Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant - Negative at 1st glance

Me and my bf finally decided to have a taste of the newly opened Kim Gary Restaurant outlet at Gurney Plaza, after having a long decision-making process of what time to go so as to avoid the long queue outside the outlet, so we headed there around 6pm-ish in a Saturday evening.

Actually, it's opened on the 3rd of 4th floor, in the middle portion, where there are newly renovated shoplots lining both sides of the restaurant. It is pretty unusual of its location, as it's surrounded by shoplots selling kids' stuff as well as some souvenir outlets.

Anyway, back to our dinner - we had to first get a number, like what you normally do for over-the-counter banking; and then wait for them to call your number. So I took a photo of one side of the outlet, and already i'm feeling a bit weird as people walking by are looking at me like i'm a SUA PA KAO (literally translates to a monkey from the jungle) or something.

After a short while, we were informed that there is a seat, but it's for a minimum 4 seater, 2 on on side of the table and another 2 on the other side; and the waiter asked if we mind sharing a table with another 2 people (we were the first ones to hop in while waiting for another 2 prospects). Reluctant as we were, we surely didn't wanna wait any longer just to get a table to ourselves so we chose to be generous enough to share our table with other newcomers :)

This was the upper interior which extends high up nearly to the upper floor space (which has already been opened up)
We had a tough time deciding what to eat, considering there were plenty (nearly 70 items) to choose from, and we had to tick the items we wanted to order off the order sheet they provided us, together with a tiny pencil. So in the end my bf ordered a cheese-baked (beef) rice set meal which comprises of the main chee-baked rice with a tiny soup, yoghurt and also a serving of coffee or tea; while I ordered a beef soup noodle and a banana ice kacang-like dessert thingy.

We were served the cup-sized soup, yoghurt and banana ice kacang thingy first, and my bf didn't like the soup, not because it's Kim Gary's, it's because he didn't fancy it all the while - it's called Lor Soong Thong in Cantonese - made from celery, tomatoes, some vegies, and the soup is red orangish in colour - comes off as a bit salty and a bit sourish - that's why he doesn't like it - but I like the taste of it, just that it's too damn cold and so I didn't finish it - tasted awful served cold like that.

We then tried the banana ice kacang which is in such a HUGE size, and I thought cool! I get to gulp most of these stuff! But it was sooooo disappointing to realise that it tasted overboardly sweet - the person who made it must've poured in a massive amount of sugar essence to start with!

Then my bf's cheese-baked beef rice came and it looked good - quite unique I would say, coz I never had rice baked with cheese, served with meat and all before, and the beef are quite tender and well-marinated. (The tiny cup beside is the one containing Lor Soong Thong-yes, it comes in that small of a size)
My beef noodle soup wasn't anything to write home about, it's just plain noodle soup with strips of marinated and stir-fried beef in it - just like my bf's rice - the beef is the only thing worthy of mentioning.

So after our main course, we went back to Combatting our banana ice kacang and I even tried to salvage it by crushing the remaining shaved ice into melted water to dilute the sweetness, but to no avail, even after I've melted ALL the ice! We decided it's high time to certify the damn thing UNEDIBLE:-

Look at how thick the damn thing is!

And how much sugar it contains!!!!! goodness will you just look at the froth that comes with it???

Honestly speaking, we were quite disappointed with the quality of the food there, considering the fact that it earned so many compliments on average, and how much I have looked forward to trying its food; coz the last time when we wanted to have our lunch at the Sungai Wang outlet, the queue was simply too long and we were a bunch of hungry people who just could't afford to wait.

On a positive note, we hope it is just like what my fren said, they're just too new and not really familiar with the portions and ingredients to it yet, just like how Mong Kok started out last time where their food tasted horrible and how they have improved much over time. So I really look forward to sample Kim Gary again, hoping to gain new levels of confidence in their food once again - but definitely without my bf's company coz he insisted that he will set foot in the restaurant no more :)

Lots of reviews coming up! Next - on Le Jade Sac :)

I snapped quite a few shots here and there at some eating outlets - Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant - new at Gurney Plaza & The Dome Cafe - Gurney Plaza (with Durian Shake pics included);

and also some other miscellaneous stuff but I couldn't find the time to post it up just as yet, so please bear with me a li'l while and there will be pics for all to see soon!

