Good Luck Guys!!! :D

London Olympic Games will be officially open in just a few more hours time! I'm excited! Even though I might not even have the chance to follow it on TV due to the time difference.
Most of you who know me well knows that sports is possibly the only thing that makes me very patriotic. It's the only time I will say 'Malaysia Boleh'! I'm still the same old Malaysian sport fan although not as crazy as when I was younger and despite the fact that I'm no longer a sport journalist. I still read sport news most days and I can see many Malaysians are criticising the government for spoiling these athletes with all those incentives even before they win anything at the world's biggest sports event. Some of them are making it a point to say that is the reason we should vote against the government.

The Malaysian contingent to the Olympic Games in London.

To me, sport shouldn't be political at all! One should understand that it is not easy for these athletes to first qualify for the Olympic! Do you know how much of hard work and time they need to go through in years just to get to that stage? And of course it would be even harder to achieve a medal at the Games! Why can't they just deserve some incentives or just some moral push? If you think it is easy, go try train yourself up for Olympic now! Seriously, athletes are also human! They need encouragements, not criticism!

Frustration aside, I, for once am also feeling really glad that after so many years, we now can not only rely on badminton for a chance for an Olympic medal. In fact, I think this time around we should totally forget about badminton delivering anything to the nation. Archery, cycling and diving are the events that we can look forward to for Olympic medals, whichever colour it is. I know they are capable of it! They just need to keep their cool and don't stumble at some crucial moments.

Step aside badminton, all eyes will be on the diving, archery and cycling team this time around!

Most of my favourite athletes back when I was in school have retired but hey I still find Josiah Ng and Yeoh Ken Nee in the list and they are probably the only few I still have some contacts through FB! So to Josiah and Ken Nee, I wish you guys all the best and I can't wait to see you guys in action! :)
To the rest of the Malaysian contingent, GOOD LUCK & MALAYSIA BOLEH!!!

Our Country Home

When we first bought the house, we knew it will definitely take up a lot of time in the name-changing process, thus I wasn't feeling excited at all. Ya know me, always too realistic sometimes! So I had no plans or idea at all on what to do with the house until I watched The Help, the one movie which I love almost every one of the cast members, the story and the entire settings of the American homes during the 60s'. 

If you ask me, what inspired me to the theme of our house? I would proudly tell you it was The Help. 

Look at the kitchens! Love the combination of the colours man! 

In fact I think the modern American houses we see on TV or movies nowadays still have quite the same old American country-styled design. White colour wooden furnitures, cabinets, doors, plus some lighter colour or flowery wall paper and curtain to go with it. I FELL IN LOVE right away watching the movie and I told Deardo my decision (firmly) to have American country home as our theme of the house and luckily, he agrees! :)
Of course, my love for it cannot go too crazy! For instance, there is no way I'm going change my window frames from metal to white coloured wood. I cannot have too flowery stuff because hey it will look damn girlish for Deardo. Of course I think most importantly I don't want the house to look overly-old school because who knows one day when we want to sell the house off people find our house's design too old-fashioned?

Some photos I found online which looks damn close to my dream house! 

But ideally my house's wall should be a mixture of white and some light colours paint. Following my family's tradition, I've always prefer light colour than dark because Papo and Mamo believe your house will look bigger if it's brighter. So even before I decided on the theme, I knew in the first place, things like the brownish Balinese style is a no-no to me. Sky blue and mint were the first two colours that came into my mind and we have already made them colours to our room, kitchen and living room.

We spent nights to finish the painting! 

We always thought painting the house would be peanuts to us because hey, it's just a small condo unit! It turned out to the other way round! Freaking tiring okay! One piece of wall probably takes up half a day to paint! In fact, Deardo's slimmed down a bit painting the house! And we grew lazier and left the second room unpainted until today! LOL! We are planning to paint it this weekend and I'm thinking of doing the same sky blue or choosing another light colour to go with it. What do you guys think? 

