Post Easter Update

The long easter weekend passed like the wind. And tbh, didn't get much done. Time just flies past!

But then again so maybe I did get something done.

Slept in on Good Friday cos too lazy to go out. The weather is too crappy and it finally snowed! In March! Snow didn't settle but was a bit lovely to see though. The weirdest weather you can get in UK, it snowed for 5 mins, stopped for 10 mins, hailed for another 10 mins, stopped and then rained for 10 mins. On the Millennium Bridge leading to St. Pauls from Tate Modern, sunset on the left
Met up with Saw Sian on Saturday, had lunch in one of the pubs in Wapping, Prospect of Whitby. And then took a walk from there to the Tate Modern. Went to watch the Spiderwick Chronicles with Holly that night and my review, quite good if you like this kind of children fantasies, goblins, fairies, orges etc. That is whole Saturday gone!



Green Tea Ice Cream with Red Beans, Mochi, Kiwi and some cream at Abeno Too
Woke up really late on Sunday, do a bit of house chores and 'stuff', playing Fluff Friend's Egg Hunt and then went to dinner at Okawari, had Una-don (one of my favs) and then stayed over at Holly's cos need to wake up early to queue for Terracotta Army tix the next morning.

Bank Holiday Monday, a bit disappointing not being able to get tickets. The queue went up to the back of the museum and there was no way we were able to get tickets for the day. Giving up, had breakfast at Starbucks and thought we could give it another go. Got in to the museum at around half nine and still a lot of ppl queuing up for tix. So decided to visit the other parts of the museum instead. I would say the British Museum doesn't look as big as I thought it would be. And personally prefer the MET in New York.

Enjoyed my four working days week, pub lunch at The Speckled Hen for Simon's leaving due, pretty much stayed in these few days for my on call 'duties'!

Complimentary pic of the month:

Crystal Jade Kitchen, Pavilion (very overpriced, be warned)

It's Easter!

It is the easter break again. This year, I'm just going to stay around London and not going travelling. A long chilling and relaxing break is just ideal.

Was reading through some old blog entries and realised how slack I have been from blogging these few months. Ok so maybe I should start picking it up again.

Life after the CNY break has much been devoted to work. And now that I am most oftenly on call, another fraction of my life goes to work. Was called the first time last last weekend and then Tuesday the following week. It went alright I guess, nothing really biggie yet. Been to Top Golf the other day at Watford for some golf swings, courtesy of my company and my waist ached a bit for a few days. But it does revive my interest in golf for a bit ;). Maybe some golf lessons would be interesting.


Feeling a bit adventurous, went for a hair cut at a Japanese salon the other day -> j.moriyama . They have three branches in london. I went to the one on Marylebone lane. And was quite satisfy with the outcome for 35 quid cut...quite jappy. Had my really long locks and fringe cut ... not too short but just right to keep my surviving perms.

Currently watching some movies and tvb series on http://movie.tudou.com/, catching up on some tele on BBC iPlayer and ITV, oh ya so happy Suzanne and Matt won the Dancing On Ice Competition, went to watch "The Other Boleyn Girl" the other day and it was quite good. F1 season has just started and am so not motivated to watch it this season without m shuey around now.

This easter break, am planning to do some cultural stuff and hanging out and a lil exploring perhaps.

Hopefully gonna find some interesting easter eggs!

p.s. Just realised that a mug and Chardonnay doesn't work!

Four Things

I got an email the other day asking me to state four things for each question about myself that you may or may have not known. Instead of hitting the reply button, I decided to stick it in here, just so that I think it is a really good flash back in 5 or 10 years later the answers to the following questions may well be completely different, reflecting just how much I myself have changed.

Four jobs I have had in my life

1. Software Developer
2. Peer Assisted Student Session Tutorial Leader
3. Cinema Usherer
4. Office Admin

Four movies I would watch over and over

1. 10 Things I Hate About You (how can Hollywood survive without Heath Ledger!)
2. Needing You
3. Love Actually
4. My Blueberry Nights (current craze...will definitely change)

Four places I have lived

1. Gopeng, Perak, Malaysia
2. Shah Alam, Malaysia
3. Pandan Jaya, Malaysia
4. Manchester, UK
5. Hatfield, Greater London, UK

Four TV shows I (used to) watch

1. Beverly Hills 90210 (classic!)
2. ER
3. Friends
4. Desperate Housewives

Four Places I have been

1. Kind of hard to limit it to four, but if you don't mind, I can go by continents - Asia
2. Europe
3. North America
4. Australia

Four People who e-mail me (regularly)

1. Does work emails count?
2. MSN messenger and Facebook is more convinient
3. Yea I get spammed a lot
4. My brother cos he gets retarded on MSN, he just don't reply sometimes (*just kidding*...love you bro muaks)

Four of my favourite foods

1. Egg Tart - for some reason I don't ever get bored with it
2. Porridge with Chicken Floss
3. "Yau Cha Guai" with Coffee
4. Milo with Cream Crackers ("So Ta Peng")

Four places I would like to be right now

1. Maldives - already missing the beach and spa after Pangkor trip
2. New York - missing the shopping especially jeans and Woodbury Commons!
3. Tokyo - aww never get bored with jap food!
4. Don't mind Kuala Lumpur ^-^

Four (a couple of more than four ppl hopefully;) family or friends I think who would respond

• Not Applicable - having a friend saying you are psychotic is not the end of the world!

The Day I made Enemy With a Turnip

Ok so this is old story, but just felt like blogging this since I recall my old nasty experience every time I saw the scar on my finger ><. The story starts like this... A question frequently asked by people when I go back M'sia is "How did you manage to live and stay alone in UK?"...
"Well I simply got used to it and yea I have to do a lot of things on my own" (but so what, I can manage it independently, that is the whole purpose of living alone, learning how to be independent).

