Dragon Pic

Just some random Dragon photos

Badminton & Passport?

Note to self: Don't play badminton with cheap badminton racquets... Because at the end of the day, they won't last. Look at them... [points to photo below]

How it all started was my friend, Keng Yen ask me for a game of Badminton. Sure, since I've not played that game for years. Didn't know where my mum stashed away the old badminton racquets so I grabbed the next best thing; these racquets I bought. They were cheap...

It was very funny when the game progressed along. A few times I find that when I was hitting the shuttlecock back, "Where did the thing go?" only to find that it got stuck into the strings... It was very funny indeed.

Well, I'm not saying that the racquets were bad... it's just that we didn't use their suggested shuttlecock (the one to the left). No way you'll find me play with that... Heheheh~!

Games aside... My parents went for a weekend trip to Macau with my father's uncle & aunt. I sent them to LCC Terminal on Friday (5th) at 5am. Nothing wrong with sending them really, it is the fact that they forgot to pump petrol into the car that I would be driving back. Sheesh~!

What's with passport? Did you know that you can get your passport done in 2 hours? I found out about that when my elder sis had to make hers because she forgot to check her passport... It won't be that much of a problem if she didn't need the passport asap to fly to Singapore on the very same day!

After we got the passport done, we had to speed our way straight to KLIA and board the next available flight. How exciting it was. Definitely enough excitement for a while...

Until next time then. Cheers~!

Song of the Moon

Yup, it's about that time of year where we see the nice plump moon and howl with all our might~! No? Too bad for you but I know you all secretly do it too during the mooncake festival.

Yeah, I know I'm a little late with this post and all... 26th Sept 2007 was the mooncake festival.

As usual, every year my parents would ask me to set up the paper lanterns... Since the moon is nice and round this year, we got our prayer session to start earlier if compared to previous years.

They look pretty and all. But with the years going, the quality of candle decline as well and I find myself "reloading" the candle into the lantern pretty often.

But seriously what is mooncake festival with Prayer & Lanterns. Though I don't go around the neighbourhood, carrying along a pattered-coloured lantern (probably at least the fish shaped ones).

Normally the prayer table would be set up in the garden... but this year with the moon nice and bright, we could set up at the cement area outside the dining room / computer area.

The offering for this occasion I should say vary from household to household. Some family puts out more, some less... Well, we have your normal mooncakes, yams, dragon nut? (points to the black thingy up there), pomelo, chinese tea, white mooncake biscuit... and your usual, candles and incense joss stick.

Other paper offerings are also burnt so the supernatural and upperbeings are happy, which in turn blessing and making us happy. Fair share, if you ask me.

With all the prayers good and done, my younger sis and I get to play around with them candles. Here's a new one, candle on a Lotus leaf. Neat huh?

That aside, every year I get about to trying to complete my quest of putting up candles along the entire wall that surrounds the house. Sounds easy on its own but two things, it's a long wall and I'm the only one up for the quest... I believe one year I ran out of candles but this year, I managed to complete this quest. Yay~! [Exp points goes up]

What to do with all the candles in a row? Why, go crazy with the camera, of course. Just something about the dancing flames and coloured wax dripping in ways you can't control is mesmerizing...

And why stop at only candles burning when their boxes are also a nice source of fun. I believe you guys are familiar with me setting candles boxes alit. [grins] Burn~!

My Highlight of the Night would be the paper lantern that combust into flames. We need to buy more paper lanterns anyway... Hehe.

29th Sept 2007 - Bintang Student Night

I don't know if you all know that I was taking vocal classes since June.. That'll make it about 3 months?

I won't say that I can sing well... I know plenty others who can sing better than me, which is quite discouraging but I can also sing better than some. I just love singing I guess. I had been in the music club from standard 1 to form 3, in the choir not solo act..

I got my chance to perform on my very first solo act on stage in the spotlight and all, last saturday (29th Sept). I did my very best to perform and had not much pressure, luckily for me. I had fun singing my 2 songs ("She's the One" by Robbie Williams and "One Love" by Blue) but having to sing for 4 hours straight was a nightmare.

The management had each student perform 2 songs at least and that came up to about 60 songs... 1 song is about 3 - 5 minutes would bring us to 240 minutes (4 hours). The event started at 8pm so we left at midnight, and even that was prior to the games that they had planned to play... Puiyeel, my younger sis and myself went to have dim sum for supper. Love dim sums too. Hehehe~! Cheers!