Found the perfect look for our kitchen in this picture found online! 

At the moment, our kitchen looks like it's the most completed part of the house. And yes, the cabinets are white in colour and the wall is mint! So far, I only need to buy a new refrigerator because I totally hate the old one (being very anal about it and I want my Panasonic refrigerator!!!) and I'm going to buy a small moving table as an extra work station and storage space. I will share the kitchen experience in my later post. So at the moment, enjoy the snippet of our lovely kitchen in-the-making in the photo! :p

Can you already feel the country-ness of our kitchen??? 

Our living area is kinda complete because the painting of the wall are all done and we have our Ikea sofa which I personally love to the max and had to put them all up by ourselves (Papo and Mamo are the partial sponsor of the sofa set) and a new TV. Now what we need for the living area are a new TV table and coffee table which suits the theme nicely, which means they must be either white or light brown!

Still admiring the sofa set everyday now! LOL! 

If you ask me, I would say if you don't mind paying, it's better to get professionals to paint the house for you. But to be honest, there isn't regret of painting our house ourselves. You get a sense of satisfaction looking at it and most importantly our work isn't bad at all! Deardo's dad has been very helpful helping us to settle all things electrical because well that's his profession. He and Deardo also dismantled the old kitchen cabinets so that we can paint the wall before the Ikea people came to put up the new one. So we save a lot with his help too. :)

Deardo's dad even moved our door bell's speaker (whatever you call it) from one side of the wall to their other side! 

Next thing to come is our built-in wardrobe and built-in shoe cabinet. Although they won't be too country due to the limited choices we had to choose from, I'm still very excited about having them finally in our house! Then I can put up all my clothes and shoes properly, OFFICIALLY!!! No walk-in wardrobe like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City has but still! Having them built-in in stead of those small wardrobe and shoe cabinets is still damn cool! So I'm definitely not complaining!
More updates in my coming posts! :)

P/S: If you have unwanted home appliances or furniture which are still usable, you can call PASSO at 03-9021 1888 or 012-686 1633. They will come and carry the stuff away without any charges and bring them off for charity. I figured that is totally cool because even though I hate those old furniture in the house, they might still be useful to others! So far we've got them to take away the old sofa, a make-up table and an old mattress. I'll be calling them up soon to take away more stuff when we have the money to replace the old ones!

Superb Pork Ribs @ Morganfield's, Pavilion KL

To all my Muslim friends out there! Selamat Berpuasa!!!!! :D

I know it is totally inappropriate to talk about yummy pork during the Ramadhan month but if I don't mention it now, a lot of my readers might miss the promotion!

Deardo and I were looking for a right place for dinner the other day at Pavilion when we saw this 1st Anniversary promo at Morganfield's. The Morganfield's Feast Platter at RM89.90 looks damn tempting that it actually sucked us into the restaurant like magnet! LOL!

We went ahead to order the platter which looks humongous and while waiting for our food to arrive, we got napkins tied over our neck that has cute wordings on them too!

CUTE!!! 

The restaurant has a very American cowboy sort of theme which is quite cool! Check out their mirrors in their restroom! When we brought Deardo's mum there she thought they never wipe their mirrors! LOL!

After waiting while watching Mr. Bean on the TV for about 20 minutes, our food arrived!!! Deng deng deng deng...

HUGE!!! HUGE!!! HUGE!!!
After cracking our knuckles, we started our attempt to finish the platter, which comes with one whole slab of their famous pork ribs, half a roast chicken, two pork sausages, fries, baked potato and salad.

Just to show you how huge was the ribs! 

Seriously, that pork ribs is to-die-for!!! So unbelievably tender and the flavour from the sauces was just too yummy to resist!!! The roast chicken isn't the main thing here but I still find it not too bad. I also love their sausages a lot! *slurp slurp~~*

Well we didn't finish the fries and baked potato but that was definitely a very satisfying dinner!!! We love it so much we went there again two weeks later with Deardo's parent! 
But mind you, this promotion ends end of this month! Their normal price for one slab of ribs is around RM60 plus! So hurry up guys!!!  

