Today, the 31st of August, 2004 is Malaysia’s 47th Independence Day from the evil British Empire. 😉
Month: August 2004
Martial Arts Festival ’04
This is the annual martial arts event which spans all the
disciplines like karate, taekwondo, silat, wushu, and yes, even tai
chi. It’s held along a closed off street – I hear it’s always Jalan
Song Thien Cheok. I was caught in traffic congestion when they closed
off the street in the afternoon and cordoned off the entire area.
The actual event is held at 8 pm but they were already setting up
the stalls and preparing for the event way before the scheduled time.
There were lots of little kids…
…as well as some not-so-little kids.
I saw little kids being molested…nah, I’m just kidding, the
instructor was trying to tie the belt on a funny kid who was trying to
run away.
There was also an ambulance there, just in case someone…oh, I don’t know, gets muscle cramps or breaks a fingernail. 😉
The event started with tai chi 18/4 (or something) which had
instructors getting a long line of people involved, as well as the
spectators. Watch the decidedly amusing clip here:
Download: Tai Chi 18 4 video [sixthseal.com]
I promptly decided I have better things to do on a Saturday night after this, so I wrapped up the event. 😉
The teams were on the sidewalk preparing for their on-stage performances.
The silat (Malay martial arts) group told me that performing is hungry work.
I watched the Wushu team prepare for stage:
Download: Wushu team practise video [sixthseal.com]
I got a black belt guy to pose for me…
…as well as the silat group
Lest anyone gets any ideas that sixthseal.com has changed its direction…
…rest assured, I got some girls to pose for me too.
My vote goes to far left. 😉
Kenner Flor Fina cigars
This is a box of 20 Bollero Kenner cigars. My friend got it from
Indonesia but he didn’t like the taste, and has been giving them away
ever since.
The inside of the box is lined with individual plastic wrapped cigars, ready to be unwrapped and smoked.
The size of the cigar is about half of a full sized cigar – slightly
shorter and with a lower ring gauge, oops, sorry…I meant thinner,
than a Robusto. It’s not in the cigarillo class, this one is bigger
than those.
This is the band of the cigar – it says Kenner Flor Fina, with a red and gold motif.
This is the tip of the cigar – it’s precut, so you can light it up immediately, which I promptly did.
Download: Kenner cigar review video [sixthseal.com]
You can see me play cigar aficionado in this movie. 😉
I didn’t find any fault with the cigar – it tasted woody, with a
smoky aftertaste. It’s good, even though it wasn’t stored in a humidor.
I found it nice. The only problem was the uneven burn that it produced,
but maybe that’s my fault during lighting. It rectified itself after
flame was applied on the uneven side.
I know you’re not suppoed to do that…and you’re not supposed to
fully inhale a cigar too, but I like my tobacco products to give me a
nicotine hit. Oh, and I did do that rolling the smoke in the mouth
thing for the faux cigar aficionado taste test. 😉
RM 300 monthly salary increase!
I now pull in RM 2,500 with this permanent RM 300 monthly “transport
allowance” that I just got. It’s a token of appreciation for my work in
securing proposals before the annual KPI salary increase, which I hope
will push me into the RM 3k region. 😉
One can wish. Heh!
Oh, and I thought up the company new slogan too – Huygens means assurance. Simple, but I’m rather fond of it. It’s going into our new batch of business cards.
Jojo Cafe
I went out for dinner with a bunch of people from different age
groups yesterday night at Jojo Cafe. I guess the best word for it
is…networking, cliche as that may sound. It was enlightening; got to
meet people from different fields e.g. management, design, publishing,
education etc. and exchange business cards.
I’ll like to give the person who first thought of the concept of
business cards a big hearty slap on the back, coz I won’t remember
names and numbers the next day otherwise. 😉 Anyway, back to the food,
Jojo Cafe is located at 3rd Mile, Kuching and serves really good curry
chicken (or so I hear).
This is their curry chicken – the meat was tender, and the curry was
tasty. There’s nothing wrong with it, except for one thing…it doesn’t
have the spicy curry oomph that I like. It’s a good curry dish for
people who don’t take spicy food though.
Here’s the kailan (a type of vegetable, stating the obvious ;))
cooked with salted fish. Now this dish is good, and hearing me say that
a vegetable dish is good means it’s really good, coz I’m not a big fan
of vegetables at all. The veggies was fresh and crunchy, and still
retains the original moisture and taste without any salted fish
contamination (unless you eat that of course).
Next up is the mutton soup. It’s cooked with a variety of spices,
red dates, mushrooms, and all sorts of stuff. It’s basically mutton
soup, Chinese style.
I didn’t find anything noteworthy about the mutton, but the soup was well broiled and tasted great!
This is tofu cooked with egg and vegetables, lying on top of a
lettuce bed. I can’t comment about tofu, coz long time readers would
know that I don’t like tofu. Well, I don’t like the edible kind of tofu
anyway, but the other kind of tofu… 😉
Now this is the main dish – mango fish! The fish was smothered with
a delightful mixture of unripe mangos, peanuts, raw onions, shallots,
and spring onions. It creates a wonderful fusion of colors, flavors and
different textures, and the fish was fresh to boot. This is easily the
best dish of them all – highly recommended!
After eating all that, should you feel the call of nature,
management reminds you not to leave the left side of your ass behind
(though how that is possible eludes me).