But then the question comes down to ok so CAN I actually do everything myself? Nope. But so what again. I just have to when it comes to it right? Yea yea. And so comes the day I made enemy with a turnip...Thought of making Ju Hu Char one day and so got some mini turnips from asda. Took out my brand new chopping board and big sharp knife and on the board the turnips go. "Accidentally" (no need to mention!) I cut my index finger on the first chop. Blood, alot of them! Tried to stop the bleed but not quite successful. I panicked. Tried cleaned it for a bit and put plaster on it. The pain had still not subdued. I sat there contemplating what I should do. And after a long thought, I took out the list of GPs in Hatfield. It's a Saturday evening, I tried calling but all calls got diverted to the answering machine. GPs in UK are closed on weekends (what kind of medical service on earth is this! Just when I needed it!). The last called got diverted to a hospital emergency dept. The woman said "You have to come to the hospital yourself". After hanging up, I didn't move an inch and thought again, ok so yea I can go to the hospital but it's only a finger cut. I might be sitting there for hours before anyone is free to attend to me. And so I gave up that idea. Not having a first aid kit or any extra plasters around, I simply get changed and went to the nearest drug store for some. Came back and clean the wound again with some tea oil and put another plaster on. The bleeding only stops the next morning. Well it wasn't bleeding profusely but there are still blood soaking the plaster. The wound got a bit bruised for the next few days. And there goes my story with a turnip, leaving the wound slowly to heal.

Back to the question of how I felt living without my family around? Hmm not sure, I guess that's another kind of experience into my pocket.

February 2008

Random Nico Facts about the February Month:

• February 2008 has 29 days.
• I used to spell February incorrectly as Febuary. Never understand why there needs to be an additional 'r' after 'b'.
• It's the shortest month of the year, which means I get paid more for less working days
• Chinese New Year normally falls on this month and there is always a reason to feast and celebrate...

Took a week's holiday and fly back home for the Chinese New Year. Was basically just eating, sleeping, mall crawling and having relatives over visiting most of the time (KL life ... what else). Then went to Pangkor Laut on a 3 days 2 nights package with family. Pics. Drove up to Lumut, check in at the resort's office at the Lumut Water Front (good service, they serve hibiscus drinks and cold towels!) and took the 11am ferry to the resort. All luggage were sorted by the resort's staff.

Ferry ride was about 55 minutes. Sea was very calm on the Straits of Melacca indeed. No problems of getting sea sick. Arrive at the Jetty of the resort and get escorted to the reception. Waited a while before a resort staff named Ooi explain to us about everything (almost everything) around the resort and then briefly show us around before leaving us to have lunch at the RBC Club. Lunch was so-so only. Got to our Garden Villa rooms and then visited the Spa Village to make our next day Spa Treatments. Didn't do much the first day, just wandering around and playing cards. The resort was very quiet. Would have thought it will be crowded since bro said there ain't many rooms left when he booked. But maybe most ppl are just tucked in somewhere on the beach, in their rooms etc, just chilled out and relax. Dinner at Feast Village was a international buffet.

Breakfast was also a buffet and as usual I love breakfast buffet more than any other meals. Roti Canai, Chee Cheong Fun, Hash Browns, Free Flow Coffee Bar ! Then took the speed boat over to the actual Pangkor Island. The guy told us we can get a taxi from where he left us (Pasir Bogak) but nothing come into site after some time and so we walked a bit further and finally flagged down a taxi which is pink and yellow and is a van! Apparently there are a lot around that take tourists around the island. It was RM50 to tour the island. Stopped at one of the fishy factories and mum bought a whole box of stuff (ikan bilis, satay fish, dried shrimps etc) to bring home for her friends...

Got back to the resort around noon and had lunch at Chapman's Bar at Emerald Bay. A very nice beach and greeney water. Loads of ppl on the beach sun bathing. Food was quite nice. I ordered Mee Goreng which was the best choice of all. Bro's wanton mee is a mistake! Lol. With a three course meal, the starter itself was really big, 6 sticks of satay each! After lunch, was Spa time! Took the Aroma massage. Although I thought it was a bit too short ... 55 mins but really pampering and relaxing having someone do everything for you! Dinner at Uncle Lim's ... chinese food was ok although I would have thought every other chinese restaurants can serve the same thing but rumoured that this restaurant is the best around the resort. If it wasn't included in the package bill, the dinner would have cost us RM500 ++ whereby the dishes were counted as RM100 per person! (Rip off). Having said that, every other restaurant on the island is a rip off for any locals! RM45 for a Nasi Lemak??? RM30 for a Mocha???

The third day was time to say goodbye after breakfast. Drove from Lumut to Ipoh to visit grandma and has some really nice "ho fun" and rojak. And then head home...

Fly back to my cosy third floor attic at 7 cunningham av. on the 17th, Sunday Morning and get back to work the following day and was on-call from wed to sat...Only get to chilled out again today going out lunch and dinner with friends around town.

January 2008

My new toy...HTC Touch Ted Baker The Needle:
Random pics taken using my new gadget:
Coco, Ealing ... a lot of rice ... I know ... Food wise, very large portion, very cheap... hardly find standards like this nearer to Central London!
On the tube...

Nico's Picasa Web Album

Ok, finally taken the motivation to set one up ... Nico's Picasa Web Album

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! MAY THE NEW YEAR BRING MUCH MUCH MORE EXCITEMENT TO YOUR LIFE!!!