Bye Bye 2008, Hello 2009

It's the final day of the year 2008. It's time to reminiscence and it's also time to set new resolutions and new goals for the coming year.

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There had been ups and downs in our relationship, we argued more than before. Through these arguments, we got to learn more from each other; understanding each other better. Our relationship is still keeping strong and it's still growing everyday. I'm blessed with all the promises that he made (though some are empty promises); all the goals that he tried to achieve; all the sacrifice that he made just to provide me better life; and the most important is showering me with unlimited love since the day one we started the relationship. My attitude has never been good; bad tempered; complaining more than praising and yet he is still always there for me. He tried and is still trying to make me a happy girl everyday.
In year 2009, we'll be going to step into another stage of life...no no, we're not getting married yet. We'll be moving in to our new home, our home sweet home. It's gonna be a new challenge for us with the economy crisis and the loan installment coming hand-in-hand. I pray that we can go through all these together and starting our new life; planning our future in this little place that we called home, a place that is truly owned by us.

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We have not been meeting each other as often as before. Everyone is busy with their own circle of life, but still we tried to make time for each others whenever possible. A friend who I had not been contacting for quite some time for the past few years, has turned to become closer lately. Another friend, the one that everyone thought we're the BFF has been missing from the photos I captured lately. Friends come and go.
As we're aging, more and more friends around us are starting a new chapter in their life that is called MARRIAGE. I'm glad to see friends are tying the knots with the person that they called the one in their life. Here is a blessing from me to the newly wed friends as well as the bride/ groom to be. Wishing you guys/ gals live happily ever after just like any of the fairytale stories that our mums used to tell us.

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Dad has been trying and is still trying to compensate us with the lost that he caused for past 20 over years. The value of the family is becoming more important to him. He told mum that friends had been teasing him for just staying in a small little house, which we've been staying for 20 years, when he decided to buy the house next door.
In our heart, we know that he just wanted us to have a more comfortable life. He thinks of the future though he is already 62 years old now. The house is never enough when the little monster cid-cey-ceow is growing everyday and it's so fast that she is going to kindergarden in the next few days. Dad wants her to have more space to keep her toys, bags and clothes; more space for her to hide whenever we play hide and seek; more space for her to run, cycle and move around.
I'm praying that everyone is staying healthy and happy in the years to come. Hoping that everything goes on smoothly in the family and will try to make time to go home as often as possible.

Happy New Year to all!

Christmas Day

The organizer of the day is none other than, Mr. Soo. He did a very good job in organizing the event (two thumbs up). Soo, we now announce you as the newly appointed organizer for all our upcoming events ya!
The guest list:-

Soo + Pei

Ming + Handy

Ryan + Pei Pei

Newton + gf + friend

Hock Chuen + Kitty (sorry forgot to take his photo)

Last but not least, LKC and LPC. I didn't manage to capture a lot of photos as they all were too shy to take photos. Maybe they were scared by my D60.
We had our dinner at Kizuna Japanese Restaurant. I didn't know what we had for the dinner as we ordered too many food, from sushi to sashimi, from udon to bento and many many more. The bill came up to approxiamately RM500 (around RM40 per person, which was quite reasonable judging by the variety of food that we had).
After the dinner, we headed to Voodoo for second-round. We started off my ordering 10 buckets of Carlsberg and played the dice game, 7-8-9, where the guys especially LKC, Ming and Soo learnt from somewhere (3 of you should know better than anyone). Potateoh + Flora, Newton's guy + girl friend joined us for the drinking session as well.
The rule of the game is, you are given 2 dices and are required to toss the dice. If you get 1 on both the dices, you'll get to choose who to drink the beer. If you get a total of 7 on both dices, you'll get to add more beer to the glass. If you get a total of 8 on both dices, you'll have to drink half of the beer in the glass. If you get a total of 9 on both dices, you'll have to drink all the beer in the glass. If you manage to toss 3 times 7 or 8 or 9 consecutively, you'll have to drink a whole bottle of beer. And also if the dices fall outside of the glass, you'll have to drink a whole bottle of beer as well.

Peace to my punishment

Still sober

I was one of the unlucky one as the dice fell out of the glass for two times and had to finish the bottles right away. Ming was the target of the night as whoever got the double one, he would be the target to drink the beer. Flora and Pei Pei were very bad luck too. They always got 8 or 9 everytime they threw the dices. But lucky they have Potateoh and Ryan respectively to help them to finish up the beer. Soo was the first one to K.O, followed by Bro 10 (not too sure he was drunk or what, but he just got MIA).

Newton playing cheat by pouring his beer to someone

We ordered another 10 buckets of beers and only managed to finish 8 buckets of it. Towards the end, only left Ming, LKC, myself, Newton's guy and girl friends, Hock Chuen and Kitty were still playing. The rest of the gang already K.O and sleeping on the sofa. I shouted 7,8,9 for close to 3 hours and I'm having sore-throat right now. It was a crazy night. Both LKC and myself were drunk too.

Me: Do you want to marry me?
LKC: Yes, I do.

Me: Yeah, LKC set on my trap.
LKC: Sigh, kena again this time.

