So the audience was supposed to sing during Afdlin Shauki's (did we get that right?) song skit at the Gala Farewell at the Actor's Studio Bangsar yesterday - and even that was ribbed by Harith Iskandar much later on.
Bangsar Actor's Studio is closing down.
Admittedly for us who'd never really were that interested in the arts scene (and only joined the YKLS after they'd decided to try out other venues for their performance), we don't have much of a strong connection with the place - but it's really a shame because we do realize the place has done so much for the arts here in Malaysia. Then again that's because we'd worked at BSC before and do occasionally go shopping there so we've been exposed to the many posters of performances, political satire, even watched the YKLS performed there before for their 5th anniversary - you have to say that the place allowed for very good exposure of such things to the public.
And so YKLS was to perform as part of the farewell performances, every day from Wednesday till this Sunday.
The choice of repertoire? Songs from past productions - which meant that for most members all they had to do was brush up, for some of us (especially yours truly) it meant learning new songs. Nooooo problem. Just a few obstacles that need getting out of the way only, like say, for the Kenangan Lagenda Medley, somewhere in the song we'd been muddling up the lyrics.
The original lyrics go:
Hujan yang turun bagaikan mutiara
Berkilau, bersinar, berkelipan.
Subur menghijau, bumi terbentang
Dan bayu berpuput lembut.
Cinta yang bersemi di waktu hujan turun
Menyirami ketandusan hati.
Dan hujan turut mengiringi
Engkau pergi.
Very poetic lyrics right? This is the kind of writing that caused us to hate Bahasa Melayu karangan in our SPM years (heck, every year in our school life) because we hadn't the vocabulary and style for it. So anyways, we're trying very hard to stop singing:
"Hujan yang turun
Di waktu hujan turun."
'Cos everytime we do that, we get stuck for the next line of lyrics.
Anyways, we must say that we're rather glad to have the opportunity to perform in Bangsar Actor's Studio at least once, and get to watch all the other performers here too.
The Chief and us have something in common, and that is there's a streak of competitive behaviour where we must win. It's probably not really too good for us to have this in common actually, because you know how this trait might just end up with both of us not backing down should we ever disagree on something.
Not like it really happens. Except probably when it comes to certain lifestyle habits long ingrained.
Now, given our rather cheapskate gift recently, the Chief had informed us that no gift was forthcoming. This we didn't mind. However, seeing how we already bought a present, there was the call to do something in return.
So after dinner on Saturday night, we weren't sure what to expect. Just chill, most likely.
Turns out that we literally were heading to just chill...when the Chief's nonchalant suggestion to do desserts after dinner turns out that we were heading to Genting. Then we arrived at a empty quiet carpark, and was to wear a blindfold while the Chief tinkered the back of the car.
We took off our blindfolds later with the Chief apologizing for the cheapskateness of it all.
We lose, hands down.
So it all started when we had the itch to head up to Camland once more. And it's not as if the last time we were up there was with the Klangites years back, but rather we did head up there last May. And that stay at the Strawberry Suites was so darn good that we were missing it much sooner than expected. And thus it was that the plan for a Camland getaway early this year.
As we wouldn't be able to stay back in the Strawberry Suites anytime soon and while still waiting for confirmation from others to find out who could make it, we decided to go ahead with bookings first. Chose to head to familiar places, thus we aimed for Parkview Apartments once more.
Unfortunately for us this trip we were sick just the day before heading up to Camland. Ugh. With the flu and cough that can only be described as...juicy.
Of course, we've learned that not all apartments would be the same as 'Ward's apartment. At least the place was clean, there's a telly with A/V ports so that we could plug in a Wii for Guitar Hero, a mahjong table for games and a stove for us to boil water.
'Course, we were supposed to make a list of things that weren't working, like:
- nonfunctioning toaster and electric kettles
- no hot water in bathrooms other than master bedroom
We think those were the essential bits. Stuff like cobwebby curtains and a stack of old bedroom slippers from bygone years we can forgive. Must say that from our previous trips up staying in the apartments here gave us a rather...low expectation of amenities.
Nevertheless, after a stop to iPoh for curry mee brunch and once settled in Parkview Apartments, we headed out for tea at the T Cafe. Their claims to try their Strawberry Scones could not be put to the test because they ran out before we arrived. Still, the normal scones, the meat pie, the cakes, this is definitely a good place to chill.
