Jemay, Prem and Rashidin’s birthday @ XM Malaysia

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Cheesecake from Hotel Equatorial.

Today is TGIF, the monthly meeting at XM Malaysia. I will not be
talking about that though because its work related. However, I’ll like
to extend my apologies to Jarrod Chua for not remembering his name. We
have this “name the person” thing and I know everyone’s name from
Technical, Creative, Project Management, Account Management and Jit,
Bob and Yusnita but unfortunately not the Finance Administration
people. Oops. Anyway, there was also a celebration for Jemay, Prem and
Rashidin and here are the photos from that:

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The candles on the cake being lighted.

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Rashidin blowing out the candles. To his right is Jemay and Prem is on his left.

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Prem cutting the cake.

Apparently, I’m the resident photographer of XM Malaysia now. πŸ˜‰

Miscellaneous stuff

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Goodbye October 2003. This is the 31st of October, the last day of
October, Halloween and the day Dr. Mahathir steps down as the Prime
Minister of Malaysia.

1. Dr. M is stepping down. I don’t talk about politics much due to
paranoia, but people who know me in real life know that I’m a staunch
supporter of Dr. Mahathir. He’s not afraid to speak his mind and he
doesn’t give in to Western influence. He’s someone who has BALLS for
the lack of a better term.

In contrast, I particularly dislike people like PM Goh Chok Tong of
Singapore. To put things crudely, he kisses every Caucasian and
Japanese ass that heads his way. I wonder if he wishes he was born
Caucasian sometimes.

Now Dr. M on the other hand, he’s not afraid of voicing his opinions
about the many infringements of the US and Australia against Asia. I’m
not going to go through everything because I don’t want to be seen as a
hardliner, but I’m sorry to see Mahathir go. Let’s hope that Datuk Seri
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will continue Dr. M’s legacy.

We’re a sovereign country and we’re not going to take any shit from Bush, Howard or anyone other than our own people.

2. Google Dance. Yes, Google just did its thing recently.
sixthseal.com is still a PR 5 due to “spammy” site design (namely, the
persistent sidebar). I had hoped for a PR 6 this time. However, my
SERPs are still holding strong and I’ve captured certain keywords I’m
proud of. Heavy pimpage of castitas.com has also raised that site to a
PR 4, as I expected. Did you know that there’s a link to castitas.com
on every page of this site? πŸ˜‰ I was expecting a PageRank of 1 less
than sixthseal.com and yeah, I got it. πŸ™‚

3. Boo. It’s Halloween. I’ll update again later.

Mega Chicken Delice chicken sandwich @ RM 3.90

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Ingredients: Fresh bread, fresh vegetables, spread, chicken slice, cheese, spices.

This is what I had for lunch…grabbed a sandwich from Gro-Shop, the
grocery shop at Wisma Antarabangsa (it’s interconnected to Kenanga
International).

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Gro-Shop

I felt like eating a sandwich instead of rice and this one is pretty
good. It emphasizes fresh ingredients and I was not disappointed. The
bread was nice and soft and there’s a generous amount of egg and cheese
and a slice of deli chicken, all topped with a slathering of
mayonnaise. Here’s a close up:

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Binge and Purge

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I bought some dinner home because my gf went for dinner with her
dad. I got Nasi Briyani (with extra drum) and Ramly Double Beef Burger
Special. The nasi beriyani already had a chicken in it. I ate that plus
the sweet sauce drumstick and that pickle and also finished the burger.
I tried to throw up just now but failed. I threw up an impressive
amount of puke last night too. I think I will tonight as well, I tried
to, stuck my whole index finger down my throat but to no avail. I will
try again now. Binge and purge. I will reply the comments tomorrow,
sorry ya, need to throw up and probably lie down and pass out. Er…I
mean go to sleep. πŸ™‚

Postcard from graceshu!

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Front of the postcard.

I just got this in the mail. Grace
[pixelphobia.net] is currently having a road trip and she’s in Penang
right now if I’m not mistaken. It’s great to get a postcard from her.
πŸ™‚ Have fun on your trip Grace and hope that everything goes well for
you! Take care!

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Back of the postcard.

This is what the writing on the back says:

This is where I’ll be visiting
tomorrow!

There’s this Malay palace
built entirely without a
single paku there.

It will be interesting. You take care &
have fun yourself. Bye!

Addresses and names has been obscured with mosaic for privacy.

