The importance of service.

A couple was so thankful for what I did two weeks ago they bought me some carnations from Marks & Sparks. Pics of the flowers with my horrible Blackberry camera:

I like it when what I do matters. :)

Soap & Glory Sexy Mother Pucker and No7 High Shine Lip Gloss (and other stories)

Visited Boy's nan and granddad yesterday for her birthday (and early Christmas dinner) and stayed over for a night. Unfortunately, we broke down on the A1(M) on the way there and it took around 45 minutes before we got going again. And we need a new front splitter or whatever it was that was broken off the bottom of the front bumper. *feels poor*

Anyway, since it was a special occasion, I tried out a couple of lip glosses that I bought ages ago. The one I ended up using is Soap & Glory's Sexy Mother^TM Pucker in Plum (RRP £8.00).

Surprisingly, it really did work in plumping up the lips. The pout is more defined in a beestung look compared to when I only wear normal, non-plumping lipgloss (No7 High Shine Lip Gloss in Happy, RRP £9.00, also new, as below). Some close-up comparisons:

Top: S&G Sexy Mother^TM Pucker in Plum; Bottom: No7 High Shine Lip Gloss in Happy

Quite a significant difference, don't you think? I'm also loving the colour S&G's SMP is giving me, and cheaper than Lancome's Juicy Tubes. The No7 HSLG I got for free, so it's a good deal for me, but admittedly it didn't really give much colour to my lips and just looked like clear shiny gloss. I like it because it keeps my lips looking nice and hydrated for work where I don't bother with makeup, but I might try a more vibrant colour next time and see if it makes enough difference to spend money on it.

Am tempted to get S&G's SMP in another colour to see if the colour's as pretty. :) It smells great too, even if the tingling sensation (plumping action) felt really strange to start off with. Loving lip glosses at the moment because they keep my lips hydrated, and I'm still not sure where I stand with lipsticks which gives a much more opaque colour.

Speaking of pretty, Boy's grandparents gave me a John Lewis fluffy spotty dressing robe for Christmas. It's tres cute and very comfortable. Even Boy is tempted, except the spottiness is too girly. :P

A bit of an update on Kitt, henceforth called Percy (after the cat on Sinfest.net). He's insanely cute but also a little bastard at times. When he's in a feisty mood, he leaves a lot of destruction and blood trails behind him. But when he's in a cuddling mood like, he's the cutest thing on Earth. Except he also likes to sit on my laptop which also makes it pretty difficult to get any typing done.

He didn't like the snow we've had but was very curious about it anyway. More pictures here. It was pretty funny because from what everyone's told me, none of their cats fancied going out in the snow either even if they're dying to do their business. :P

Oh well. We're hoping to get a puppy soon as well, so Percy will have some company, even if it might be company he doesn't approve of. I don't know if he will, actually, because Percy's acting a lot like a dog sometimes... maybe they'll hit it off? Doubtful though. Heh.

Introducing... Kitt the Ginger Cat!

As some of you may know, we recently adopted a kitten from one of Boy's friends. He's been in our house for a week now, and he's gaining a lot of confidence around us compared to his first day when every little noise sent him running for cover (his hiding place when he's frightened is behind our couch). We can open the door to the living room now without him shooting into hiding.

He's also growing a lot bigger too!

Day 1:

Look at how tiny he is!

So... so... tired. First day is so stressful.

Day 2:

Still nervous and hanging around near his hiding spot.

He even sleeps there with a giant version of himself. :P

Day 6 (officially 11 weeks old):

Ginger flash!

And it's the Pole-dancing Kitty!

Look how big he's got in 6 days! His head doesn't look too big for him anymore. :P

Doing what cats do best - "innocently" sit on your computer when you're trying to do something.

Day 8 (today):

In his cat cave. Ignoring me because I said he couldn't have any of my supernoodles.