Trips this time...suffice to say that we didn't plan for much. Asides from us not taking the initiative to look for places to go (it's Camlands and we were happy enough to just chill in the apartments all day long playing games), suggestions for trekking were quickly shot down by us as we were not looking to spend a couple of hours trekking this time. Whatmore while being sick.
So the only main excursion for us this trip was up to the Boh Plantation, easily identified as There-That-Other-Boh-Plantation-Not-The-Sungai-Palas-One-But-At-The-Other-End-Of-Cameron-One. The road up was narrow and filled with blind corners where esteban had to honk at every turn, and once there there was a heckuva climb up stairs to the top, but the view was gorgeous. Not to mention that we could walk between the tea bushes to take photos!
Speaking of blind corners, Camland does have some spectacular things. Like Self-Plucking Strawberries, where we all speculated that all you needed to do at that farm was to hold out a basket and all the strawberries would just pluck themselves and jump right in. Now Blind Corners? However did they lose their sight and why must we honk at them?
Asides from T Cafe, another foodspot that was highlighted was the Highlands Restaurant, for charcoal steamboat dinner. Located in Brinchang 'New Town', we had to make a few turns around to find this place but the food was good! For our entertainment, we took quite a number of videos here - to be played backwards on the Wii later that night. Much laughter watching veggies jump from the steamboat into the waiting chopsticks of lad while Lemon regurtitated fishballs, dipped them in chilli sauce and dumped them into the steamboat.
Esteban had to leave after steamboat dinner on the second night, which left lad, Lemon, Tough T, and us to finish up the remains of the Absolute over our poker game. The thing about playing poker, though...if money isn't involved, it just isn't the same that we play using poker chips. Loser just had to down some vodka.
Our trip ended with us all leaving on Thaipusam, dropping by iPoh once more for lunch (what was it, hor hee?), ice cream soda, and salted chicken from Au Kheng Lim before heading back home.
This trip certainly did see us coming across a number of ghostly material.
During the trip up we came up with a theory to the sheds we saw on the way up to Camland.
See, on the way up we passed by an overturned truck. Then we started telling our driver the Tough Teacher that the unlucky truck driver and his passenger needs to get to town before nightfall, or else the forest spirits would descend like an ill fog and engulf them. All that would be left is the overturned truck, and in a week's time, the truck would be no more and all you will find is a shed akin to the many sheds you see on the roadside...
Oh, and at night, the driver and his passenger would be found sleeping in the shed.
At Parkview Apartments where we stayed, there's something slightly eerie about the place according to esteban and the others. Well basically there was a slight uneasiness about esteban's bedroom probably.
As you can see, even the curtains in the hall had that cobwebbed look, especially when the wind blows it about.
We were also harried at night by sounds in the night that, in the morning, could have been the fridge at night. Or who knows from what. The place had enough that we suggested sticking those yellow Chinese fu onto the backs of the doors, or hanging up them sticks a la Blair Witch Project.
And best of all, the second night we were there, we were visited by angels, demons and all sorts. First we were visited by an angelic apparition, but we were all confused because he had a tail.
So we did a Constantine and attempted to have him reveal his true nature.
That was when the angel turned out to be a demon out to haunt us and damn our souls!
Only, just before we were doomed an angel descended to protect us! And banished the demon with a...
...kamehameha blast.
Okay, we've quite a bit to post up but whatwith being sick we're in the mood to rest and recuperate more by playing Ouendan in bed than doing write ups.
So for today, we'll give you the headlines of things to come:
CHEAPSKATE BOYFRIEND MERGES ANNIVERSARY, CHAP GOH MEH AND VALENTINE'S PRESENT!
ANGELS AND DEMONS SPOTTED IN APARTMENTS AT NIGHT!
LOWLAND WEATHER BURNS!
More once we've gotten our photos in order!
So this year there's not been a family trip but we're fine with that. After all, we like spending Chinese New Year going around visiting friends and playing card games and stuffing ourself silly with oranges.
And as usual, the recap. And some explaining to do.