Both already drunk

Ming: Come on you two, listen to my singing.
LKC: Oh no, I'm having bad headache. Please stop it, Ming.
Me: Yerrr...please. I'm not going to listen to your singing.

P/s: They are at the Voodoo again tonight to finish up the 2 buckets of left over. I'm not joining them as I'm having bad sore throat, not going to scream my lung out again. I noticed that I'm too old for clubbing nowadays. It was a torture for me after getting drunk. I'm totally opposite than anyone else I know. I stay awake one whole night when I'm drunk. My mind just spinning round and round, and that makes me wanna puke. It takes me one whole day of sleep the next day for recovery. Sigh...next time I shall just order orange juice.

Christmas's Eve

I planned to go to some luxury hotels to spend few hundred bucks on some Christmas's Eve Buffet dinner, but my plan ruined as LKC only arrived at PJ around 9.30pm. I went to Kelana Jaya to fetch him from his colleague's place and we had no plan on where to go. LDP was badly jam especially at the junction to the NZX at Ara Damansara and from Damansara Uptown to The Curve.

I suggested Jaya One as it has few fine dining restaurants I read from some blogs. We worried that parking wouldl be a problem there so we headed to Damansara Uptown. Since we never dined at The Ship before, so I thought why not give it a try and I always thought that most people will celebrate Christmas's Eve at some shopping malls instead. I was wrong, we saw a long queue of people still waiting outside of The Ship, not forgeting it was already 10pm.

Flea Market at The Curve

LKC waited at The Italiannies

We decided to go to The Curve instead and when we arrived at The Curve, all the restaurants were full-house. We went to the Italiannies and had to wait for at least 30 minutes. Then we went to The Apartment, it was even worse. It was full-house. Then we stopped at the Bavarian Bierhaus and managed to find a table for the two of us.

LPC @ Bavarian Bierhaus on Christmas's Eve

LKC @ Bavarian Bierhaus on Christmas's Eve

LKC ordered the Hungarian Sausage while I had the Seabass. As for the drinks, I had my all-time favourite, The Hefe-Weiβbier Dunkel and LKC had Paulener Mchner. Nothing much we did except for eating, drinking and camwhoring.

Paulener Mchner (L) & Hefe-Weiβbier Dunkel (R) - RM29 each

Toss to Year 2009

Hungarian Sausage - RM39

Seabass with scallop and mussel - RM42

Still sober

Drank somemore

Nearly drunk

Almost drunk

Completely drunk

LKC <3 LPC on Christmas's Eve @ Bavarian Bierhaus

My darling, Cid-cey-ceow never failed to make everyone back at home laughing-out-loud. The photos below don't seem to be very appealing, but it is just too cute. Red Onionhead in disguise...wakaka.

Funny, isn't it?

Potential robber

Another one...

She is always the cutest and the sweetheart of the family

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Wishing everyone a blessed and merry Christmas. Enjoy yourself tonight and remember not to drink and drive. My Santa will be coming home tonight...yeah! But without the present I wished for...sigh. Anyway, Merry Christmas once again.

Another "high maintenance" post...kekeke

**Updates
Comment from LKC - "mou chin" (no money, tak lak duit, boh lui). The bracelet won't go away geh... :(

Another 2 more days to go before my Christmas holiday. LKC will be going to Singapore tomorrow for training + company's Christmas party on Wednesday. Leaving me alone at home again. It was all his fault. I told him why not we celebrate Christmas at Singapore this year and he insisted that he doesn't want to join the company's Christmas party. With that, I did not allocate any leave for 23rd and 24th Dec. Suddenly, he was telling me that he is forced to go to Singapore on 23rd...knn...kns...somemore need me to send him to office at 6.30am tomorrow...that's too much right!!?? Hopefully he knows what to do to compensate this.

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good girl this year and I promise that I will be a better girl next year. My wish for this year would be a silver bracelet from Tiffany & Co (yes, it's addictive). I have been wishing for this ever since I stepped my feet on the Tiffany & Co store in September. If you are unsure which one would be the best gift for me, please refer to the photo below, just to save your time in deciding. Please make my final wish for 2008 comes true.Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Best wishes,
Lisan

P/s: Finally I found my necklace on the Tiffany & Co's website, somemore it's categorized under "New From Tiffany". I always have the tendency of making sure that any items that I bought from any shops/ brands are listed in their websites. Just to make sure that it's genuine and also it's not out-of-fashion. So happy to find out it's one of the latest item from Tiffany, though I have already bought and wore it for more than 4 months.

Baking mood

I feel like baking. Feel like making cupcakes. I've not done it before but just feel happy seeing all the wonderful cupcakes posted on cuppacakes® by +wondermilk® . I should start learning it...to earn extra income!!?? Nope...it's the process of making it that I enjoy the most I guess. Looking at the end result will either make me feel disappointed/ satisfied.