To the Loony & Recitals

Meant to write a note or two earlier but I guess I was just too lazy... It happens. [grin]

Date: 15th Sept 2007, Saturday


Sunz was back in town to continue her medical studies from India to Malacca. So a meeting was definitely in order. Came saturday; Sabrina, Sunz, myself and my younger sis went to Midvalley for a nice lunch. We enjoyed our food at Little Penang Cafe... But now what? I'm not one to plan everything in advance because I believe things will just flow when you're having a good time. Sabs had already bought her new shoes and Sunz bought some cassette tapes, what is there to do?

Since they wanted to buy posters but didn't know where to buy them, I took them to KL to buy some. With all the good food and sugar from the Baskin Robbins ice-cream gone to our heads, it was like a mad house in the car ride there. If anyone was hearing us, they'd hear random shouts and fits of giggles (we were having a good time by the way) and probably be thinking "Ha~! A bunch of loonies in a car."

After parking my car in S&M, we took an easy stroll to Petaling Street since Sabs wanted a bag to go along with her new shoes. 'Note from Sabs: Never break into new shoes when walking with a bunch of loonies in KL. ' Needless to say that the poster hunt was a success with myself and my sister bagging another 22 posters to our collection, while Sunz got 9 (plus a hunky looking poster) and Sabs with 3... I think..

So with our treasure hunt coming to an end, I dropped off the gang at my house and we parted ways from there... *sob, sob* I continued my day with an interest to attend a piano recital with Pui Yee at KLCC.

Without a moment to rest, I made my way to KLCC to meet up with her. Since we were both early as the piano recital only began 7.30pm, we took a nice wet stroll around the KLCC park. Truth be told, I never walked a full circle there before this. It was fun to walk around when you see hordes of families running the other direction to seek shelter from the rain. We had our umbrellas up, of course.

In our walk, we found our at the convention center. As the day was turning darker and the rain now even heavier, we ended our park walk and decided instead to look at the piano showroom. (Note to Pui Yee: I command you to stop thinking about your new "affair" at this point~! Hahaha~! You and your piano... Just kidding by the way)

Anyway the piano recital we attended was by Mr Loo Bang Hean and he played very nicely. The pieces were Chopin: Marzuka; in C# minor Op 6 No2 , in A minor Op7 No2 & in C# minor Op Posth, Granados Valses Poeticos and lastly Beethoven's Piano Sonata in F minor Op57 "Appassinota". If you knew what I talking about in this paragraph, good for you because I'm just typing what I see from the programme leaflet. Hehe~!

After the performance (he did an encore), we went to Dome to eat dinner since both of us haven't eaten there before. The food is good but for a price. All good things must came to an end but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have fun again, my friends. Til next time, Cheers~!

Creating Mooncakes

It's that time of year where mooncake sales go up because mooncake festival is coming~! And what better way to celebrate this festive occassion than to dabble into homemade mooncakes. Sweet~!

First we needed to prepare the utensils/equipments... Well, the only utensils that we really needed to have beforehand was this. Mooncake mould. Yes, I'm aware that it's in shocking pink. It was much cheaper to get the mould in plastic than the traditional wooden ones... Aside from that, we used a mixing bowl, weighing machine, spoon & tray.

When I saw this I thought it looked freakishly weird so I decided to share it with you guys. What is it, you ask? That was the basis of a mooncake... before making it pretty that is.

The skin of the mooncake consisted of a special flour, icing sugar, shortening & water. We added fresh strawberry since we were making strawberry mooncakes. That strange black blob on top of it was actually red bean paste, which we bought pre-packed. Ahh... the convenience of technology...

Anyway, we covered the red bean paste with the mooncake skin and then we put it into the mooncake mould. [squash, squash, squash]

Oh~! To make it easier for the moulded mooncake to come out, we needed to dust the mould with flour... Oops.. so the first mooncake we made actually needed to be banged out since it got stuck-ish in the mould. Hehe~!

Tadaa~! A homemade mooncake. As odd as it sounds, initially the mooncake will be a bit oily (must be due to the shortening). This type of mooncake that we made just needed to be chilled before served. When chilling, the recipe book told us to wrap the mooncakes in kitchen tissue paper. [shrugs]


For first timers, I think it turned out pretty well. Cheers~!