1) First up, the reunion steamboat dinner. Now for past recent years, since our return from Glasgow, our reunion dinner has somehow become a steamboat dinner. Mum would spend the week prior preparing stock and ordering food, from fishballs to chicken to the yee sang.
Now - a bit about the layout at home:
The dining table, is in the kitchen. The mahjong table, is in the dining room.
The mahjong table, with it's nice silk tablecloth, is not meant for food or drinks, unless the cup is on a coaster, and only finger food like chips and muruku which would not stain or drip is allowed. We may be overexaggerating here but essentially is that we don't use the mahjong table to eat dinner. Oh yes, we neglected to mention why - the mahjong table is some heavy wooden table mum bought from Barang Barang, with a top that doubles up as a lid to the mahjong surface underneath. Workmanship like this, mum does not want to see ruined (well who would).
So we eat on the dining table in the kitchen - a nice round marble top table that's easy to clean. The dining table's in the kitchen because it's easier for mum to clean up after dinner that way.
Now.
During our previous reunion steamboat dinners, we haven't gotten the mahjong table yet. We'd only the round dining table, located in the dining area, and a square foldable table to use as our dinner table. So our steamboat dinner would be held in the dining area, which is more spacious. And all the food and the induction cooker (which was our steamboat) is placed on the foldable table, so everyone could sit around the dining table to eat together.
This year, we had dinner in the kitchen (goodness knows how we were going to transfer tables here and there!) and mum set up the induction cooker on the dining table itself. That led to us sitting on (what we like to think of as) the picnic table. We too were initially confused as to how we all couldn't fit around the table this year.
When both sis and us found out we were sitting on that table tho', both of us immediately thought of the opportunity to eat in front of the telly in the hall instead. Only, since it's a reunion dinner, family should eat together. Our problem was easily solved by moving the picnic table to one end, thus making a sort of keyhole-shaped table to fit all of us.
2) Instead of going to watch a Chinese movie at the cinemas as we usually do, sis and us this time decided to give the nearby DVD shop a try. Mind you now, we're talking about a DVD shop normally manned by Chinese folks, and it's already Chinese New Year Eve. Most retails have already closed up by noon (1U never looked so empty at any other time), and yet the two of us still decided to give it a try.
Maybe it's something to do so we could walk off our steamboat.
Maybe it's blind hope.
But to our delight, the store was open! Seems like these people know business is best at this particular period. We even found out that they were open throughout Chinese New Year. Happily we browsed before hogging our purchases back.
3) We missed the Klangite Chinese New Year visitation. Because we overslept when 'Nic called. Because it happened on the second day of CNY. And because we went out with sis and forgot to return 'Nic's call.
We'd only returned his call on the third day, when 'Nic was back at work, to find out that we missed a wee round of visitations. No news about Webchitect's usual dinner gathering, but then again we didn't ask. Our bad there for not keeping in touch.
4) We missed going visiting with the gang. Only because we were back at work by Thursday when everyone else took the entire week off. But lad held a dinner gathering again (last we attended was 2007) and this time, entertainment took place in the form of Guitar Hero and Magic Mike - an instant karaoke microphone. Just plug into AV ports.
After lad's place it was off to Lemon's place for more drinks and card games. Interestingly we have not gambled this year - card games turned out to be Saboteur that Ms Long Leaping owned.
5) Just yesterday the gang celebrated both Puddy and our becoming 'uncle' and 'aunty' with an ice-cream birthday cake from Baskin Robbins. Since it was held at our place, it also doubled up as a visitation for the gang, hahaha.
From the gang entertaining the Wee Wog, to having cake with phototaking from new proud DSLR owners lad and Esteban, to gossip, to watching videos backwards on the Wii, the night passed by fairly fast!
Now the Chief posted up a rather complete Chinese New Year greeting that did pique our interest somewhat. Only somewhat, becuase we don't have the energy to totally go interpret the actual meaning. But then again, we choose reinforce our dependancy on the Chief on all things Chinese by remaining a banana.
So with all the CNY wellwishings going about, this was what the Chief emailed:
It was only after the Chief added pinyin that we whipped out our Oxford Concise English-Chinese dictionary and managed to make out the characters that was written in the email (you know how it is when certain Chinese characters are comprised of two or more basic characters, it all gets so cramped up we can't make out what it is). Then we had fun using our Zig Calligraphy pen to rewrite it and scanned it in for bigger viewing.
