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!!!

Last blog of the year

31st December 2007 - It is the last day of 2007. And since my absence from this blog for so long, I will try to fit everything that has happened this few months into a single blog entry.

The summer ends and comes autumn...

September 2007 - It was my bro's wedding. Went home for two weeks, one week spent at home and another at Seoul. First thing back home was to the hair-dresser. Digital Permed my hair and loved it and still loving it :). The wedding was quite fun. A traditional chinese wedding, so much preparation, so many rules, so much to do and help out (arranging guests seats for the chinese banquet, "entertaining" relatives and friends, compiling some songs, counting ang pau money, etc. etc., i.e. basically just running around doing stuff!), tiring but it was all worth it. Seoul was fun as well. Foodie and a city explorer me literally spent most of the time exploring the city and eating away yummy Korean food. A city that is just enough for a few days. Surprising to me, most waiters and waitresses in restaurants do speak mandarin, but communicating with taxi drivers are really a pain!

October 2007 - Went home again for a week to attend Amy's wedding. Met quite a few of my secondary school friends that I've not seen for quite some time. Quality time spent catching up with them. Other than that, spent most of my time in KL mall crawling @ Pavilion, The Gardens, KLCC and meeting up with people. And amazingly, so many foreign brands has now finally reached KL! Then my bro and sis in law came to visit in London after their honey moon; having them cramp in my room for almost 4 to 5 days hehe. But it was fun hanging out in London and Greenwich.

November 2007 - Changed team at work. Felt like a newbie all over again (partly...). Somewhat interesting to do some new stuff. But was focusing hard on trying to catch up with the learning curve. Amidst the work load , it was the MCR concert! It was such an awesome concert...my best rock concert so far...Gerard Way is just so cool!. Other than MCR, went to Incubus and Alexisonfire too.

December 2007 - A lil more fun and interesting month. Company's team Xmas Dinner at Bar Meze St. Albans (they have quite nice calamari and humous but the dessert is so-so only), Saw Sian and Holly's stay over, crashing at 7 Cunningham Avenue, Mamamia musical, Xmas markets at Natural History Museum and Hyde Park (The one in hyde park is much much better! although I still can't find a stall that sells strawberries coated with chocolate. The one in St. Anne's Sq, Manchester is really yummy) , Xmas Party at Yi Fei and Hsemates house, my attempt to make Okonomiyaki after having tried the ones in Abeno Too, Xmas Eve slack at work (were literally playing an online riddle) and then the Midnight Eucharist at St. Paul's (such a holly activity to countdown to christmas...), Xmas day chilling at Annie's since nothing's open and no trains running, shopping on boxing day (went out around 10+ and there were already ppl queuing waiting for shops to be opened, the crowd got bigger as the evening draws by and ppl squashing each other on the pedestrian st.s...what a day...bought only two tops and a pair of jeans but all with discounted prices, so proud of myself :)) and finally the crazy idea of going to Copenhagen for the weekend! It was quite cold in Copenhagen. But at least it's not as dry as UK weather! It a nice "right sized" city that is quite easy to go around. Managed to cover things we wanted to see but missed the Carlsberg Brewery...just if we have 2 more hours to spare!

And so that is basically what I've done for the last quarter of 2007. Tomorrow is the start of 2008. Resolutions? The list is yet to be compiled, but hope to work on it asap.

Of course, there are pictures to go along the story ;) ... Nico's Picasa Web Album

Techie Joke

This is how we work... http://www.linuxkungfu.org/images/fun/geek/project.jpg