Thursday, October 27, 2005

Quick Look Around Klang 1...

Too much Bridget Jones can lead to this:

6.00am: Am going off to sleep as earlier have been progressing on Spartan: Total Warrior. Must make full use of job flexibility now as once procur job as top-flight pharmacist may not have such luxury to stay up all night. Must get up early to go to JPJ to get back car registration form sent in last week for hakmilik cancellation.

8.00am: Mother barges into bedroom announcing that we better get up and head to JPJ.

9.00am: Mother shouting from downstairs inquiring if we're still asleep. In fact have woken up, but only to turn the air conditioning off. Mother was also making statements regarding fact that it is the puasa month and upcoming Deepavali/Hari Raya celebrations means civil servants will take longer to get things done. Inwardly was thinking that it was going to be us doing the waiting, after all. Surely collection of form wouldn't take that long?

9.15am: Have woken up and breaking fast. Blah. Am planning to head to some nice quiet park once done at JPJ to nap in car.

10:30am: Have been waiting for half and hour now. Ticket number states that we are 7032 while current number at counter at time we took ticket was 7026. Nevermind, have Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason book and Nintendogs to while away time. Ooo! Must take dogs for walk.

10:45am: Barking has unnerved poor Malay woman sitting in front of us causing her to move to end of row. Whoops, officer at counter verbally calling out us number rather than buzzing it. Wanted to know to whom car belongs to. Says is sisters, which he then proceeds to check with his head. Decide to sit nearer to counter, which happens to be 2 seats away from poor Malay woman. Still walking dogs while they yark their heads off unsettling poor Malay woman all the more.

11:00am: Am out of JPJ. Hmmm since heading into Klang might as well use inner roads and avoiding silly RM1 toll.

11:15am: Must not autodrive so much unless have destination fixed properly. Was deciding to head to (old) home instead of UOB Bank near Klang Parade. Needed to fill in form for process of exchanging bankbook for ATM card. Ooo UOB Vox card has Visa Wave! Must resist. Must get steady job where can be top-flight pharmacist before grubbing for another credit card.

12:00pm: Hmmm decided that since in Klang shall take pictures to show how much has changed. Also driven by fact that lad has asked if there were places of interest in Klang and did not seem to believe us when told him no.

Splash Swimming Centre
Used to be called Blue Sea Pools. Why the pic? This place has 2 pools at the back where you can pay and swim. First learned of this place when our primary school scouts decided to spend a day here (must have been scouts and not class activity, but definitely primary school). Oh yes, why does this place stick in Memory Lane - there were arcade machines here! Imagine the joy of finding a Street Fighter 2: The World Warriors arcade (20sen a game, oh what times) with many many contenders. We gather many people who cycled here didn't come for the swim.

Kin Sun cornershop, Chi Liung
This cornershop's popularity lies in it's Fried Kuey Teow. Absolute dee-lish. The man also tends to bang his wok with spatula every other second, thus us dubbing him the 'musical char kuey teow man'. Nowadays someone else helps with the cooking. Our sis also enjoys the prawn mee here but we haven't tried it before. Right opposite this coffeeshop is the Grace Assembly Hall.
Was planning to have lunch here but the place was closed!


Restoran Taman Chi Liung
The lady selling kuey teow soup here is absolute dee-lish. She adds in loads of lieu instead of just the regular fare of 2-3 fishballs and some chicken strips or fishcake slices. Her store normally has a very long queue. She's also not open today! What's wrong with these people? Anyways if ever you want to find these places, just ask about for the Chi Liung Public Bank or Grace Assembly Hall. Can't get lost.

EON Bank building
Admittedly we have no idea who owns the building. This building can be seen on your right on the way down to Port Klang. What's so special about this building? It used to be a Grandy's Restaurant. You know? Fried chicken? After that it became a Carls Jr. Restuarant for a while. We remember that bit because we always wanted the Carls Jr. keychain. The children's play area was upstairs, with a segmented area filled with plastic balls to drown in. Must have been too old then, tho'.
Took this picture while on way to find YN as heard she was working in the Port Klang branch of Lee Pharmacy. As could not locate store walked into K. H. Hoe Pharmacy and met a P1/99 senior, Jqln!

Panmour Villa
Focus supposedly not on Panmour Villa but it does play a part. We took this picture as we saw a new signboard of our old tuition place. It's the dark green one on the left, 2 floors up. Taught Science and Maths until Form 3. Funny man from our church. The last we saw him was when we started working in Guardian 1 Utama as we recognized his wife and daughter but couldn't place name to face at first.
As for Panmour Villa wethinks it opened when we were in Form 2 (Klangites please correct us). Dunno how many star hotel and food court downstairs. Mainly good for ais kacang.