Morganfield's Pavilion KL Shopping Mall
C4.03.00, Level 4,
Pavilion KL Shopping Mall,
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2141 3192

Update yaw~!!

Hi all!
It's 20th of the month and I've only posted one blog post?! It seriously annoys me whenever I'm too busy at work that it has taken my time for my blog! Aaaarrrrggghhh...

Hair has grown longer and need a trim VERY SOON!!!

I have so much to blog about! The house, Lina's wedding, food review, etc but for a start, I will just summed up some stuff in one post!

Went to Lina's wedding on Father's Day (she seems to like to have her big days on some other big days) and it was by far, the grandest wedding I've ever been too. Yes, taking Chinese, Malay and Indian weddings into account! But her gown and the set-up of the stage were simply gorgeous! Such an eye-opener for me and Revathi it made us look so suaku!

Look at that!!! It's like a freaking castle!!!

Us, the 1Malaysia combination again! And don't we look so colour-matchy? :p

Added a touch of Chinese on the ang pow packet I gave to Lina!

Oh yea, I saw a lot of pictures with me in her wedding video! But that's not the main thing lar of course... I actually had tears in my eyes when I saw her hugging her dad and both of them cried in the video... Still cannot imagine the day when Papo has to giveme away. Seriously, is there any ways that I can stay with Papo and Mamo and still call myself someone's wife?
*Check out other pictures from the beautiful wedding here.

Went back to Taiping two weekends ago just for a short weekend and managed to stuff as much food as possible before I came back to KL! LOL!

The yummy and cheap breaky I like and can only be found in Taiping!

Then a trip with Deardo's car club gang to Kuantan where we were supposed to eat our hearts out but I thought the food was just really so-so. The hotel and beach were also quite a letdown. The atmosphere was a little weird too this time around for some reason. Hence, the only interesting I found is that the Kuantanese are quite cute when it comes to signboards!!!

Seriously, people in KL should learn to do such signboards! I think people will actually feel bad throwing trashes out of the car! LOL!

COMMERCIAL BREAK:

Showcasing one of the few latest buys (because I stopped shopping for clothes for quite some time now)! Summer mint denim from Forever 21 and a top I got from flea market! Love them to the max!!!

Work was taking up a lot of my time. I think it must be a pre-puasa thingy that everything just had to come at the same time! Sigh... :(

Just wrapped up an exhibition launch few days back and it was freaking tedious!!! Luckily what we got in the end of the night was some fine food and drinks! :D

Hard at work... Trying to explain stuff to a reporter. Looking damn serious yaw~!

When we were still quite sober drinking our glass of wine and Peruvian cocktail...

Love this picture of me and Jason!!!

Us turning red and crazy!!!

You know how you sometimes feel so tired of work or your working environment that you just feel like quitting? It is something that comes once in a while like you just feel so frustrated at work but you won't actually quit... Maybe until another few more years? I think I'm in that phase now. Many things happened during this busy period and it sometimes pisses me off or demotivates me. I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about, right?

Oh well, I think I probably just need a break or just wait for things to change a bit, no?

So apart from work, what do I do?

Well I go to gym for Fit Camp, Fit Core and Zumba classes which I'm enjoying a lot!!!

And going for farewell lunch with colleagues like Eve, who is leaving us end of the month... :,(

Of course, Deardo and I are busy doing shopping for the house as well. Quite tough to find pretty and nice-looking things which are at the same time affordable! But I'll share more of the experience in my blog later on.
For now, time to get some dinner! :)

Buffet at Sizzler and the Rest of Perth Trip

This shall be my very last long overdue blog post on my Perth trip! And it is about food in Perth!

