My very American blankie

It was a typical evening after work yesterday.

Got home and Bea rang me on my mobile and we decided to have a video chat for the first time because I wanted to show her my ripple blanket.

It turned out to be a really nice video chat where the only thing Bea didn't manage to do was make tea for me like she usually does when I visit her.

So I showed her my ripple blankie so far and she confirmed what I was thinking as well... that my ripple blankie looks extremely 'American'... although at one time, she mentioned something about it being French as well... but what ever it is, I'll let you be the judge of it and you can tell me...

So what do you think?

Looks very American, don't you think?

Spider web on my blog

I was pressured into writing this new entry because Fely has laughingly commented that there are now spider webs on my blog....

I was going to drive down and see Fely in Eastbourne this weekend, but with gale force wind of up to 80mph, I think I have made the wise decision of postponing this trip of mine. Plus, I can't see very well driving in the rain, surely that is a bit dangerous?! And our missus in Eastbourne is busy getting the whole family back to Malaysia for a two-week holiday and I don't want to risk being accidentally 'packed' into one of the bags amidst the chaos :P

Steve is a lot braver than I am so he's taken my car and two friends, to go up to London to have a 'boys' get-together', leaving me plenty of time for my little projects, my cafe world and my 'one tree hill'.

When I was in Reading last, Beatrice gave me a brilliant idea of making a pair of baby booties for a friend's new born and in fact, she managed to find a pattern and made a really cute one.

So since then, I've also managed to find a really useful and simple to follow tutorial on youtube, and successfully created a pair of really cute looking mary jane baby slippers, except that I've taken such a long time to finish them, the baby's feet could have possibly outgrown them by now.

Since I don't have a real baby as my model, Felix the cat has volunteered her pretty long legs for me to test the slippers on and they look just so cute. And digging through my knitting accessory bag, I found some teddy bear buttons that go really well with the slippers. As usual, pictures were taken with my Blackberry camera so quality of the picture leaves much to be desired for. Speaking of camera on my BB, when we were in London, my phone was unfortunately dropped on the floor and the camera ceased working. Rang up Orange, got a new phone to replace the old one.

Everything's good after I have successfully backed up old information onto the new mobile, except I have now lost my 'home-brewed' theme which I spent hours creating and the ability to read and write Chinese characters because I have lost the multilanguage software pack on the phone which I painstakingly installed. Writing a letter to my mum last weekend was a struggle because usually I have a vague idea of the shape of the Chinese character but have to look up my BB to get every stroke, dot and dash in the word right. I studied the Chinese language for 12 years in school and this is how I ended up.

Dad used to tell me, 'Make sure you read and write Chinese as often as you can so that you don't forget'. I know now the true meaning in this advice. Sadly, these days I express myself better in English than in Chinese.  But I get the occasional forwarded emails in Chinese so I force myself to read the emails word for word so that I don't forget the language all together.

My latest project is a crochet ripple blanket with the instruction from the great Lucy in Attic24. I just love Lucy's blog and her posts are really inspiring and uplifting. She's got such charisma and positive energy in her that every time I read her post, I feel like I'm sharing her joys in life. To think that we are all total strangers reading about each others' lives on the Internet, it's truly amazing.

As usual, in my determination to be Little Miss Perfect, I have spent the past two days, doing and undoing, redoing and un-redoing my project because I really want to get the foundation right. So we shall wait and see if this is going to be another one of my infamous 'abandoned' projects, much like the building construction work in Malaysia.

Okay folks, I have duly performed my duty and shall now go back to my 'project' and I will keep you posted with my progress (or non-progress).

Ciao.

'Wicked' and Sake no hana

There were two things that we were excited about during our London trip last weekend. First, we were going to watch the musical 'Wicked' and second, we had reservation at one of the most highly recommended Japanese restaurants in London.

We went for the matinee showing of 'Wicked' and there were LOADS of children in funny, halloween costumes and the whole of the Apollo Theatre was jammed packed!! Because we only paid £20 for each ticket so you can imagine that we were sooooooo far away from the stage (the second last row) that the characters on stage were as small as my thumb, haha. We paid £1 to hire the pair of binoculars supplied but we could just about make out the faces of the characters through the binoculars. Overall the musical was good, but not as great as The Lion King, I must admit.

By the time we squeezed ourselves out of the theatre at the end of the musical, we had plenty of time before we had to make our dinner reservation at Sake no hana on St. James Street, near The Ritz Hotel. So we took the underground heading towards Green Park. It was a good job we had ample time as between us, we had two Google maps on our mobiles and still we managed to go the wrong way, twice. 