Now here's the pinyin (and we've decided to uglify it a tad by adding numbers to indicate which accent it is):
gong1 xi3 fa1 cai2
wan4 shi4 ru2 yi4
bu4 bu4 gao1 sheng1
yi1 ben3 wan4 li4
cai2 yuan2 guang3 jin4
sheng2 guan2 fa2 cai2
xin1 xiang3 shi4 cheng2
wu2 wang3 bu4 li4
heng1 cai2 jiu4 shou3
shen1 ti3 jian4 kang1
And if that isn't enough, here's what the dictionary translation for each character. Mind you, we aren't translating it as it's supposed to be translated, meaning we aren't translating it phrase for phrase, we leave that for the Chief to tell us one day.
Of course, we're sure it wouldn't make too much sense but neither would it make too much missense too.
Respectful, pleased, issue, wealth
Ten thousand, matter, as if, idea
Pace, pace, tall, move upwards
One, origin, ten thousand, benefit
Wealth, source, vast, advance
Move upward, officer, issue, wealth
Heart, think, matter, become
Nothing, tearful, negative, benefit
Horizontal, wealth, move towards, hand
Personally, body, build, well-being.
We shall stay banana, for we find it much easier to understand the latin languages somehow.
Happy Chinese New Year!
If the night at Checkers wasn't enough to satisfy our pork cravings, the following night at El Cerdo did! As the Chief had already planned for last Saturday to celebrate our birthday, we celebrated mum's and our birthday with the family on Sunday instead. As it is, it seems that family celebrations are normally on Sunday...So dad somehow heard about El Cerdo, we thinks it was mum who'd told him about it as she'd been there before with her friends.
Got there, led to our table, and after a cursory glance at the menu dad got one of the Myanmarnese waiters to recommend dishes for the three of us. And that's how we ended up having a Cesar's Salad, potato wedges, mini-sausage (Farmer, Thuringer, German Pepper & Spicy Lyonner, not that we knew what each was when we ate 'em) platter, grill-roasted short pork ribs, and half a roasted suckling piglet (read: siew yoke).
Oh, and a Weihenstephan for ourself. Haven't had one since Bangkok last year.
In short, the peppery sausages were good, the ribs had excellent seasoning but lacked much meat (and for once we ate using our hands, and burned our fingers), the suckling piglet is siew yoke.
So it's sorta known that El Cerdo has this tradition of breaking plates after meals or something like that. Turns out that it's only applicable if you order the roasted suckling piglet. How does it go?
1. Order suckling pig.
2. Staff will tell you pig is so tender that it can be chopped using a plate.
3. Staff will ask for one of the diners to assist in chopping the pigl- pork dish. Chop-chop-chop.
4. After chopping the pork, staff introduces the plate-breaking tradition.
5. Staff will ask to choose between 'money' or 'relationship'.
6. The choice determines the way the plate is held before it is thrown into a bucket for luck.
7. Staff will stand opposite diner and throw plate for luck of the other choice for diner.
8. staff takes the dish back to the kitchen to slice up into bite-size pieces before serving.
So dad did the honours of chopping the pork and breaking the plate for money (since both mum and dad agreed that the relationship part is settled...). The suckling pig is whisked away, chopped up and brought back...
Only to have it facing us.
Already El Cerdo had lots and lots of pictures of cute piggies (take a look at their website!). Pigs actually can look very cute on photos, and that already didn't do much for our appetite, but to have half a pig look at you as you're eating it...
Pork. Must remind self that it is pork and no longer pig.
After mains dad surprised us both by having the staff come up with a birthday dessert cake, enthusiastically singing, "Happy Birthday to you, oink oink!"
They gave us two piggie toys as well as presents.
Given that dinner was just the three of us, naturally we all didn't finish the roast suckling piglet. Leftovers were packed in a nice paperbag meant for Monday's dinner.
We're certainly had one filling birthday babi bash!
The Chief admits that it was a stressful job pulling off a surprise birthday party for us. And the Chief did do a great job making it a surprise!