So yeah. You can see he does more and more things the longer he lives with us, so he's no longer scared of us. Nowadays he even waits by the door for us to open it and come spend some time with him, and every morning when I come downstairs, I'm greeted with his really loud purrs and rubbing. :)

We brought him to his first vet visit on Thursday and he behaved absolutely fantastically even when we was getting his shots. He was also pronounced to be fit and healthy, so we're both very happy. Bought him a couple of toys for his good behaviour and cut some holes into a couple of cardboard boxes for him to play with, so he's a happy cat generally. ^^

Stuff and London Day 1

It's almost been forever since I last wrote. Between then and now, I've got my Macbook Pro (which I love), completed our moved into the new house that we now own (partially, on our bank's charity of 5.99% APR), bought £200 worth of food and drinks and had our housewarming BBQ in our backyard (which a lot more people turned up to than I thought they would... which is nice, considering I'm pretty much a social recluse most times), attended CG's wedding afterparty thing, went to London...

Oh yes, London. :) It was ace! Boy and I had been toying with the idea of going down to London for months now. Initially I just thought we should have a mini-holiday just the two of us and booked the first week of September off from work to enjoy the last of the British summer. And I was going to suggest a driving holiday because Boy loves driving, has just got his RX8, and apparently some of the best driving roads were up in Scotland somewhere. But he said he didn't feel like a driving holiday because of the fuel consumption of his car (though thinking back I think the amount we spent in London would've refueled his car at least 20 times!). So we decided we'd go down to London instead and do really touristy things.

Which we didn't end up doing much.

Instead, we spent most of our three-day break eating. I think I tried to cram too much into three days - I forgot the bit where we actually have to sit down and catch our breath a bit before heading for the next "scheduled" activity. And we kept changing our minds what we felt like doing...

But anyway, this is what happened.

We checked into Crowne Plaza St James and it was fantastic. I think Boy really liked the hotel. ^^ Good job me! It's in the West End, walking distance from Buckingham Palace, 2 minutes from a tube station, 10 minutes walk from Apollo Victoria theatre. Heaven. Location was perfect, and the quality of the bedrooms was what I'd expected from a hotel like theirs. The room was fairly large too, which I was really surprised about considering the location - most of the time you pay mainly for the location and the room will only just about fit a bed and a desk (for example, Corus Hotel Hyde Park, a 4* hotel). Actually, I thought with the price we paid we might be shunted into a broom cupboard!

So, piccies of the room we paid £356.71 for 3 nights for:

Comfy double bed was a bit too comfy for us - we had no motivation to get out to explore London at all after getting into it!

Other side of the room with the TV, minibar and walk-in wardrobe.

I don't know why I always take pictures of the toiletries...

However, I was all excited because I've booked us to eat an early dinner at the restaurant next to our hotel called Bank Westminster. This is an attempt to get to the theatre as well to watch a musical, which was one of my must-do-whilst-in-the-West-End list. I didn't really care that much about visiting museums or getting on the London Eye.

Our hotel room's balcony overlooks a fountain right outside the restaurant we were going to be eating at that first night. It was quite pretty, but Boy said that every time he heard the fountain he thought it was raining outside!

The fountain and the Bank restaurant.

Inside Bank Westminster.

It had really good atmosphere, and the waiting staff were excellent. Very attentive but not overbearing, sincere smiles and quick to top up on our drinks whenever we were running low. We were never kept waiting. Of all the restaurants we dined at during our three-day stay in London, this place offered the best service by far. The food was very good, but not the best.

King Prawn Tempura, chilli & lime jam.

Smoked haddock & leek risotto, poached egg.

8oz fillet with peppercorn sauce.

Eton mess.

Chocolate fudge brownie sundae.

Everything looks yummy but I guess my tastebuds just weren't blown away. The tempura just tastes fairly standard, no special batter nor did the sauce taste any different from the sweet chilli sauce. The risotto was okay but a bit on the bland side... the best smoked haddock risotto I've ever had was still at the Lincoln Grille and they've stopped doing it. Oh well. Fillet steak was good and tender, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Eton mess. :)

All in all, pretty good restaurant and I will probably visit again and try some other dishes to see if they are any better. I think a lot of restaurants can take their notes from Bank on customer service, because that's the main reason, if I'm honest, that I will visit again.