Sri Computers and Dragon Fruit Aloe Vera drink

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Sri Computers

I went to Low Yat during my lunch break today to get a pair of
headphones. I’m going through them at a rate of about once a month! It
always breaks down on me…I miss my old Sony MDR V700 DJ monitor
quality headphones. It broke down before I came to KL. Now that’s a
real set of headphones compared to these puny plastic thingies
masquarading as “headphones”. πŸ˜‰ I swear, if this new pair breaks, I’m
going back to that one. It cost me A$ 330 (about RM 660+) when I bought
it in Melbourne, but I can only afford lower end headphones with my
current income. I had bought two headphones in the last two months
(both of them quit on me) and the third one is the Creative HQ-1000.

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Anyway, I saw this “health drink stall” outside Low Yat with
interesting concoctions, so I went for the Dragon Fruit Aloe Vera
drink, which looked good from the photo at the stall. It was RM 4.90
for each drink, all of them looked colorful and fruity.

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This is a photo I took of the attendant making my drink. She’s
putting the aloe vera jelly into the plastic cup while the purple goop
you see in the blender is the dragon fruit mix. The drink was also
topped with real dragon fruit as you can see in this picture here:

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The green stuff at the bottom is aloe vera jelly, with the main purple
bulk being icy cold dragon fruit mix and a white scoop of real dragon
fruit to top the drink off. The cup overfloweth and dripped on me too.

Okay, I promise I’ll cut my fingernails when I get back today. :p

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Anyway, after all that, I grabbed some lunch and was back in the
office before 2 pm. I had to take the overpriced KL Monorail back
though, but at least I walked there with my co-workers. I took the
monorail back because:
1. It was raining.
2. Lunch break is nearly over, I can’t walk back in time.

KL Monorail

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Raja Chulan Station

I took the monorail from Stesen Raja Chulan (it’s practically
outside the building where I work) to Stesen Bukit Bintang today. Yes,
that’s just a station apart. Yes, I could have walked instead. No, it
wasn’t raining. It was drizzing though…for a while at least…
*cough* I just wanted to use the monorail.

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Anyway, instead of the 10 am – 3 pm hours the KL Monorail was
running before, it’s now running from 7 am – 8 pm, a much more
practical timetable. However, instead of the RM 1 to any station fare,
it costs at least RM 1.20 now and stations further away costs more,
like how the LRT system works.

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Entertain yourself with a photo of a KL Monorail pulling into the station:

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KL Monorail

The photos are much smaller and lower in quality (highly compressed)
now due to bandwidth issues. Back on topic, I noticed that there is a
TV channel called “Channel M” at the stations. I would assume the M
stands for Monorail.

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Channel M

The channel just shows advertisements, including a disturbing one
involving a tiger and some sheep getting wet…it was a detergent
commercial. Anyway, a monorail pulled up before long and I was aboard
for less than a minute before arriving at Bukit Bintang station.

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Stesen Bukit Bintang has an overpass to connect the two platforms
and to get people to the right side of the street (since the platforms
are on opposite sides of a highway). Stesen Raja Chulan has an
underpass instead. Anyway, I went to Bukit Bintang just to go to Sungei
Wang Plaza and get soft Famous Amos cookies.

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Cost of trip:
Stesen Raja Chulan -> Stesen Bukit Bintang: RM 1.20
Double Chocolate Chip with Pecan Nut Soft Cookie: RM 3.50
Chocolate Chip with Macadamia Nut Soft Cookie: RM 3.50
Stesen Bukit Bintang -> Stesen Raja Chulan: RM 1.20

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KL Monorail ticket

Anyway, after getting the cookies (yeah, I really just went to get cookies), I took the monorail back.

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A funny thing happened while I was getting back…this old man
strolled up to me and said in a very soft and conspirational whisper:

“asdas asdasdsa sadasda”

“What?” I asked him.

“sadsds asdadas asdasdd”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you lah. What were you saying again?”

“Lei ga la len mou la ah.”

I looked down. Yes, the old man was indeed right. My zipper was
undone. Oops. Heh. That was funny though, how he walked up to me and
whispered so softly to inform me of the state of undress I was in.
Wait, lemme check what color my underwear is. Okay, done. It’s blue.
Now that’s not very discreet. Very nice old man, to walk up and inform
me like that. πŸ˜‰

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Interior of a monorail

I corrected my zipper orientation inside the monorail. Not too long
after that, I was accosted again, this time by a monorail attendant.
“Encik…”, he went and gestured with the tip of his hand held walkie
talkie at the “No Food/Drink” sign. I was still going at the soft
cookie at that time. πŸ™‚

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KL Monorail map

How I climbed the St John Cathedral bell tower and other short stories

Getting up close and personal with Mary Fatima.

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There is a mysterious upper level at St John’s Cathedral. I wasn’t
aware of it until a warden told us that there are more seats upstairs.

