The Year 2009

It has been almost a year full of events especially with the birth of this blog itself already gave me so much to look forward to write and share it off with my loved ones and my friends. It's that time of the year again where we part with the previous year and saying hello to the following year. People have been auspicious and skeptical about the year 2010 especially the Chinese for the year 2010 is like THE bad year for the people. What's so bad about the year of the Tiger anyway? Perhaps its because Tiger Woods went straying in 2009, that's why they predict more TIGERS went straying in 2010?

What I've done for the year 2009? Let me recap the year with some of the pictures that was taken along the way...

I welcomed the year 2009 at the balcony watching the fireworks go at the Esplanade.

I went to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year in January.

My new blog was born on the 25th February.

I got myself a brand new phone...

and I came down with a very bad food poisoning back in March for eating way too much.

The best trip of all time fell between April and May as I visited Japan's Sapporo and Tokyo.

Breakout was in town and my first ever live stage performance that I've attended... that's like end of May.

June was a pretty low down season as I only managed to stay in Penang and explore for the most of the time. It was my dear's birthday too!

July was a good month where my dear officially move to Penang, got herself to a brand new job and my job were appreciated with a heavy buffet meal celebration at the Rasa Sayang hotel.

I also got myself another new phone in July.

August came and I had one of the many bad birthdays that I've ever celebrated.

September is the month where I saw Kanye turned into an ass and I went back to Kuching for a two days trip with my dear.

Me and my dear celebrated our long awaited 2nd year anniversary for being together....

And of course attending to my dears brother's wedding in October.

Again I went back to Kuching for a much longer trip to attend the All Souls Day....

and I sold off my beloved RX-8 in November.

And in December, I was in a jam packed Singapore for Christmas with my family, a long road trip with a stopover in KL.

As well as I got myself a brand new camera for Christmas!

That pretty much wraps up the year 2009 for myself. New Year resolution? Let's see... I guess I'll post it up on the New Year posting for the year 2010. Happy New Year to my fellow readers. There should plenty to look forward to in the year 2010.

The Brand New Camera

I've been a rather good boy this year and that's how Santa dad came...

And I was rewarded with...

A Sony DSC-TX1 camera.

I've been longing to replace my 5 year old Sony DSC-N1 camera but I guess that I'll be keeping both since both are still serving its main purpose... to capture my life's greatest beauties... my family and friends and of course... daily incidents that happened as we move forward every day.

The Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 is the latest addition to Sony’s range of slim and stylish ultra-compact digital cameras. In comparison to its predecessors, the DSC-TX1 camera packs with tonnes of goodies inside and out. This new camera features the new 10.2 megapixel “Exmor R” back-illuminated CMOS image sensor that brings out the full resolving power of the camera’s Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® lens to deliver extremely fast speed, high resolution, and stunning low-light sensitivity with improved image clarity and drastically reduced grain.

The brand new camera also comes with Smile Shutter™ technology, Intelligent Scene Recognition (iSCN) Mode, Intelligent Auto (iAuto) mode, Face Detection technology, Anti Motion Blur Mode and one of my favourites... the Sweep Panorama mode.

I've always had trouble capturing night pictures with my previous model but the new camera packs with the Handheld Twilight mode where it captures six images in a fraction of a second with one press of the shutter, and combines the data from all six to create a single image of extraordinary detail.

The camera only measures at just 3 3/4" x 2 3/8" x 21/32", the DSC-TX1 is slim enough to slip into a pocket, especially those tight skinny jeans. The camera comes in a few colours... Blue, Gray, Pink and Silver in colour. I've picked Gray for mine. I've heard that there's also Gold in colour sold in Hong Kong too.

There's a large 3” Clear Photo LCD Plus™ touch screen display¹ (230K pixels) allows you to scroll through images by simply touching the display.

When purchasing the camera, it comes with tonnes of goodies such as a battery charger, Lithium-ion battery, a 4GB memory stick, a Chinese and English user manual guide and of course an installation. Fortress Hong Kong also throws in a mini tripod, a screen protector and a pouch for free.

Gotta love the new camera! And I guess my pictures in the fair future will be top notch quality when posted up on my blog. Do look forward to it.

The Short Meet Up

I don't really remember the last time I met up with Jinlan... I think it should be around last year if my memory still serves me well. It has been quite a while I guess. What she eventually did was to have a brain tease from the minute I met her and threw me the question if I remember how long has it been ever since we last met. My mind was still drifting after a night of cramping in the bed with my family at Boulevard hotel.

The meet up was suppose to be the night before... all thanks to a bunch of jackass highway personnel who decided to take down the lamp post somewhere between Seremban and Nilai which causing a massive jam for about 20km long. We were late. VERY! Me and my dear had to postpone it to the following day because by the time we had our very late dinner, it was almost 11pm, I had to rearrange the meet up with Jinlan the following morning.

She was rather happy to see me and my dear. She took us to a local kopitiam stall near the Old Klang Road (Thanks to Jinwern for the very vague street directions) to have our breakfast as Jinlan and my dear were chatting away regarding their school mates while I am still trying very hard to wake myself up. I presented my Japan trip souvenir to her which has been long overdue.