Teluk Gadong KTM Komuter stop
The one just 5 minute's walk behind our old Klang house. Happy trips to Sogo, The Mall and especially to PC Fairs at PWTC begins here. Mornings to college also began here. We do remember occasions where we overslept in the train and ended up at the Angkasapuri stop before class started or at Pelabuhan Kelang on the way home.
Nowadays we find refuge here as a place to park and sleep when there is no shade in the park while in Klang.

Kudrat crossroads
Now the fugly bits. This be the crossroads branching off to Happy Garden, Taman Chi Liung and Port Klang if coming from Klang Town. It's still Persiaran Raja Muda Musa but now it has these road dividers and roadworks in action.

3:00pm: Business in Klang is complete. Am heading back home.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Revamping Bedroom Corner!

So mum goes: she saw a shelf in Ikea that may fit our bedroom corner. There's a small glass-top coffee table there stacked with our bags, bags we've gotten from drug talks, gym baggie, Dreamcast box and a box of memorabilia.

See? Not the cluttered desk but the corner to the right! And that is not a vacuum cleaner under the desk! The boxes we've scrounged came in very handy when it came to house-moving >:P

Well, must say that shelf suggestion sounded good. Would improve bedroom aesthetics and make stuff more accessible. So agreed. Thursday the 20th we'd gone to Ikea to have a look-see at what mum looked-saw. First impression was: a bit small lar the shelves. Look at the stuff that was sitting on our table:

Well...abovepic did not show how this was all stacked oh-so-nicely on aboveshown table. Thankfully table was near corner so bags could lean on both walls would have fallen off otherwise. Lesse: Ezetrol baggie, baggie with Chinese text where we can't remember from which drug talk, photos from Jessops, Hard Rock Cafe slingbag, Carrefour bag with Dreamcast controllers inside, Dreamcast in box. Not in pic are our Fitness First gym bag, laptop bag and backpack.

Well, bought the shelf anyways as thought all our stuff would fit snugly once assembled and arranged. Result?

Not as nice as any Ikea display must admit. Still too much stuff that we haven't the heart to get rid off (and wouldn't!). Maybe should have looked out something with a wider shelf. Bit it's a start. But now instead of murky corner of bags (not really a suitable adjective but hey, editors out there find us one) now have nice cluttered shelf! Also matches wood motif of bedroom except shades lighter!

During period of arranging stuff on shelf, have come across:

Our old Game Boy! Gaaah! It's soooo discoloured now! From the pristine off-white to some sunburnt yellow! Cuz A would be very crossed with us if she still wants it back. Anyways have realised that we have 2 out of 5 Game Boy family. Original Game Boy (courtesy of Cousin Alice. Or was it Cuz G? Or Cuz C?) and Game Boy Advance (during the IMU years). Skipped the Game Boy Color and tempted to trade in our GBA for the Game Boy SP (an updated version of the GBA) and now sorely tempted to switch for a Game Boy Micro. The Nintendo DS (turquiose dual-screen thingy bottom left) doesn't count as they don't call it a Game Boy. Must say that we've run through plenty of AA batteries (normal, alkaline and rechargables) since we've gotten our first Game Boy...

Maybe more on memorabilia next time...

Friday, October 21, 2005

At The JPJ

19th Sept. Mission from Soldat High Commander Pater Familias. Infiltrate JPJ and initiate program 'Pembatalan Hakmilik oleh Mayban' for our subject Perodua Kembara. Operative Janvier is to leave around 8am and be there early before location is surrounded by other operatives.

8:30am: Upon reaching JPJ at Kampung Jawa:

Operative Janvier proceeded to snooze in the car until 9am whereby Operative Janvier heads towards the first contact-rendezvous point.

9.30am: Rendezvous-point, Kaunter Pertanyaan:

Secret files have switched hands. Contact had Form JPJxxx/xxx/xxx secretly filed under the counter table instead of behind him to waylay rival agents.

9:35am: Upstairs

Password was required before the final drop-off was allowed. Hmm. The operative looks for signs and...

Mission completed by 10am. Operative then heads off to the Bermudas...he wishes.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Lazy Redirecting

Just, just cannot find the energy to write a decent blogleh. Quick summary, tho'.