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Sure enough, there it was – an outcropping overlooking the ground level.

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I was attracted to this ladder on both sides of the level.

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I peered up and it seemed to be the ladder for the bell towers.
Curiosity impelled me to brave the bird poo stained ladders and climb
to the top of the right one. The ladder goes up to a level overlooking
the book store. One of the attendants heard my less than subtle ascent,
peered up questioningly and frowned in my general direction.

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However, I was not to be dissuaded from my quest to the bell platform, so I scaled the next ladder, and then the next.

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Soon, I reached the last ladder leading up to the bell, which seems
to be sitting on top of a wooden support. I climbed up the last ladder
to present to you…

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A view from the top. Wait ah, the bell photo is coming up. You can
actually fall into the book store if you wanted too, just keep right
while falling down and you’ll drop right through the top of the book
store. You might break a couple of bones and possibly injure something
other than books.

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Here is the ancient looking church bell. I suspect it’s not used
anymore due to the impressive layer of bird droppings on the stair
steps and railings. There is an inscription on the bell itself:

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The bell is called Mary Fatima.

Novo Millennio Ineunte

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The wardens passed us this booklet today. It says:

Silver Jubilee of the Pontification of His Holiness Pope John Paul II
Eucharistic Celebration
10:30 am, Sunday 26th October, 2003
St. John’s Catheral
Kuala Lumpur

There is a typo on the glossy cover, if you haven’t noticed. It says
‘Catheral’ instead of ‘Cathedral’. I kinda had my own private pursuits
(the abovementioned journey to the bell) and also zoned out a bit so I
wasn’t sure what was going on but there was this scene at the end:

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There were “light refreshments” served after the event at an ad hoc tent erected on the lawn after mass.

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They were giving away cincau drink (without cin cau jelly)/lychee drink and curry puff/a slice of cake.

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The volunteers with the tables of packet drinks and pre-wrapped food.

Anytime is Makan Time

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Restoran Maju Curry House
I had Special Beriyani Majura. Today’s special is Nasi Beriyani Ayam Kampong.

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I like how they have these boiled quail eggs in the rice. Very nice indeed.

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There was a Nasi Dalca selection beside it and I took another drumstick. It looked good in the gravy. This is my plate:

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There was also a plate of sotong curry which we shared. It had large complete sotongs with everything intact.

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Anytime is Makan Time.

The End.

Happy 22nd birthday, Louisa! :)

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Haagen-Dazs @ bsc (bangsar shopping center)

It was my girlfriend’s birthday yesterday (24th October) and we
headed out in the afternoon to get some ice creams at the nearest
Haagen-Dazs outlet at bsc.

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We got a three scoop sundae and a pint of Strawberry Cheesecake
flavored ice creams. The Strawberry Cheesecake one is sure to please
people with a sweet tooth – it was cloyingly sweet, in a nice way.

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We hung around bsc for a while, basically just walking into every
shop and browsing. I saw that they have these Barbie dolls that appeal
to a different target audience now (or maybe the target market just
matured). There were ones with Giorgio Armani attire, some limited
edition ones which goes into the thousands and a more base level priced
Barbie, but with a make over – she’s now a consultant of some sort and
her attire has changed…her image is one of a trendy inner city
professional instead of the ones I’ve seen in my youth, which were more
domesticated, for the lack for a better term.

Anyway, we headed back after a while and people starting arriving and the mini BBQ grill was set up:

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Food – Chicken wings, Taiwanese sausages, hot dogs, fish balls and stuff…

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Drinks – Six packs of beer (others in the ice bucket), a bottle of Bacardi, and some miscellaneous drinks.

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The cake says “Dear Nie Nie/We (heart shape) U”

No more photos were taken after that, because I proceeded straight
to the beers for the appetizer, did Bacardi double shots neat with the
guys, drank more beer in a hasty manner (fortified with rum,
naturally), downed some Coke + Bacardi, intercepted a Sprite + Bacardi
and yeah, I stopped counting at that point. πŸ˜‰ There were around 13
people who came, about equal male to female ratio but only a few of us
really drank so there was plenty of alcohol to go around.

While we’re on the subject of statistics:
Number of T-shirt requests:
One
Time last person left:
4:30 am
Alcoholic beverages left over:
1 lonely can of beer
Non-alcoholic beverages left over:
3-4 1.5 litre bottles are in the fridge

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This is Louisa (my gf) blowing out the candles on the cake while Richard (her brother) looks on.

Happy Birthday, Louisa! I love you! πŸ™‚

The Taj @ Crown Princess Deepavali Buffet

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The Taj.