Then me and my dear forced her to tell us about her recent business trip to Taiwan which lasted for about 2 months... and blimey! She forgot to bring us our Taiwan gifts.

Before we left the kopitiam, she and my dear took a picture courtesy of the camera man which didn't even want his picture to be taken when my dear asks if I wanted to take one with her in return... Sorry dear! I was not in my right mind that morning. And that's how our 1 hour meet up turns out to be like. Hope that no one will be cursing me for posting this picture up in my blog instead of facebook. We'll meet up again... soon enough I hope and this post will remind me when was the last time the three of us met.

Let's Go For Chicken Rice

There's this once that that an uproar caused by neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore trying to claim the origins of its local delicacies. Chicken Rice, Char Koay Teow, Roti Canai (Pratha in some countries), Curry Mee, Prawn Noodles and many others were under siege when Malaysia started to claim the stated delicacies were originated in Malaysia and whereas Singapore countered it stating that those delicacies were originated there instead. A bunch of hoo haah's ensues. For me, it doesn't really matter where it comes from. The place that serves the best food will be the main priority and other reasons, doesn't really matters.

The Boon Tong Kee Chicken Porridge shop eventually serves one of the best Singapore Chicken Rice that's available in that country. The one that we went to was located Cheong Chin Nam Road, Bukit Timah area. We started to eat at this place when dad moves into Singapore roughly about 8 years ago. I was told by my dad that this franchise originated in Balestier Road near Farrer Park.

The franchise has won many awards including the hearts of many especially celebrities that came to Singapore and stop over to Boon Tong Kee to have its famous chicken rice.

This place not offers chicken, other poultry and vegetable dishes are available too.

So... what should I have???

The always delicious and the well re-known dish at Boon Tong Kee, the steam white chicken!

The very average roast chicken (not really recommended).

The pyramid shaped rice.

The mix vegetable full of scallops and mushrooms.

The deep fried tofu that came with creamy mayonaise mixed with wasabi.

And I had to top off my meal with a Thai coconut drink.

Cleanliness is top notch especially hygiene will be the number one priority when doing food business here in Singapore.

My little brother and little Marcus has the final say as the meal here is extremely tasty and worth the many returns in the future, which we have been doing so whenever we are in Singapore. I'm giving this place a rating of 9 out of 10 so for those who are going to Singapore, do stop by to this place if you happen to be in the mood for a plate of Chicken Rice.

Christmas Eve In Singapore

"We will be having turkey for Christmas..." Those were my dad's initial words when he came back to Penang a few weeks ago. And we will do it in Singapore for a change... how did we manage to come up with that idea? Thanks to dad again. He wanted the entire family member to be in Singapore for Christmas this year around. I had to scramble for flight tickets at first and after all the calculations, it would costs a whooping total of RM2500 return flight to Singapore for 6. There's no way in hell I am going to let Air Asia suck our wallets dry for that.

I came up with a brilliant idea and that idea was to drive all the way down to Singapore which we manage to save up almost a thousand bucks from doing so. The ride takes about 8 hours in total from Penang to Singapore starting out at 5.30am. After dropping off my dear back home in JB, we headed into the Singapore Customs around 3pm. Because of the long queue just to get the cash card (It's mandatory for all foreign cars entering Singapore), we only got home around 5.30pm. Just in time for dinner!

The Christmas home delivered meal costs about SGD$400 and the meal were actually intended for 15 people. We just had to eat up whatever we could muster into our stomach and as for the dishes... it has never tastes any better! Probably due to the reason of we skipping lunch on that day.

Dad bought a Hokkaido Snow Crab from Hong Kong which was cooked immediately after opening it from the ice box.

And this is how it looks like when its done. Don't worry!!! The white stuff on top of the crab is just the scales... totally harmless.

Dad did all the preparations when the food was delivered to home while mom were preparing the glasses in the kitchen.

Dinner awaits after all the preparations and arrangements.

Dad waits patiently as everyone has a run through the shower after a long ride south.

As for me, I am all geared up and ready to pounce on the food!

The so called Shepherds Pie which turns out to be extremely tasty.

The Lobster Salad tastes really good as it's whipped up with lots of thousand island sauce.

The Caesar Salad which I lacked of touching after tasting the all time yummy Lobster Salad.

The tantalizing and succulent prawns.

The vegetables that's to be included with the turkey.

The Christmas Turkey... before the garnish.

And after the garnish. Looks awesome eh?

The meal wouldn't turn out as nice without a few bottles of red wine. These nice red wines were courtesy of Aunt Tsai's family in return for the stay over at our home in Singapore about a week ago.

It's not the first time that dad carves up a turkey. If my memory serves me right, the last time he carved a turkey was almost 8 years ago also here in Singapore.

The tender white meat of the Turkey. Oh! La! La!

For the dessert, we had Christmas Log Cake... looks pretty neat I'd say.

The cake wasn't that sweet and the looking into the inside, it swirls made it looked like a real log.

We didn't manage to finish what we ordered that night and it turns out to be our following day's breakfast as well. Posting all these Christmas meal made me going all hungry right now. Merry Christmas to my fellow readers and I hope you guys and gals had as much fun as I did with my family. Ho! Ho! Ho!