Yippee!!!! Been blogging for 3 months now and I received my first ever award from my blogging-pal Josephine! Thanks pretty girl!












I feel so happy and elated, as if I striked the lottery! Ha! Ha! Sorry, can't help it - new blogger!

As per the rules of accepting this award, I wish to now award my fellow bloggers which I think have one of the coolest blogs I ever knew!

1. Little Corner of Mine - love her homecooked recipes!
2. Kitchen Snippets - love her original bakes & cooks!
3. Babe In the City KL - my all time favourite KL food blogger!
4. Household Capers - my new cyber-pal Down Under!
5. Mummy Yiau - my first ever cyber mummy through MJ Forum!
6. Health Freak Mommy - a great mommy-blogger ever willing to share!
7. Pei Mun - who helped me with my first ever link!
8. Kiasumum - 2nd mommy to help me with a link!
9. Papa Joneh - the only daddy linked to my blog!
10. 2 Little 2 Mention - my long time buddy for donkey years liao!

I sincerely hope you will accept this award from me, so, please :-

1. Put the logo on your blog;
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you;
3. Nominate 10 other blogs; (or only to those deserving ones???)
4. Add links to those blogs on yours;
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Congratulations and do continue to post your cool cooks, bakes and all your latest happenin's in your cool blog (*smile*).

Malaysian Prime Ministers

I can't help it but to do a double post today. As you many know, our dear Prime Minister has decided to handover his post & power to his preffered successfor, dear Najib. Read the latest from Star Online or Malaysiakini.

Yesterday evening, I heard that, according to some strange reasons or maybe coincidence, by history, or by chance, dear Najib would be the last of our Prime Ministers as they are decided by the word "RAHMAN".

So lets see.

R = Rahman (Tuanku)
A = Abdul Razak
H = Hussein Onn
M = Mahathir Mohamed (oh, who can forget him!)
A = Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (another one!)
N = Najib Tun Razak

So what is going to happen after Najib?

Rabbit Farm

During our recent visit to Colmar Tropicale, we stopped by the Rabbit & Deer Farm for our little one to visit.

This is the first time my little monster is seeing an animal face-to-face other than the dog & cat in our house (hahahaha!). I was pretty confident my lil monster would not be afraid of any of those animals cos I dont call him a lil monster for nothing you know ...

Trying to make monkey faces at the deer! Naughty fella!

And trying to squeeze the poor rabbit! And this guy only goes for all the white rabbits ... chasing them all over! Wonder why he does not like the others which are black or grey or spotted ones .. .which were cute too!

Entrance fee to this farm is RM3 per head (in addition to RM10 per head we paid to visit Colmar Tropicale) but if you intend to just visit the farm, you need not pay for the entrance to Colmar Tropical cos the gate to the farm is before the tickethouse into Colmar Tropical.

This place is perfect for a half day outing for the family but its a kind of place you would come once every few years I guess.

Sarawak Barley

I got a surprise package from my buddy in Kuching recently *smile*. She sent me a generous pack of barley from Sarawak, grown locally by the natives there. Thanks JT!















It taste rich and slightly creamier than the pre-packed ones I normally buy from the chinese medical hall ... hmmm... yummilicious!

Boil the barley in a pot of boiling water and add rock sugar to taste. A few screwpine leaves in the pot makes this drink very rich in aroma. When it starts to boil rapidly, turn down fire a little and boil over an hour or so. Or if you prefer the easier way, leave it to boil in a slow cooker. Turn it on at night and by next morning, you will have a healthy yummy barley drink :-)

You can enjoy it either hot or cold. My mom would usually cool them down and pour them into many water bottles and store them in the fridge for our hourly consumption as we would normally finish the whole pot by the next day *smile*.

Barcoding indicating country of origin

This is interesting to note. Each bar code has a unique code to show its country of origin ... as in where it is made from.

It is said that China has got 3 codes which is 690, 691 and 692. The example shown here is from Taiwan with its country code as 471.











Will check this out when I do my grocery shopping this weekend!