Ice Shop Asia
Ice Shop Asia is the once great empire that has seen its famous
plastic cup and straw mammoth logo emblazoned all across town. Outlets
after outlets were built, expanding like the rise of Rome, swathing a
path of destruction over premium retail space like the Nazi blitzkrieg,
and taking over the outlets like…er, the British Empire.
Alas, the glory days of Ice Shop Asia is now over, and like the rise
and fall of civilizations, Ice Shop Asia now maintains a single
battered looking outpost in the town of Kuching, the once proud metal
cup dented and fighting off rust. The single lonely remaining outlet is
the pioneering one, and there wasn’t any electricity when we were
there…
However, there was an aesthetically pleasing young female behind the
counter, so we decided to get a drink despite the dim interior. 😉 I
ordered a passion fruit snow shake and a chocolate ice shake with
pearls. A snow shake is ice blended and does not come with pearls while
an ice shake is basically bubble tea made with ice cream instead of
syrup with optional pearl balls.
The ice is shoveled into their standard plastic heat sealed cups…
…and added with ice cream for an ice shake
…or added with syrup/flavoring for a snow shake/bubble tea
Unfortunately, the device that does the ice crushing was not in
operation due to the power failure and neither was their patented,
really interesting heat sealing device (shown above). That thing
automatically heat seals the top of your plastic cup with a poke able
plastic cover, so you have to poke through it with a straw. I had so
much fun with it last time. I didn’t get the chance to do that though,
coz the machine requires electricity to operate.
Thus, here’s the naked (hey, didn’t came with the heat sealed
plastic cover) Ice Shop Asia drinks – the chocolate ice shake with
pearl balls is on the left and the passion fruit snow shake is on the
right.
The girl apologized for the unfortunate circumstances and I didn’t
mention anything about not being able to poke things through thin,
flimsy other things. 😉
This post is so loaded with double entendres and innuendo…
Our father who art in heaven…
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done;
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our RM 50 note.
This was spotted on a construction site. It seems that some workers
took the “Give us this day our daily bread” part a little too
literally, for the poster was carefully cut along the palm of Jesus,
and a small printed RM 50 note slipped into the lined edge.
I would like to shake hands with the construction worker who carved up this art masterpiece. 😉
Seafood at Buntal Kuching
Buntal is a fishing village about 35 minutes drive away from
Kuching. Buntal Seafood Village is a very popular place for seafood, as
it is located right on the beach and the produce is about as fresh as
it gets – straight from the sea. Lim Hock Ann Seafood is the longest
standing and most popular one in Buntal.
There’s a lot of fresh seafood; fish, crabs, prawns, lobsters,
oysters etc. Basically, if you can get it from the sea, they have it.
Lim Hock Ann is also popular due to it’s unique seating arrangements –
they actually have a platform suspended over the sea, with waves
lapping at the bottom while you eat!
Unfortunately, it was raining yesterday, so the platform was closed.
I was surprised to find a mini entourage of people waiting for me when
I came back from Sibu. I had called a friend to pick me up but when I
exited the arrivals hall, I was accosted by my friends who came in
several cars to whisk me off to Buntal. Jesus…
Anyway, this is what the suspended platform looks like from one of
the photos in the popular Lim Hock Ann seafood center in Buntal:
This outlet has been here since forever, or so it seems. It still
retains its old skool wood structures that I remember seeing when I was
still young.
Anyway, here’s what we ordered:
Baby kailan
It’s a type of vegetable, very nice.
Butter prawns
It came out very crisp and tasted divine. The granules are caramelized butter, it’s heavenly, I tell you.
O Chien
This is oyster pancake. I like Lim Hock Ann’s implementation of this
popular must-have seafood dish. It’s moist and there are generous
amounts of oysters scattered all around the pancake instead of just a
couple in the middle.
Crabs cooked with egg and chilli
Here’s a video tour of Lim Hock Ann in Buntal:
Download: Buntal Seafood [sixthseal.com]
I had a snapping good time, pardon the pun.
You’re an illegal immigrant!
No sir, I’m not.
Oh yes, you are!
Am not!
Am to!
It turns out that they were illegal immigrants from Indonesia after
all. The blue ones are police and the green ones are RELA (Vigilante
Corps). They were led away by the whole entourage in handcuffs. I was
walking by and saw this and stopped to listen and take photos. Things
like this always draw a crowd in Sibu.
I guess that says a lot about how exciting my hometown is. 😉
Shirley Wong
This is Shirley, who has an interesting relationship to me. She is:
my good friend’s cousin
the niece of one of my company’s management
the daughter of one of our clients (which of course I’m not at liberty to name)
She’s a nice girl and she has a really cute little sister who’s
about 2 or 3 years old and a younger brother which is probably 9 or 10.
I was apprehensive about putting up her photo due to the complex nature
of the relationship at first.
This is the full frame grab. We weren’t ready coz the speedlight takes several seconds to go off.
This is the default attitude you see in Sibu while out and about.
I took a photo with her and she asked me to wait and she got her own
camera and wanted to take a photo with me as well. I told her about the
blog and asked her twice if she would mind me posting our picture up
and she said she didn’t mind at all. Thus, I have exercised due
diligence in this matter. 😉
…and this is the last one which is a little blurry. The photos were all taken by her younger brother.
I think I’ll file this under People instead of that other category. 😉