Upon reaching the restaurant, we still weren't sure we got the right place as  the area around the outside of the restaurant was dark; there was no clear sign board apart from some small letters next to the entrance. The entrance to the restaurant reminded me of the entrance to a secret society. It was dark and gloomy I actually thought in dismay that the restaurant was shut. The glass doors slid open after we stood there for a full 10 seconds and we were ushered upstairs to the main restaurant. Sake no hana is divided into three sections: downstairs is the conventional Sushi bar; upstairs you have the cocktail bar, followed by the main restaurant area where you have the choice of sitting on the floor (not quite on the floor because there are holes where you can dangle your feet), or you can sit at tables.


We chose the 'sitting on the floor' table, mainly because we knew we wouldn't be expected to fold our legs and sit properly like a real Japanese due to the hole in the floor. The interior of the restaurant was a neutral blend of bamboo and wood, with dim lights projecting from the right angle to create a very elegant and soothing environment. Before I had to take my shoes off and settle down, I visited the ladies and as expected, it was as equally impressive as the main dining area. It was too bad I didn't have my camera with me at that time... don't worry, I wasn't about to take a picture of myself on the bog, but the sink area was a spectacle in itself and I can only describe to you what it was like. Again the theme of bamboo and wood blend was evident in the ladies. The hand-washing area is formed by a main tub with a wooden tray sitting in between, for the disposal of used hand towels. There is no tap at the sink. Instead the water comes through two 'chutes' from the wall, into the tub. Washing your hands with water gushing down through the chute was so satisfying that I spent quite sometime washing my hands, haha.

Then came the exciting part of ordering for food from the simple menu of Starter, Salad, Sashimi, Maki, Rolls, Sushi, Tempura and Side Orders. After obtaining help from a really friendly waitress, we decided on our order and when our first order of Warm Softshell Crab with Rocket Salad came, we were well-impressed. Everything tasted as yummy as they looked and as soon as we had finished one dish, our next order materialized out of no where. One thing I must say is that the waitress and waiters were super efficient and super friendly.

Warm Soft Shell Crab Salad with Wasabi Sauce

Duck Breast Tempura drizzled with Sweet Vinegar Sauce (can't remember what the sauce is called)

Dragon Roll -- Eel, Avocado and Tobiko Caviar

My miso soup with tiny mushrooms, very nice

6 slices of Sashimi -- Seabass, Tuna and Salmon (just that plate cost us £15, eek)

We had some mixed tempura of prawns, scallop, pumpkin, courgette and mushroom too but didn't get chance to take any picture before we started digging in. At the beginning, because we knew that we only had a two-hour slot in which to order and dine, we were literally wolfing down our food thinking that we were not going to have enough time. But by the time we were eating the dragon roll we realised that we still had ample time so we slowed down and really took our time to enjoy our lovely and beautiful food. Steve was even persuaded to order some Sake which he really enjoyed tremendously. I had a sip or two and liked it too. The Sake tasted pure and had a full volume to it. Of course, no meal is complete without dessert, so to make ourselves feel less of a glutton, we shared a portion between ourselves.

The passion fruit cheesecake with yuzo ice cream that we couldn't resist

Overall, the bill should have been a little over £100, but because we managed to obtain a special 30% discount time slot, our whole bill came to £88, which is still a lot for a meal, but it was a special treat seeing that we don't go up to London very often. And it was a truly fantastic and tasty experience.

It was really a great foody weekend : over the weekend we dined at a French restaurant in Marylebone Street on Saturday for steak and chips for lunch; Japanese restaurant on St. James Street for Saturday dinner; and Breakfast at The Brew House Cafe in Kentwood House at Hampstead Heath.

Have to limit my intake beginning of next week.... but it was all worth it !! I shall finish off this blog with some really beautiful pictures I took of Hampstead Heath this morning, a wet but colourful windy morning. Apparently, this is the setting in which Julia Roberts did the filming of her period movie in the movie The Nottinghill (I hope this makes sense).

Autumn, leading to X'mas

It is a funny time of the year.

You are never sure what to wear because you might get too cold, or too warm.

I am not rich so I cannot afford to have the 'in-between' wardrobe like most people do...autumn cardigan... autumn jacket....

My range of clothes (which are getting more and more limited these days as I have 'outgrown' most of them) jump from summer, straight to winter.

It's crazy that we're now talking about Christmas already. Shops have started stocking X'mas merchandise as early as September !!! (a bit like CNY and Hari Raya at home, no?) With Royal Mail on strike, there is an added pressure now to get Christmas presents sorted as early as possible because we do all our X'mas shopping online.

So Steve said to me that I must start dropping hints about what I want for X'mas. Year after year, it gets harder and harder to get each other X'mas presents. I have not done very well last year for him and I still feel bad about it. Last year he really pulled out all the stops and surprised me with an amazing portable piano and the best thing I got him was a Heston Blumenthal cookbook, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook which was not your ordinary cookbook and it still cost me an arm and a leg. The book weighs around 5.5kg, with glossy pages of scientific cooking methods, stunning pictures and amazingly unusual out of this world's recipes and it's more of an artwork rather than a cookbook. It has got some amazingly unusual recipes for things like 'snail porridge', 'tea jelly', 'sardine on toast sorbet' and 'smoked bacon and egg ice cream', to name a few.