I'm late today!

I officially start work at 9 each morning but on most days I am in the office by 815 or 830 latest. This is because we leave the house early (before 7am) so as not to get ourselves stuck in a major traffic jam.

On most days it works fine but today was one of those nasty days. The jammed road was at least 2 or 3km long (my guess-timation) and finally we reach the bottleneck and guess what ... there was a car accident on the OTHER side of the road!

Oh my god, you Malaysian drivers!!!!! Why the hell do you have to be such a busy body!!!! Just drive on in your lane and just go where you wanted to go in the first place!!! See what you have done to other drivers on the road now? We are all late for work!

My Good Habit

I must have inherited this from my dad. Dad (he is no longer around ... must be somewhere someplace good & far *smile*) used to rise very early for work each day. He would then head to the newpaper company's head office to buy his hot-from-the-oven newspaper for the day and then head for work.

During his rest days at home, he used to read the newspapers first thing in the morning as well, covering every corner of it. He was a "serious no nonsense" dad but he knew about Madonna's latest songs *cheeky smile*.
These days the first thing I do when I get to work is to log on to the internet and read my Star Online. Even if I only have 5 minutes to spare, I would usually just cover the headlines and then start my work routine.

I see this as a positive habit and hope someday, I can inculcate this good habit to my little one.

Colmar Tropicale

It was the first day of Hari Raya and it being a public holiday, we decided to take a short drive out of town to visit Colmar Tropicale. It is located about 45 mins from the city and the roads were totally clear of traffic and was such a breeze to drive. Take the Bukit Tinggi exit from the highway (after Genting exit) and turning in, will lead you to a long winding road before you reach the top of a hill where this "french village" is located.









The last time I went there with hubby was before we got married and now several years later, sad to say, not much improvement has been made to this place to make it much more attractive.










This place has got a golf course too, so you will see large numbers of cars here on weekends as it is located on a slight highland with some cooling fresh air when the wind blows. There is also a Japanese Tea Garden (good for senior citizens) as well as a Rabbit & Deer Farm for the little ones. Worth a half day visit.

Cabby Drivers! Rude!

I dont know about other parts of the world but here, I find that the local taxi drivers are darn rude!

If you dont fit in into their plan as in where they "prefer" to drive, then they just brush you off! They even charge you ridiculously even though there are regulations on this. If they are in a good mood, they might use the meter. Else they will charge you a flat rate to your destination as they claim it is "out" of their way.

Especially so when there is a downpour (never mind if its heavy or not), they just drive past you even though they are not carrying any passengers. And if you are lucky enough to flag down one who is willing to send you where you wanna go, then be prepared to pay triple the amount you would normally pay!

And some taxies are dirty and smelly! The shirts they wear seems like it was not washed for days! Thats KL cab drivers! Nasty!

But nevertheless, there are very pleasant and nice drivers that I have come across. I shall not generalise them but just a word of caution to look out in case you meet some of those nasty ones.

Bali - The Paradise!

Do you agree? I mean, Bali is such a natural paradise that you would really wanna go back again and again just to soak into its god-made treasures. Our maiden trip there was for our honeymoon *smile*.

But of course, if you have enough dough (which we didn't have) to book yourself into one or two of the many private villas - its exactly like being in heaven!

I recently made some reservations (not for me - sad) and it really makes me feel like wanting to go back there for a short holiday. Especially when you browse through such breath-taking photo galleries in each of the resort's websites.

So if you are prepared to spend a mini fortune in Bali, do remember to check out some of the private villas in Anantara Seminyak, The Bale Nusa Dua, Four Seasons Sayan, Uma Ubud and Ahimsa Estate. Other private villas worth taking a look are Ritz Carlton, Alila Ubud, River House, Kayumanis & Como Shambhala Estate which is owned by a Singaporean.

And while you are there, dont forget the Kirana Spa! For food lovers, you should never miss Mozaic or Ary's Warung.

Gosh! What am I doing typing this - I should be on the plane!