We then took the cab real quick to Apollo Victoria to watch... Wicked The Musical!

Ceiling prop for Wicked. The dragon moves and smoke comes out of its nostrils sometime during the show.

It was bloody fantastic! So so so funny, even Boy enjoyed it, and he doesn't like musical as a general rule and he only agreed to go to this one because he wanted to make me happy. :P And the voices... amazing. I want to go to another musical now. :P

Anyways... I'll write more about day 2 in London when I next do another entry because methinks it's bedtime now!

Ill.

Boy: You clearly have a bad cough. Take some Buttercup (cough medicine).
Me: No, it tastes icky.
Boy: You know what they say, the worse it tastes the better it works.
Me: Said by people who don't have a choice but to take it.
Boy: Well, you don't have a choice.
Me: I do. My mum's not here!

So yeah, I am suffering from quite a bit of a chesty cough since Tuesday, following the sore throat I had since Saturday. Yesterday, it walloped me with a 3rd and 4th symptom - congested nose and headache. Falling ill v...e...r...y... s...l...o...w...l...y. Past two nights I've been coughing so hard and so frequently, I woke myself up multiple times at night (so I've had rubbish sleep!) and now my tummy hurts from coughing so badly. :( It doesn't help at night that it's so warm as well, so it's hard enough getting to sleep!

I don't feel too bad today though. Still have congested nose and cough but sore throat is not as bad as it was and headache is almost gone because I took some ibuprofen before sleep last night.

Hopefully I'm on the road to getting better. It's rubbish to be ill on my weeklong holiday, but it's worse to be ill enough to feel horrible but not ill enough to be off work.

My 26th birthday and how I almost killed myself (taking Boy with me).

My birthday wasn't too bad this year. Brother #3 came over on Thursday for a visit and bought me an iPod Nano because I've been looking into getting an mp3 player and the 5th gen Nano has FM radio too in case I get bored of my mp3 collection. ^^

It's well purty. And I got it in bright pink because I figured no self-respecting straight male will want to mug that off me. Plus it means I'm unlikely to lose it in the house because anything pink will definitely not be Boy's.

CR and JL from work bought me a bottle of Irish Cream liquor and cards on Saturday, and JL gave me an extra AA Guide to London book because I told her about Boy and I doing a bit of touristing in London in September. Arrived home to find that I got birthday cards from MJ and Honorary Parents too. Also got £50 Bravissimo voucher in my email from Boy's parents despite my telling them they don't have to get me anything.

Sunday, had breakfast in bed and then we went out shopping for something Boy can get me for my birthday because he says I'm difficult to buy for. This is what we ended up getting:

Diamond and sapphire necklace.

It matches my diamond and sapphire gold ring, and I thought Mum would approve of the design looking like an 8. :P Oh, and our new house is number 8 too. Haha. I promise this is all just a coincidence though, I'm not being your typical Chinese person putting too much emphasis on a lucky number.

Because we ended up not really spending anything on my present after all (due to an unexpected 0% finance plan), I bullied Boy into buying himself some summer clothes because all he has are plain crewneck black Ts and jeans. I know he's bored of his usual look but his newest clothes were his merino wool jumpers from last December, which is pretty unpractical for the summer, and he kept insisting that he doesn't want to spend money since he's "not flush". I swear, the boy is getting thriftier than I am sometimes.

So I dragged him into Debenhams for a shopping trip - not for me, for once - and reassured him that it won't cost more than £50 to get him some decent summer shirts. He didn't believe me, of course.

We ended up getting three T-shirts (grey, slate blue and black with different necklines/subtle designs) and a black semi-casual button-front shirt that he can wear for nights out, all from the usual lot of high street designer labels he bought from last winter (Red Herring, Rocha John Rocha, J by Jasper Conran). And the total price? £49.80.

