Sunday, September 24, 2006

Meeooowwwww...

These are sharlene's precious babies, hehehe... arent they cute!! I dont really like cats, but I guess these darlings made me change my mind =) Now, your task is to guess which one is which, hahaha



p/s: sharlene, hope u like this poster =)

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

a Sunday afternoon at d Curve

What can you do on a hot sunny Sunday.... yeah, chill-out with frens, have a cuppa, talk & laugh.. Hmm, talk about laugh, our afternoon was filled with laughter becoz our laughter-making-machine --> Janice is forever full with all kind of stories that'll make us laugh till we drop, haha. Highly recommended... the pancakes from Paddington house of pancakes... simply delicious! Mine comes with pineapple fritters, fresh strawberries, & two scoop of vanilla ice cream, yummy yummy.. Not forgetting, its Rachel birthday on the 12th, & we got a cake for her. happy birthday Rachel!!

Monday, September 18, 2006

BK's Kitchen on a Saturday

Heart blood come tide (心血来潮)....& with a happy mood on a saturday, I decided to cook myself a proper lunch... Here is the results =)

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A lovely weekend..at the Sea Horse land

Last weekend, im presented to a relaxing & wonderful 2 days holiday. We had good food, good rest & a good massage....Read on..

On a fine & sunny Saturday morning, with our empty stomach, we headed to Hole No.9 shop for our breakfast. Actually the shop does not have a name, CB n frens called it Hole No.9 shop coz its opposite the hole no.9 of a golfcourse. As we woke up quite late, we prayed that the famous fried chicken wing have not gone down to otherpeople's stomach :p As we arrived, its a relief to see the shop is opened, & chicken wings are served minutes later, hehe.& So we happily enjoyed our finger-licking good chicken wings, with a golf course view, & lush greenery all around us. Now I understand why Miri ppl dont like to live in KL. They have a peaceful life here, unlike the hectic KL lifestyle. We then drove to another place for their home-made ice cream. Its really yummylicious, rich & smooth. I think it tastedbetter than the big famous brand like Haagen-Dazs & Baskin Robbins, and its super cheap!

After our stomach are satisfied, we shopped at the Boulevard & did some chores before we headed out huntingfor some food again, haha. This time its a shop selling mixed HK & malaysian style food called Double Star.We had pork chop with rice & fried rice with salted fish. The food is not very special, but delicious, althoughthe pork chop is a bit too dry to my liking. Luckily they served all rice with a bowl seaweed soup =)


The 'main-course' of the day arrived as we then checked-in at the Miri Marriott Resort & Spa. Its a nice hotel with a sea view, a big swimming pool and the mandara spa. The bedding is extra soft & with the thick comforter, you dont want to get out of the bed once you get inside, haha. While the sun setting down, We took a stroll along the coastline which lead us to the swimming pool. Its full of holiday-makers, most of them 'ang moh'. The ambience is cheerful with the hawaiian music playing at the background, children's laughter & adults chatting voices..The only dissapointment is there are no beaches here.

around Miri Marriott

We then headed to the Mandara Spa to get ourselves pampered & our first experience of the Aromatherapy Floral Bath & balinese massage. The decor of the spa is purely balinese. Once we stepped into the Spa, we immediately felt relaxed, by the smell of the massage oil & the cozy settings of the spa. We were welcomed by the friendly staff &a cup of cool ginger tea was served. We were then urshered to a room & asked to change to the sarong provided. We enjoyed the 30 min of the aromatherapy floral bath, with candlelight & again some biscuits & hot ginger tea were served, followed by the balinese massage. Its great that once in a while we engaged in such indulgence =)


Mandara Spa
The day ended with a sumptious seafood dinner at the Sea Horse restaurant. (Been wondering why a lot of shops here isnamed sea horse or hai ma - means sea horse in mandarin. Later, I found out that sea horse is the mascot of Miri, ha, tat's why!). We had rice with spicy & sour Tom Yam steamed fish & deep fried garlic prawns. The fish is super fresh, & prawns is savory with just enough tinge of saltiness on the shell. It was indeed a nice way to end our Saturday excursion around Miri.