Friday
Locum-ing at MidValley during the afternoon. Wah sai long time since we'd work at a busy branch yah, our legs were almost kaput near 8pm man. Some more didn't really get to makan, only a McChicken (not even a set!) for lunch but...but...but...we couldn't resist it anymore, not after seeing NJAPF put up a pic of her 'shared coffee' with Cosmic Rays...our TALL HAZELNUT LATTE! Wah liao! Total caffeine orgasm. Aiyo must have been over a month we never touch coffee except home-made one. At home also drink tea most of the time. Wah sey brought that coffee into the shop yeah, every 10 minutes when we have no customers it's straight into the small locker room for a sip. Just one sip. Anything, just give us our one sip...addicted ley.

Friday night
Got off early from work becoz the gang had planned to go Bangkok Jazz. We don't think we'll dwell much on the place becoz NJAPF (dependable her) has oledi done a nice write-up. With pics! Good pics! Was too tired and hungry to really let common sense rule lah must say. Dinner makan-ed at Bangkok Jazz itself (not cheap but food was fair), some more din't want to drive around looking for parking so kasi valet parking pulak, and the drinks while we were listening to the live band...2 Heinekens, 2 Daiquiries, and 1 Graveyard. And we were driver some more (shhh! Not so loud!!!). See? Common sense out the door. But can say we were in dependable company so we could depend on our other slightly sloshed friends to drive us guys back (girls drove on their own). Read here: NJAPF's Jazzy Encounter

Oh, and learned that an important piece of equipment for blogging would be a camera! A decent one with flash! We're a bit sad that our Nok7710 (our birthday joy) cannot take night shots for all the rest it can do. A bit the odd lar we feel, seeing that my Nok7650 (another pioneer phone) got a Night Mode option. Ah well. Later in life la, digicam. Phonecam for now enuff. Just no night shots.

Saturday
Morning was wonderful as it rained and rained and rained...and our stomach was punishing us for last night's drinks. Pulled blanket over head, counted the hours before our alarm clock was set to go off, and...back to sleep. Wah sey the Guardian at Tun Perak yeah, quite the quiet on weekends man. What the store manager tell us was that the other nearby pharmacies oso don open on weekends. So, wake up, go work, come home, cybercafe...same Saturday ritual la. Only added bit was yet another beer session after that, making it yet another late night...or early morning.

Sunday
Depression is a hard thing to shake off. One thing is that it makes it very hard to wake up, get ready and leave for work. And the uncaring part of our brain is telling us, "Everyone goes through this la, it's called Sunday Blues for them who works office hours." Ouch. Yes it's just the work blues. Brought backup as was expecting a looong day: Pratchett novel as usual plus...our Nintendo DS! Ha! After the first hour at work which seemed to drag at a snails' pace, couldn't tahan already. Whipped out our DS, shut the volume and started playing Meteos. Let people think that we're just jotting around in a turquoise-coloured PDA until they see the screen.

So anyways am trying to catch up on viewtru's stories (Twin Dragons of Li Daifu) and got sidetracked to looking for xiaxue's blog on her bad KL experience. This 2 I won't put links lar, they're quite well-known. For those interested xiaxue's KL post is dated August 24th 2005 so you don't have to take so long to hunt for it.

Downstairs to supper. Nitez.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Friends Of Final Fantasy...

Just cannot get enough of Nobuo Uematsu's Latin choirs. The first time we watched Final Fantasy VIII's opening scene, we were going, "Oh man!" Not only because the movie was good, but the music! Don't take our word for it, there are many many others out there who will tell you the same. Heck, he's already had orchestras holding concerts featuring music from the game! And we are one of them who'd just lurve to be on the choir singing Liberi Fatali.

Had just watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children recently, and the first thing that got us was the Latin choir (okay, mebbe not the first but definitely on the top of the list). There's The Promised Land and One-Winged Angel and both are just great listening. A bit of hunting led to: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/dvd/ff7ac/ that plays The Promised Land repeatedly where we dedicate a window to nowadays, leaving all our other MP3s in silence.

THE PROMISED LAND
Cur in gremio haeremus?
Cur poenam cordi parvo damus?
Stella nobis non concessit, non concessit
Stella nobis non concessit, non concessit
Venarum pulsus in terram fluens
Parvus, parvus pulsus
Cor mortem ducens
Vita mollis in stellam redeunt
Animam sacrificare necesse est?
Cur in gremio, in gremio haeremus?
Cur veniam petimus?
In terram fatali?