See, what we were expecting was that our birthday dinner with the bloggers were supposedly planned to be somewhere the end of the month (or probably after Chinese New Year), and the Chief told us to keep last Saturday free. Sunday we had dinner with the family (more later), and knowing the Chief to be ever the romantic with ideas of romantic candlelight dinners, we decided to leave Saturday's plans entirely in the Chief's hands.
And so the Chief, on Saturday, feeds us with plans of dressing up in each other's favourite colours (so that we wore blue while the Chief wore green), eating at Westin (eating only, the Chief balked at our suggestion of staying overnight there). Then the Chief points out that, since we both were slightly sick at the time, we shouldn't be eating chicken. Now, we don't really follow the many pantangs so we weren't sure how legit this is after all, but since the Chief believes so, we weren't gonna say anything against it.
Chief isn't a beef or lamb person too. Which means that asides from seafood and porridge (both met with rather unenthusiastic response by the Chief), pork for dinner was the choice of dinner. And the only pork place we introduced the Chief to was Checkers (first introduced by otousan, yes here's credits to you), when we both dropped by there one night to sample their ice-cream (creamy vanilla with fruits and rum!) before heading for dinner (yes, desserts before dinner).
You see, how neatly the Chief manipulated us into suggesting the place ourself?!
And even during the drive there...
"Should we call and see if we can book a table? Even if we're 15 minutes away only, you've seen how fast the place fills up."
"No need la. If no place we go elsewhere to eat. There was another restaurant there right?"
"Yeah. The Hot Chocolat Cafe. Never tried there tho'."
So we thought that it was somehow an easy dinner thingy. Mind you, it's not that we had low expectations. There were already plans for a birthday trip up to Camlands again soon and the Chief took it to pay up first - and so told the Chief that we were fine with eating simple, there was no need to splurge.
So anyways, we reached Checkers, parked, walked up to the place and we saw the proprietor outside. Asked him if he had a table for two free, and he told us that the restaurant was fully booked.
Then we stopped and thought, "Aw shucks, ok, let's go have a look at Hot Chocolat."
That was when the Chief urged us onwards to go closer to the restaurant, telling us to take a look. That, was fishy. And when we reached the door we saw Leggie.
Haha, we aren't very good at looks of surprise ourself.
Everyone had to Go green, green, green, green, green, green, green !!
Even the cake was green, topped with fruits and specifically made to contain more kiwi fruits and even the cream had green colouring!
Must say that we're very delighted that our sweetie Chief did wonderfully in planning the entire thing (although during the dinner the Chief did pour out the stress involved in organizing a surprise dinner event, especially because big numbers of people were involved and that Checkers wanted an exact number of seats to reserve)!
The night was spent eating pork, singing ABBA songs, chatting with our neigbouring table of diners, doing a yamseng in harmony, and having loads of fun being ourselves.
Shoutouts (from one end of the table to the other)!
Our darling, who took the effort to print out and made a card replica of the iTunes Gift Card bought from eBay!
Bunny, for the QQ CD Box. No, we haven't tried fitting the Wee Wog in it!
Paul, Leggie and Froggie for the Umbra photo holder! More reason for us to print photos!
Alex and Jin for the Spongebob Lego Keychain and Giant Playing Cards! Come CNY we gamble with that ok?
Alice, for the Lego Name Programme Keychain and the Pastel Art Set! We only have to decide on a name now...
Little Prince, who got us Puppet Pinocchio! Something else to collect in the future maybe!
Apollo, Williamnyk, Derek and SK for the Japansch Zaky! We had fun reading the message on the bottle! Wonder how long we can let it age...
Adrien, Junior, Nivlac and Sinner decided to follow up from last year's Ultimate Bar Book and get us a Cocktail Shaker!
Nase and QR, supporters of alcohol and coincidentally, also got us the same Cocktail Shaker! Now we can make two different cocktails at the same time, once we stock up on different types of alcohol.
Lifebook, for getting us an Esprit bag! Now we have a bigger bag for when the Crumpler isn't big enough!
And thanks for the calls and texts from those who didn't make it!
Once again, everyone, welcome to the first birthday celebration of 2009 (well among BFFs that is)!
What did we get the Chief? See see, the Chief's is in Ice Blue while ours is Turquoise Blue.
Construct box.
Put present into box and cover with wrapping paper.
Close box. Hand over present.