This is the write up of the annual XM Malaysia Deepavali dinner at
The Taj @ Crown Princess. There are heaps of photos in this post, which
would probably hurt me more than the US$ 60 I just paid for excess
bandwidth, but hey, it’s Deepavali tomorrow. πŸ™‚ Anyway, XM Malaysia and
Zenith Media booked the entire restaurant for the annual get together.

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This is one of the many fringe benefits we get at XM. Free beer
anyone? πŸ˜‰ Anyway, the tables were half taken by Zenith and half by XM.
Our table had mostly tech people, plus quite a few Project Managers and
two from Creative, IIRC. Caveat: I don’t remember all that well when
I’m on this particular GABA agonist my doctor prescribed (Shh! People
who know shouldn’t comment about it. :p) and when there’s free beer
involved since the two potentiates each other, resulting in an early
loss of inhibition. πŸ˜‰

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Anyway, about the food at The Taj, it was okay, but not great. Don’t
get me wrong, it’s good…just not as good as their desserts! They have
really great desserts and sweets. I like this particular brown chunky
thing that I don’t remember the name of, but readers from Melbourne,
you can find it opposite the Clayton station exit (from the City). It’s
two shops down from that discount bottleshop where I usually buy my
beer. The shop specializes in North Indian sweets.

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Well back to the event, like I said, I don’t remember much, but
there was this speech where 3 new people from XM and 3 new people from
Zenith Media gave a speech describing their first weeks and the best
one gets RM 500 and the one which the judges deemed was the worst has
to sing a song. Oh right, I just remembered something VERY
EMBARRASSING…I blame the venue for not labeling the toilets properly.
:p

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Anyway, about halfway through the event, I felt the urge to answer
the call of nature, as one tends to get after drinking beer – which not
only is a liquid, but a diuretic as well. I walked to the toilets –
there was one male and one female, both side by side. I went into the
male one, saw a toilet for the disabled to my right and went straight
in and relieved myself.

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Well, the urination process took longer than usual, considering I
had a full bladder and suddenly…there was this feeling that something
wasn’t right. I stood there, aiming my member and trying to think about
what it was that felt unusual. It’s…voices. Female voices. “Why are
there female voices in a male toilet?”, I wondered. I zipped my pants,
forgot to flush and opened the door to…

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A group of females standing right outside the door! I stared blankly
at them. I think both parties said “What are you doing in the guys
toilet?” and “What are you doing in the girls toilet?” at the same
time. There was about 6-8 of them and I knew all of them. How
embarrassing…that damned toilet sign, it looked like a male one! Chih
Ning wanted to grab my digicam and take a photo of me in the girls
toilet but good thing I made a quick exit, escaping the laughter behind
me. πŸ˜‰

I think I didn’t even wash my hands in my hurry to get out…

I strongly suggest better signs to distinguish the male and female
toilets to avoid situations like this. I’ve lived at on campus since
2000 while in uni and the toilets and bathrooms are co-ed so I wasn’t
too bothered about it, but this is Malaysia. It’s a good thing that all
the people in the female toilet at that time were from either XM or
Zenith Media. If there were any strangers, I wouldn’t know what the
outcome would be from that mistake. πŸ™‚

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The Taj. Fine North Indian Cruisine.

Anyway, back to dinner, here are the photos of the annual XM Malaysia/Zenith Media Deepavali get together!

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Zenith Media table. I only know Chih Ning (the one in white). She’s the one that gives out paychecks. πŸ˜‰

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Candid shot of the people opposite me.

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This is the other side.

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This is my side.

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This is Jemay. He put me in a very uncomfortable position once during a TGIF meeting when my blog was brought up by him. πŸ˜‰

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L-R: Jit, Janet, E-Ling

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Miscellaneous shots

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More miscellaneous shots

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Yet more miscellaneous shots

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Tamater Ka Shorba
Tomato Soup with Indian Herbs

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Nan
Indian bread baked in clay oven

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Matar Pulao

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Dal Tarka
Yellow lentils tempered and seasoned with exotic spices

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Palak Paneer
Spicy spinach with Indian cheese

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Gobhi Kelandi
Cauliflower with yoghurt and spices

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Goshi Kurma

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Fish Tikka

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Tandoori Murgh
Tender Chicken marinated with freshly ground Mint, Coriander & Spices

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Kingfisher Beer! It tastes more like cider than beer…

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Kingfisher beer is made in India!

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My plate of food.

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My dessert plate.

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Us techies.

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L-R: Chia (blue), Anthony (white), Mandy (grey), Felicia (black), Loh (light blue), Huai Bin (me) (black)

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Happy Deepavali!

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