NightOut from Hotel

Ever since I arrive here almost one week ago, I have never really step out of hotel for dinner. Today, we got back to hotel earlier than usual from the site. So decided to venture out from hotel for dinner.

We ended up in Bukhara, a restaurant serving local and also Thai food. Seems like Thai food is pretty popular here, at least all the restaurants which we have been to, seems to have some Thai dishes on their menu. It wasn't being plan, well we don't really have any plan actually.

Saw some shops while in the Micro-Bus (we call is Van in Malaysia) on the way back to hotel. So we head toward that direction. As usual, there are kids, carrying infants, begging for money from us. This is normal occurrence, it's pretty easy to single us out from the local, obviously.

Any moment, we are out on the street, there will be a bunch who will follow us and beg for money. Their modus operandi is pretty similar with what we see in KL (sometimes) too. Carrying an infant and small kiddo. I know it's pretty bad make a joke out of this, but I can help it and amused when I notice that on Friday (their off day here) we didn't see them on the street and we can walk without being trailed to the restaurant for lunch. Seems like they too work like us, in fact better than us. Even them have one off day per week. The team and me has been working everyday since the day we arrived, and this will continue till we manage to get all the system up and running. Not that I complain though.
The kid was still begging and trailing me when I was taking this picture of the fruit seller, while we were only aimless evening stroll. The picture has been crop because I have not time to think of composition and framing when the rest of my colleagues was like 10-20 steps ahead of me, and anxious that the kid my turn rowdy and do more than tugging at my shirt.

This kids and the rest surrounded me once they saw I was snapping away with my camera. The rest of my colleagues were still at least 10 steps away and pretty amuse seeing me being surrounded by the kids to have me take their photos.

That's the problem with having SLR, even though my camera is already one of the smallest SLR in the market, somehow I still feels it's pretty intrusive and attract unnecessary attention when I am shooting away. Especially which such an enthusiastic subjects. It's pretty hard to get a candid shots, of which I preferred than the manufactured unnatural pose.
This guy specifically requested me to snap his pictures, and by this time more and more started to surround me, and I had decided to make a quick exit. By the way, I haven't seen the men here holding hands crossing or walking along the road just as yet.

I didn't really notice neon sign until last night. For the first few days, I thought the name was Blue Ocean Tower. Hairy Ocean Tower

Sound Pollution

If I am not a lazy bump, I would probably paste some sounds I've been hearing these few days here, then only you will get the complete picture on what's going on here. Imagines a none stop honking sound when you are looking at the picture.

Pay attention to something at the top of the bus! Saw the stunts they did on top of the moving train too, but didn't manage to grab hold of camera in time to snap the pic. Maybe next time.

Yes... play the honking sound in your mind as you see this. The round-a-bout just in front of the building I work.

Photo taken from the roof top of the building. We don't need police, even in traffic condition close to anarchy. Well... there are police men there, but I think they are as good not there. They don't even need a traffic light.

No, I am not betting my live walking across the busy main street just to get this picture. Taken while I am in the car which send us to the site.

'Nuther Meme Crossing Event Horizon into Singularity

Someone told me, I gotta be technical with her. Hence the title of this blog. If you don't have a clue about what it is all about, and bother to find our, please go here.

As usual, having a brain (or at least the part of the brain which is in charge of storing memory) the size none the bigger than the size of the brain of goldfish, I can't recall much about the movies that I have seen.

Written here are the remnant of memories I have about the movies that I have seen for the past weeks, and which could also be the record weeks in which I watched the most movies for the past 3 years... or could also be the record for my entire existence until now.

Barnyard - Talking cow? Anyhow I think I can to a certain extents related very well to Otis (surprise... surprise... I remember the name!!! In case your really believe that I remember, there is such thing call google and The internet movies database :P

The Curse of Golden Flower - The Curse of Giggling Boobs. Family infighting and incest? 'nuff said

Happy Feet - Damn, I can't remember what exactly the catchy lines which I like. I think it goes something like Appeal to one better self. Tried google it up and got a few results, Appeal to the better sense, Appeal on one better nature, etc. Of them all I think I like the Appeal to one better nature.

Confession of Pain - Why we drink alcohol? Because it taste like overnight sock soaking water? The flash back of the killing scene halfway through the movie basically spoiled and gave away the whole story lines there after (at least for me:). Al Cheapo way of attempting to be different (from other movies). Sounds familiar eh? Biggest flag in the world, and all sort of Malaysia Boleh! stunts.

The Guardian - Bloody long, but at least not as boring as The curse of giggling boobs. I was later told that someone was holding and controlling one bladder to wait for the movies to finnish finish. Lucky the dam doesn't go burst in the cinema :P The climax was dragged on a little bit too long. They should just let the Guardian come into existence at the point where they put in a couple of "false alarms" and filler scene. Still can't understand why they need to have the filler scenes at the ending part of the movies.

*now that I have complained about the a little too long ending movies, and can senses that you have started to feels bored to the core with my WTF? movies reviews, so I better keep the rest short and sweet. (hmm... can't think of any better better excuses to be lazy, and hopefully they are not too lame)*

Night at the Museum - Dumm Dumm want Gum Gum.

Fly Boys - Budak Budak Terbang. ??!!! lol

I tag five persons who have never visit this blog except through their dream (or nightmare) and can't remember even a freaking bit of their dreams once they wake up.