I went to Sizzler only once when I was studying in Perth, to celebrate my 21st birthday back then, if I'm not mistaken. I demanded to bring Deardo to Sizzler simply because it has a huge range of all-you-can-eat salad bar with stuff like pasta that would already fill your stomach up before your main course comes, unlimited drinks and dessert... Just what a guy is looking for! *wink~*

Oh how I've missed you too, Sizzler!

We went there for lunch and the package is a little different. You choose your main course and pay another AUD7 for the salad bar buffer and another AUD3.50 for the drinks, while at night you will pay around AUD22-AUD30plus to get a complete package. I actually saw a lot of those people who only pay for the salad bar and the drinks because they are already enough to make you damn full!

So Deardo and I each ordered a different steak dish. His Royal Rib Eye at AUD22 is much better than my Steak with Grilled Mushroom at AUD19. I guess it was because my sizzling plate sort of over-cooked the beef a bit so it was too tough to eat.

Our main courses.

Luckily I have the whole salad bar for me to enjoy! Fruits, pasta salad, shrimp salad, smoked salmon salad, lamb couscous, fresh green salad, you name it! I think even Deardo never enjoyed salad that much! And they have soups, bread and nachos too! That's why I said you can just have the buffet without ordering the main course!

Only the first round of salad. We went on for N rounds after that!!!

One of the other highlight is this free toast that came with your meal (and mind you, you can always ask for more for free too). The bread is super soft and crunchy! Seriously to die for man!

Missing the toasts already!!! :(

Although I'm never really a fan of dessert, I always reserve my stomach for dessert at Sizzler. Love their soft ice-cream where you can take as much as you want and top them up with all kinda confectioneries. I've not eaten too much of Pavlova (a famous Australian dessert) in my life but I do love the one at Sizzler! Yummy and not too sweet! :)

Ice-cream and Pavlova completed my visit to Sizzler! :D

I cannot be bother about dieting when I dine at Sizzler! I mean the amount of ice-cream I ate was already enough to kill whatever work-outs I did before that! I really love that place and how I wish they can open a branch in KL too!

Sizzler is an Australian brand and they have branches all over Australia. We were at Beldon the other day but you can check out their other locations too if you happened to be in any cities in Australia! Simply go to their website for more information!

Other notable food I had in Perth was the very famous seafood at Fremantle. There are a few restaurants there around the jetty and honestly, they are around the same. My favourite isn't the famous fish N' Chips though, it's the Chili Mussels!

They are so fresh and juicy!!! *salivating already ~~~*

I also tried a new place the night we went to Little Caesars and it is Green & Co. It is not hard to spot that fancy-looking cafe located at Leederville. It has all these big Ikea lights and the entire wall is pasted with a lot of random posters. The entire cafe is damn colourful and is really crowded at night!

The artsy cafe!

Since we were both damn full with the pizzas we had for dinner, we only went in out of curiosity and order a Sencha to share and surprisingly we love the really nice fragrant tea!

Well I'm not sure about the rest of their drinks and cakes, but people seems to be enjoying them! Most importantly it's such a cool place to hang-out!
Check them out at 123, Oxford Street, Leederville, WA.

This trip to Perth means a lot to me and Deardo. Besides my intention to show him around the city where I've spent two years living in, we also explored quite a lot of nice places which I've never been to before this. Plus the proposal has just made Perth, or rather WA so much more meaningful to both of us!

No matter how people say how boring Perth is and has nothing much to see blah blah blah, Perth is always special to me and seriously it is not as boring! And look at how much of yummy food you can find there! The only downside now is that the hotel rates are getting higher because of the mining activities, but that is only good for the city's development so that it can be more happening, right?

I really don't know when is my next trip to Perth, perhaps it will be another few more years or maybe never again but I'm sure I will explore the rest of Australia one day! :)
Check out my photos from the Perth Trip at Album 1, Album 2, Album 3 and Album 4.