I tried making the "sound-easy-to-make" Chocolate Corn Flakes few weeks ago. I thought melting the cooking chocolate was an easy task...I was wrong. I'm not going to explain how to melt the cook as you can find the tips from the Google. I only got the correct method after my 3rd attempt. Anyway, it was really a nice try and I did enjoy myself.Anyone wanna buy me this book as Christmas gift? I promise to bake the cupcakes for you if you buy me the book. LKC can't be my Santa for this gift coz he doesn't like cupcakes :(
I promise to bake you the cupcakes on your birthday, wedding, anniversary, baby's full month, baby's birthday and etc.

p/s: I'm broke this month, just bought a photography book that costs RM120 from Kinokuniya yesterday and I'm eyeing on a Lonely Planet book, which also costs RM120. I need someone to sponsor me.

p/p/s: I think now it's the most suitable time for you to buy the books now. Coz it's close to the end of 2008 Income Tax year. Purchase of books will allow you to have tax deductions up to RM700...kekek suddenly so tax savvy. Thanks to the Finance Manager who just sent out the email yesterday. So buy me the book to maximise your tax deductions. Thank you!!

It's near yet it's still far

It's Friday...yeay! The weekend is here...but...I don't get the chance to enjoy my weekend this week due to work. Sigh. It's gonna be a stressful week. The task will be running around the clock from Friday night till Sunday evening. Of course it's not done by me alone, still I'm playing one of the major role for this project. Hopefully everything goes on smoothly and the system will be able to go-live on Monday. It has been dragging for too long and I wish to complete it before the new year. Lets pray!

Happy weekend everyone!

Senjyu Sushi + Sakae Izakaya @ Cineleisure Damansara

Senjyu Sushi + Sakae Izakaya is located at the old Genki Sushi outlet in Cineleisure, next to Mc'Donalds. Senjyu Sushi serves the more common Japanese food like sushi, sashimi, noodles and etc, while Sakae Izakaya concentrates more on Japanese Tapas, desserts and drinks. They are still having the conveyor belt concept in the store, most probably because it was already fitted in there during Genki Sushi time.

The outlet is nicely decorated in cool black and lots of green bottles. It reminds me of the Ichiban Boshi @ Pavillion KL. We went there on a weekday, it wasn't crowded. Only 2 tables were occupied. It could be due to weekday or could be due to the prices shown on the menu. This is more like a place for the upmarket than the usual conveyor belt Japanese restaurants like Sakae Sushi, Sushi King or Sushi Zanmai.

The menu offerings are quite extensive and special. You may find the common Japanese food like salmon sushi, soft shell crab, udon and etc. You may also find the uncommon food - hard to find in any common Japanese restaurants - like wagyu beef and foie gras. Not only that, they served the finely grated wasabi root, unlike the ready-to-use wasabi paste served in any restaurant. I reckon, the grated wasabi root is not as hot as the wasabi paste.
We had tough time deciding what to order, firstly because of the extensive menu and secondly because of the price. We had not tried neither wagyu beef nor foei gras before. So we had it on our visits.

Shioyaki means

[shee-oh-YAH-kee] Japanese for "salt-grilled," referring to a traditional method of grilling beef, poultry or fish in particular. Instead of coating food with sauce, generous amounts of salt are rubbed over the surface. The meat or fish is often set aside for 30 minutes or more before being broiled or cooked over very hot coals.

Extracted from here.
Well, we are not wagyu beef expert, we do not know how to grade the wagyu beef. I guess the wagyu beef that we have here is some lower grade beef as this dish only cost RM49.90. Though it was some lower grade beef, it still tasted superb. The beef texture was totally different from the normal beef that we can find in the supermarket. The beefy smell was stronger and the meat just melt in your mouth after grilling on the coals for few minutes. LKC likes this dish so much that he ordered again on our second visit.

Next up is the Foie Gras and Oyster Mentai Maki (Foei Gras, Oyster, Cod Fish Roe). It was our first time having foei gras as well. Not sure about the grading as well. This dish cost RM24.90, with 2 pieces of foei gras and 2 pieces of oysters. The foie gras and the oysters were fried with a tad of cheese. I'm not too keen on oyster as I do not like the fishy taste, so I left it for LKC. The foei gras wasn't as good as I thought. It was too oily to my liking.

Moving on, we had this Aburi Wagyu Beef (RM16). The wagyu beef was grilled to medium rare and serve on Japanese rice.

For something more common, we had the soft shell crab temaki(RM6) .From the conveyor belt, this longish tail salmon sushi cost RM6 as well. Nothing much so special on this salmon sushi except that it's long and more expensive, same goes to the soft shell crab temaki.

This is the Yasai Miso Soup (RM8.90). It did not taste like the common RM1.90 miso soup. It had shiitake mushroom and as well as the enokitake. I love this miso soup as I'm a mushroom lover.
Moving out from the Senjyu Sushi kitchen, here are some of the dishes that we had from the Sakae Izakaya kitchen.

This is the aspara niku kushiyaki - grilled striploin beef rolled with asparagus. It's cheap, only RM5.90 and it was nice too.

Tsukune - skewered minced chicken balls (RM4.90). Nothing much to comment on this as it's just grilled chicken balls.

Lastly, the yaki origiri - grilled triangular rice balls (RM4.90) (Shoyu, Codfish roe and Bonito flakes). The rice was grilled till it is harden (is that the correct word). The texture is something like the rice cracker, but harder.