What's it like to use public transport. Not bad.

7:15am - Alarm on mobile phone went off. Argh... I just need another 15 mins of sleep. Turned off the alarm and head back to dreamland.
7:45am - Second alarm went off. I can't even remember I turn off, or did I? :P
8:45am - The appointed time for car service at the service centre. Me still lost in dreamland.
9:45am - Woke up only and orgh... I miss the appointment for car service. Took a quick bath and made a call to the service center. Luckily they still allow me to send the car over despite I am late by one and a half hour. The toothache last night was almost gone, but better not risk it. Call a colleague to get the dental clinic number, err.. I can't locate my patient card, and this dentist was introduced by this colleague. She should have the number :P As expected, she has the number. Place a call to the dental, and luckily they have no appointment at that time.
10:10am Left the car at the service center, and took a life threatening risk crossed the busy road to stop a cab to go to the dental clinic.
10:15am - Managed to flag down a green cab. The driver looks like a serial murderer. I mentioned my destination which is less than 5km away, and he asked me if I know how to get to there. Bloody hell, isn't it your job to know where to go or this fella is scheming to rip me off. A friend told my I may not looks like a local. But better not mess with the would be killer. Told him yup, I knew how to get there. Please be quick, I can't wait to get down from my would-be-last-seen-in-cab.
10:30am - Directed him to stop by the road side and walked about 50m to the clinic. The pain was felt on the left side of my lower jaw. Don't know exactly which tooth was the culprit. The dentist use a sort of solid tools to slowly knocked on each tooth, yet I can't ascertain which tooth was causing the pain as I can't feel the pain even as he knocked on the teeth. He probe further, and I told him it hurt last night when I bite on something. He folded the muslin cloth, and ask me to bite it and that's how we found out the real culprit. He removed the old filling, and later told me that it seems like the nerves of the tooth has been effected. I can either let him pull it off (and say bye bye to the premolar), or underwent root canal treatment to remove the nerves (and hurt my wallet ouch!). I think it's still worth keeping and go for options two.
11:00am - First treatment for the root canal was done. Walked to nearest bus stop, which was at least 500m to 800m away. This was the first time in ten years I took a intracity bus in Klang Valley. Got the information about the route and bus stop from a colleague who has been taking RapidKL to/fro for work. I thought I should give it a try.
11:11am - Arrived at the bus stop and run a little bit the last 10 meter, just in time, as the bus pulled over to the side of the road. Paid RM2 ticket, for the almost 1 hours journey, compared this to RM4 for the cab which took less than 5 minutes. The bus there were still a handful of seats empty, I guess because this stop is just a few stops away from where the route starts. Took the seat and brought out the mag which I carried with me in my notebook bag, in case in any time I need to wait for someone or something. Actually that was the last month issue of the mag, which I indirectly subscribed to by joining ACM. In fact there were a couple of previous issues which still in the in it's plastic wrappers.
12:00pm - Arrived at the bus stop beside my office. So far the experience of boarding and taking this public transport is still pretty pleasant and good. I look around through out the journey, and notice that I am only one reading, the rest are just look out of the bus or dozing off.
4:00pm Received a call from the service center and my car is ready for the picking. It's still too early for me to go off, and the center will only close at 6:30pm.
5:30pm - Confirmed with a colleague about the bus that I should take. Was told that I can used back the ticket which I paid for this morning. It seems that the RM2 is a daily fair. With all the petrol and toll hike, this is pretty much a good deal. Maybe I should explore this option, to go to work. Just make a quick check at the RapidKL Online, and there is bus stop with a direct bus route to my office. Hmmm... . Board the bus, and as this is the first stop, I manage to get myself a seat too, and again managed to finish reading a handful of articles in the mag, and browsed through a handful more.
6:45pm - As expected, the returning trip was a bit slow as the traffic started to get heavy on Federal Highway. Though the bus pass by right in front of the service center, with the busy traffic and chicken shit that I am, I decided to stop further away, maybe 800m away, as that's the only place which has the pedestrian crossing overhead bridge.

Overall this is quite a pleasant experience taking the public transport. Maybe I should do this more often. What I like about taking public transport other than the obvious fact that it's cheap is it sort of allow me to use the traveling time to do some reading. Yet I am already used to taking my own transport which obviously much more flexible in term of time, and sometime I may need to got to customer place with very short notice. Anyway, this is still a good alternative.

Butir Nangka

I can't even remember when was the last time I had this kelatanese dessert. My grandma used to prepare it for us when I was still very young and she still staying with us.


Ingredients:
Set A

• 250 grams Glutinous Rice Flour
• 1 cup of pandan leaf extracts

Set B

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tea spoon of fenugreek seeds (biji halba)
• 1/2 tea spoon of fine salt
• 2-4 pandan leaf
• 1 thumb size ginger
  
• 5 glasses of coconut milk (extracted from 1 coconut - not too old, otherwise will be to creamy). I am using the instant santan (whole pack), which I found to be too creamy
  

Directions:
1. Mix Set A and knead into dough.
2. Roll and shape the dough into the finger size jackfruit seed (thus the name butir nangka).
3. Boils a pot of water. Put the butir nangka into the boiling water. Wait till it float and take it out and put aside.


4. Cut the ginger into very fine strips.
5. Mix the Set B and boil.
6. Once it boils, put in the butir nangka (3.) stir and ready to be served.