Hmmm, you may have realised by now we are the gluttony people :p so Sunday is another day of goin around Miri hunting for food, kaka. We had a big brunch at the hotel, then some ice kacang & again another round of the home-made ice cream, & a nice dinner at the Piasau Boat Club (PBC). The crowd at PBC are mostly 'ang mohs', coz its located in the Sarawak Shell housing area for the expat. Food is so-so, but I really like the environment there. PBC is overlooking theSouth China Sea, & its surrounding area planted with big, tall trees. The open-air restaurant is located on the 1st floor of the main building. Its very romantic to have our meal under the yellow lighting, feel the cool sea breeze brushing against our cheeks, & listen to the sound of the waves hitting the shores..

brunch @ the hotel

This is really a fun-filled weekend for us, more like an eating spree though, haha. Well well,I got my well-deserved holiday, thanks to my hero.. =)

This trip have definitely changed my impressions on Miri. It is quite a fine city to live in, & yes, in case you are wondering, Miri is a city! The street is clean, no jam, nice beaches, impressive scenery & most importantly, they have good restaurants too...

p/s: Ever since my old schooling days, I have not wrote such a long 'essay' on something, haha... hope you like it.I think bloggin is good for me, it helps me to be a less ignorant person...

Friday, September 08, 2006

expecting a nice holiday =)

Will be off to Miri in 2 hours time, yahoo!


map extracted from Expedia

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

White Balance

Learnt a new thing yesterday, about white balance, & I experiment it by taking the picture of this fruit (aiyor, I dunno the name of this fruit in english, tell me if u know, keke) at nite under the incandescent (tungsten) bulbs from my kitchen ceiling.


The pix on the left is taken with my camera's AWB (auto white balance), which came out quite ok, but the color is too orangie. The pix on the right is taken with my camera's preset tungsten WB, & tadaaa..., the image gives a truer representation of the scene...

Read this from the photoxels website:
The reason that pictures turn out with a yellow/orange cast in incandescent (tungsten)
lighting and bluish in fluorescent lighting is because light has a colour temperature. A low colour temperature shifts light toward the red; a high colour temperature shifts light toward the blue. Different light sources emit light at different colour temperatures, and thus the colour cast.

This is where the concept of "White Balance" comes in. If we can tell the camera which object
in the room is white and supposed to come out white in the picture, the camera can calculate the difference between the current colour temperature of that object and the correct colour temperature of a white object. And then shift all colours by that difference.

To help us in those special situations without having to go through the trouble of manually
setting the white balance everytime, cameras provide preset WB settings such as, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Sunny, etc. Using preset WB can improve on a picture, especially under indoors lighting.

Explore your digital camera, & you will find wonders!

Day by day, am improving my photo shooting skills, hehe, not bad huh..

I still remember a phrase I read from the net --> People took great pictures, not digital cameras =)

Mom & Dad's Kitchen

I'll let the picture do the talking =)

from Mom's Garden

Mom like flowers. She plant all these flowers around the house, nice heh =) Never appreciate these flowers last time when I was a kid (in fact, I always complained when I was told to water the plants) Now I do, they are really pretty, arent they!!


Monday, September 04, 2006

Back home.. during merdeka holidays

Me n sis took the opportunity of the merdeka holidays & went back to our hometown --> Alor Star. I have not been a very 'hau soon' daughter coz this is only my 2nd time back to AS this year, hehe.. Anyway, I always enjoy my trip back home. Good homecook food, fruits from our own trees, cheap goreng pisang, can watch tv the whole day, & most important is of course.. having quality time with mom & dad =) & extra bonus this trip...got to meet my cousin, YiNing, whom I havent seen for ages.