I was riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. ;)

Anyway, after much gloating of my right-ness (just kidding), we dumped all our stuff at the apartment and went off go-karting at ELK. We haven't been for over a year, and I know Boy loves go-karting and I am technically making him miss the F1 race, the England vs Germany football game and Top Gear all on the same day (my birthday is so awesome, everyone wants to put their events on that day!), so we may as well make it worth his while instead of his original plan to bring me to Nottingham for a bit of clothes shopping (which he will get incredibly bored with, I am sure, despite his noble intentions). Plus, Brother #3 had never been go-karting and we kept saying that we'd take him.

Boy all racer-like in his suit.

It was fun as usual, and somewhere near the end of our 30-minute session, I had a head-on collision with the crash barriers at one of the tighter corners, sending one of those white plastic separator barriers flying through the air directly towards the opposite lane, where Boy was heading towards at high speed (those 4-stroke go-karts we were driving gets to a maximum of around 49mph). Let's just say it's a bloody good thing he has better reaction speed and managed an evasive maneuver to avoid the huge flying object landing directly in his racing line, otherwise it would've landed right on top of him.

After I was saved from my stuck position and resumed the rest of the session, I continued on and by the time we finished and pitted, everyone was looking at my tyres. They were wrecked. The rubber was all cracked and bubbly from the hot sun and hot tarmac, but whilst everyone else had some tyre wear, they were nothing like my four wheels, as there were hardly anymore layers of rubber to go through. Just shows how much hard-braking/accelerating and drifting I do around the corners. I did notice as we were driving that bits of black rubber were flying all over the place, and I pity whomever who was stuck behind me because that meant they got a faceful of black rubber bits.

Boy reckons that my crash was due to my tyres being worn out to that extent since it was at the later half of the session, and even with his own tyres (that were less worn than mine) he was understeering quite a bit. I knew I turned the steering wheel at the point where I crashed but the kart just wouldn't turn much. Tried to drift it around when I realised it wasn't turning enough and the kart still wouldn't have any of it. It made up its mind it was going to crash, and I was just a passenger at that point.

I was unhurt, which is the important bit, but man, woke up today feeling pretty bruised and battered! I have bruises from where the plastic catch on my bra straps dug into my shoulder blades during the impact of the crash that sent me flat against the plastic bucket seat and my arms really ache from the non-power steering of those karts.

Back to Sunday though.

Camwhoring before going out.

Boy and I outside our apartment block. My eyes were seriously puffy due to contact lens solution reaction! :(

Brother #3 and I at the Lincoln Grille.

We went out for dinner at the Lincoln Grille (we almost didn't though, but that story is for Boy to tell and not me) and I wasn't as impressed as I was the last time I was there. They removed my favourite starter haddock and saffron risotto with soft poached egg and lemon butter sauce, and replaced it with spring vegetable risotto.

Spring vegetable risotto.

Yes, I did order that, but it was so bland and disappointing, nothing at all like what I had before. Even salt and pepper couldn't save it. For my main, I had cod.

Poached fillet of cod in creamy Vermouth sauce.

Which was also pretty disappointing because it just tasted bland, like I bought a fillet of frozen cod from the supermarket and plonked it on a steamer with no seasoning whatsoever. It was served on a bed of equally bland spinach with mussels and clams on the side, which just tasted very fishy and really put me off my food. Some lemon juice wouldn't have gone amiss. And it was supposed to have oyster mushrooms... does it look like it has mushrooms? No.

I can cook better than this, and I'm not a restaurant chef. I ended up wishing I had a large dollop of tartare sauce.

I ordered dessert anyway, raspberry crème brûlée with a shortcake biscuit and that was the best course I had (but still nothing special... you can probably get better with Tesco Finest range).

Raspberry crème brûlée.

However, I didn't get to finish it because I was feeling pretty full at this point, though I don't know if that fullness is a side-effect (stomach-shrinking) of dieting, or because my two courses prior had just ruined my appetite for the night.

Brother #3 and Boy seemed to like their food fine since there were no complaints from either of them, so maybe I just have bad luck. :)

Brother #3's starter: Chargrilled asparagus tips with parma ham.

Boy's starter: Minted new potatoes.