Apart from the portable piano, he also got me a nice, cuddly and fluffy 'tatty teddy' dressing gown which I almost brought round to Bea's in Reading when she told me her house is really cold. I changed my mind because the whole thing bundled up would have taken the entire space of the small backpack I was taking. And it was really cold and I regretted not bringing it. Just to clarify, the person in the picture is not me, hehe. But the dressing gown looks just like the one I've got. Cozy, isn't it? Anyways, so he got me this nice dressing gown, and I got him an alarm clock with a weather station. haha. I know, I know it's terrible. But it is no ordinary alarm clock !!! It's got a special cord which you can stick out the window and it'll tell you the current temperature and it'll give you a very accurate weather forecast !!! Seriously, I thought it was cool !! (I know, sad...)

So this year, I really don't know what he's going to get me. I've got me laptop, got me piano, got me car, can't think of anything else I need, really..... hmm. The worst part is I don't know what to get him !! I got him a PS3 on his birthday this year, his dad and brother got him an exercise bike, so I've run out of things I can get him... SIGH. Any ideas, pleaseeeee feel free to drop them in.

I might ask for a pair of UGG boots though. They look so comfortable and so lovely !! But they are bloody expensive. I've never been able to spend a lot of money buying expensive clothing or handbags. So if Father Christmas is listening.... please may I have a nice, cozy and lovely pair of UGG boots?? Pwetty pwease...

Anyway, we're heading up to London tomorrow !!! Yayyy !! Am really excited about that. We plan to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant in St. James Park after the musical, Wicked, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Mean time, take care peeps and have a good weekend and a great Halloween.

On why it was absolutely justified for me to be NEUROTIC !!

So last night I cried myself to sleep... and this morning Steve accused me of being neurotic.

As it is a well-known fact, I am a techno geek and where possible I always look for an opportunity to get the best software updates for my blackberry and my Mac and I love designing my own themes to be used on my blackberry... you get the idea.

Last night, for the first time, I installed and ran the Blackberry Desktop Manager on my Mac because I had received notification that there was a new software update !! So while watching the TV, I plugged in the phone and started going through all the familiar steps of clicking this and clicking that.

Not even bothering to read the screen for what I was installing because I've done it countless times, I set the phone up to receive the 'latest' software.

When the phone rebooted itself after the update, I picked it up to see what has been 'updated'. The first sign that told me something was amiss was when the screen showed 'As this is your first time using a Blackberry, this setup wizard will guide you through.....'

Hmmmm.....

Before I proceed, I need to layout the foundation of how important my Blackberry is to me... I have ALL my passwords in there, I have ALL my contact numbers, ALL my work and personal appointments on the Calendar, my pictures.... basically, my WHOLE LIFE !!Okay, perhaps not that serious, but you get the drift.

So, I checked my phone directory, BLANK ! I checked my password keeper, BLANK! I checked my Calendar, BLANK !! Blink, Blink, Blink...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!

By then my fingers were trembling and my heart was beating fast and there was sweat on my forehead.

What followed was a series of frantic revival rescue missions, trying to revert the update and looking up forums to see what I can do to 'undo' the damage... and to make matters worse, the Desktop Manager (as if by fear) has refused to work properly on the Mac, leaving me more frustrated and hopeless than ever...

Steve, as usual, while trying to be positive was saying things like 'It's replaceable'...'I'm sure there's a way round it' and 'Why are you so upset?'.... all of which were not very helpful at that time.

So not knowing what to do next, I started crying (yeah, that would really solve the problem)... I was so upset that I was prepared to throw the Berry on the wall...not only have I wiped out all the data on my Berry, all my other settings must have been affected as well because the Internet refused to work and I couldn't get into my email. I WAS NOT A HAPPY BUNNY AT ALL !

So last night, I cried myself to sleep...

This morning, after waking up and the realisation that I have lost EVERYTHING dawned on me, I became depressed again. I switched on my Mac nevertheless to see if there's anything that can be done. This time, the Desktop Manager has worked again, and I found a file with the title 'Back up' and I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. So with trembling hands, I plugged my berry in and  click on the magic button called 'Restore'.

I must explain here that I had not thought of doing this beforehand simply because I had not created a 'Back up' file before beginning the installation process so I did not expect that there would be a 'back up' file in the system. (Bless who ever created this feature as an automatic feature in the software)

When the process has finished and I checked my Berry again, I was awashed with relief to find that allllll my passwords were there, my contacts were there and my calendar events were there !!

HAALLLLLLLLELLLUJAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I knew what was coming but I had to phone Steve to tell him the good news (he had left for work by then) and of course what followed was a series of him mocking me and imitating my 'sobbing' and 'wailing' from the previous night...and him calling me a neurotic.

But I didn't care..... all I cared about was that I got everything back on the phone.....Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...... what a relief.

I think when I get home tonight I shall write down in a secret notebook all my passwords in case something catastrophic like this should happen again (god forbid).

I am not melodramatic or neurotic, seriously.

Sometimes it's a bitch

Normally when there has been a bad episode at work (the one which I have to smile a lot), I usually get over it quite quickly and shrug the whole thing off in a matter of minutes.

For the past two days however, I have been deeply disturbed by a bad experience at work on Friday night. It was not really, really bad, if you think about it, but I just can't seem to get it out of my mind.

As usual, it was around 7pm, I was the only serving assistant at the till and I had four customers queueing at the till. When I was still serving a young customer, the next customer in line  (an old chap) practically shoved him aside and crossed that 'invisible line' where you're not meant to cross until you are being served. So, naturally, being a good customer assistant (kepo and brave at the same time), I tried to say something in the nicest possible way I can to help the customer understand what he's done.  It turned out to be the one thing that I would regret doing later on. Here goes the conversation...

Me : Excuse me Sir (see how polite I am?), this gentleman is still being served, if you don't mind standing back just a little?

Old man : (With eyes glaring like they're gonna fall out of their sockets)YOU DON'T MIND ME DOING WHAT I LIKE TO DO AND YOU CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING. I'M STANDING HERE DOING NO HARM.

Me : (Shocked, a bit red-faced but composed, giving change to the previous customer)Ahem, your change, 12 pounds 75 pence. Thank you and have a good evening.

Old man : WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TELLING ME WHAT TO DO. WELL ARE YOU GOING TO SAY SOMETHING OR HAVE YOU NOT GOT A TONGUE?!

Me : (Still scanning the items bought by the old man, *toott* *toott* *toott*)That's 3 pounds 76 pence, PLEASE.

Old man : (giving me money and still grumbling, I didn't fully hear what he was saying coz by then I 

had lost interest and was too humiliated to comprehend)

After I had given him his change, he was still standing at the end of the till packing his stuff and glaring at me at the same time so I tried to be as composed as I am and started serving the next customer, just to let him have a taste of his own medicine (I usually like to wait until the previous customer has left the till before I start serving the next customer because I believe it's rude otherwise).

Like I said, it was not a really really bad experience as in I wasn't slapped or being called names but I just cannot get it out of my mind. It kept playing at the back of my mind, the way he looked, his awful facial expression and also the phrase 'have you not got a tongue'. I think partly because I regretted not doing what I should have done. What I should have done was not to sit there and take it in like that. What I should have done was to ring the bell for assistance and refuse to serve the old man for being extremely rude, unnecessarily. Just because we are working at a supermarket, wanting to earn a decent living, it does not mean that we deserve to be treated with disrespect. That's what's bugging me, I think. What I should have done.

I'm hoping that after blogging about it, I will feel a lot better. Next week when I get into work again on Tuesday, I know that I'll be a little wary and phobic in case he should come through my till again. I want to be able to get over this episode and move on.

Mack a Witch

I love listening to Chinese songs. Growing up in a Chinese primary school and continuing onto secondary education in a school populated by 99% Chinese, naturally my pop idols included Aaron Kwok (don't laugh), Andy Lau, Leslie Cheung, Emil Chow, to name a few. All my collection of Chinese songs are built through the years, mixing old and new and some songs really do bring back some fond memories.

I like putting my Ipod on shuffle mode because you'll never know what you're going to get and sometimes it can be an old, old song that really melts your heart. Other times, however, it can be a funny song you've never heard of before and you wonder how it ended up being stored on the Ipod to start with. I recently encountered such a song on my way to see Beatrice in Reading on the train.

One common trait of Chinese songs is that most often than not, you find an English phrase or two thrown into the middle of the song, especially the chorus part, for god only knows whatever reason. This song started off being normal (in Chinese) and true to form, in the chorus section, the guy started singing 'Mack a witch, mack a witch' (must say out loud for the effect)..... so I was trying to decide if he was saying that Mack is a witch? or that Mack wants to be a witch? or could he be asking people to Smack the witch? or perhaps Mack should be the witch?

Then it suddenly made sense to me.... he's telling the girl to 'Make a wish'...................

Seriously, if your English is that bad, why bother? Just stick to Chinese, which you're good at?!!

Another classic example, unfortunately, is in one of my all time favourites.

It's a Happy Birthday song and when it comes to the chorus part, naturally, the guy wants to show off his English talent and started singing 'Happy Burstday..... happy burstday to you...... '

I dooooo love my Chinese songs dearly... but I can't help but laugh each time I hear something like that....

It doesn't make me love my Chinese songs any lesser though :)