Brother #3's main: Cornfed chicken breast morel mushroom sauce.

Boy played it safe with our usual fillet steak with pepper sauce for his main (which I think was a good idea) and had mint choc chip ice cream for dessert, whilst Brother #3 had the crème brûlée for dessert as well.

Speaking of complaints, one of the waitress was really mardy and seemed to grunt out single-syllable words instead of talking, so I complained about her to Boy and Brother #3 whilst she was still in earshot. Surprisingly, the service became much more pleasant afterwards.

Brother #3 made me a cheesecake for my birthday, which we were unfortunately too full to eat at the end of the night. But we're so going to eat it today after dinner of chicken rendang. Look at how pretty it is!

Homemade cheesecake!

I'm so spoilt. :P

In sync.

My mother always said that there will come a day when my childhood friends and I will have nothing in common. They will move to different places, meet new friends, get married, have babies, and generally be too busy with their own lives to think about those lost days. In a way, that has happened. I mean, where are we now? Most aren't even in Kemaman anymore. We're in KL, Singapore, India, Arab, Australia, the UK, the US... apparently anywhere but home.

But unlike everyone else, I think I might be the only person who is going to be settling abroad for good. Everyone else seems to have some sort of plan to move back in the future.

Whilst I am happy with my life here, sometimes I do miss the simpler days when friends were only a walk or a bicycle ride away. Even in college, friends weren't far. The entire city didn't turn into a ghost town once the clock ticks 5.30pm - it wakes up with a new face. And I miss the free and easy lifestyle of mamak-ing at night with friends - when the weather is cooling down, the food and drinks are cheap and plentiful. Even the freedom of going out and picking up a mindblowingly yummy Ramlee burger for RM2-RM3 per burger I miss. Eating out here for the both of us typically costs us around £15-£20 if we're behaving, a lot more if we're not. McDonald's is around £8 each time we go. And we can't afford that sort of thing regularly.

I feel so solitary and restricted sometimes because going out almost invariably means spending more money that I should.

I miss my friends.

I miss the food.

I miss mamak-ing.

But I don't know if I could give up all that I have here to go back to that. It is tempting, but what I have here is a sure thing. Life here is reliable. I have a stable salaried job, I have a boy who wants to marry me, I will soon own my own home (albeit with a lot of debt), I am gradually losing my Malaysian accent and my Manglish-ness and blending in with the locals, I have a pension. Hell, I even have a credit rating!

I have none of this in Malaysia. I wouldn't know where my paycheque would come from. I wouldn't have a house. Or a pension. And my boy does not speak the other language that is almost essential in securing a job in Malaysia. I don't even know how easily I would ease back into speaking Malay or Mandarin - I've not spoken either of them in such a long time.

I know my mother has a plan. She would like me to go back and get into the family business. She would also like to recruit Boy to deal with the paperwork/technical side of things, non-customer facing jobs, so language wouldn't be a barrier (though Boy is pretty skilled at picking up languages, given time and practice). But I'm pretty sure Boy's mother will be crushed if we were to move abroad - he has a much closer relationship with his mother than I have with mine. And speaking of that, I will probably row with my parents every single day if I were to live close to home.

It has happened. I don't miss the rows, the anger, the tears.

I don't miss the heat, the scorching sun baking our sweat onto our skin.

I don't miss the mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches, and other insects you see on a regular basis in Malaysia.

I don't miss the cost of owning an air-conditioner, the cost of electricity it uses and the frequent breakdowns it invariably will go through.

I don't miss the traffic jams and the subsequent overheating cars.

I don't miss family gatherings with my extended relatives.

So I guess the cons list may have trumped the pros list there. Perhaps after we get to the stage where Boy's parents are... where they can sell off their property, retire in, say, Malaysia and never have to work again for the rest of their lives. Perhaps we would be tempted then. :)

It's nice to know, though, that despite being far-flung to so many different places, we're still at the same stage in life. We're 25 years old, in long-term/serious relationships, we are out of school and employed, we are buying our first properties. It's quite incredible, isn't it?