First time first hand smoke experience

I smoked for the first time of my life so far. It all seems too unbelievable, I never imagined I would smoke ever.

Guess I just have a bad girl living inside me waiting to spring out or something, last night me and my bf joined his pals to a night's out at Mambo (2 outlets beside Starbuck's at Gurney Hotel) and it was all a night of hard liquor plus 2 side servings of beer. Anyway, my bf's pals started to offer him cigarrattes so he took them (he's a non-smoker and only smokes like once or a twice a year, cumulatively with or without me by his side), he only smokes when he hangs out at pub or karaoke, so I saw he smoked 2 of them and by the second one I asked to have a "taste" of it and he offered it to me, I just inhaled a bit and then out - nothing to it. And then the final 3rd one, he actually refused to take it but one of his pals kept on shoving the thing to his mouth and lighting it for him so he took it again, and again I asked for another puff, this one I took a deeper inhale and when I huffed it out I can finally see the smoke coming out of my mouth :)

Anyhow, eventhough I didn't finish a whole cigarrette to myself, I still don't really feel a big of a deal in smoking, as in why so many people are so obsessed with it, getting addicted to it and all, coz to me I don't feel any difference in the effects after I smoke, coz I felt the same so i asked my bf what's the big deal in smoking anyway? Do you feel calmer after a smoke? Do you feel happier? Do you feel better? (As in the context of drinking liquor where it makes you high and forget your sorrows, and tearing down your mental barrier and all) And he said 'No ar... ' so I asked him "So is it just the looks of you smoking that you think might 'appeal' to girls or make you come across as 'cool' to others?" and he answered me in Cantonese "Yeah.. you're right, it makes me look 'Hou Lan L Yeng' (which translates more or less to 'super cool' with the help of a foul word to amplify the effect of 'cool'-ness)

And so I went off to observe my bf while he smokes, how he holds the cigarrette, how he inhales and exhales it out, and indeed he looked different from usual and I thought to myself : Hmm.... how sexy.... (seriously) but I can accept the fact that he's just a very casual smoker, and even I saw for myself how sexy he is doing that, I still can't accept it if he ends up being an addicted smoker, coz I simply do not like people smoking around me - Period. (Exclusions are pubs, etc where you can't control people smoking around you)

Anyhow, the after effect of MY 2 short inhales of smoke made me suffer the below symptoms:-

1. Drier than usual throat
2. Which lead to more coughs afterwards
3. Repeat 1 and 2 the next day
4. Mentally feeling my lungs cursing at me for trying the excitement of smoking

Well, all in all, smoking does make you look cool but I still do not want it stuck to me for the most of my life, and surely the same applies to the people I love, coz the cons definitely outweighed the pros (or should I say PRO - singular) A LOT

To all the smokers out there - don't be tempted - puffing occassionally if you really must, or if you really feel like it - is still ok; but don't ruin your life by letting it run your life.

Outburst

Very blue.

I shouldn't have done that. I know I shouldn't, but I really can't help it. Anybody at all, pls save me from becoming such an evil person.

I am stingy. N I am calculative. But that's all survival skills. I truly believe that there are times that we should be stingy and calculative and that there are many more times that we should not.

Giving money to beggars who are fully capable of getting a job, any job = NO

"Lending" money to so-called friends who only contacts you when they are short of cash = rightfully-so-not-gonna-happen (though I was still ripped of 80 bucks by a cheap bastard)

Spending (not necessarily money) on people I love and who loves me back = worthwhile

Giving selflessly to my parents who have way surpassed giving me selflessly = MUST (and what I feel happy and proud of the most, though the contribution is so minor)

Feeling like such a selfish bitch for finding fault with my bf like that just now.

I'm so sorry.

We have such different principles and values. I really don't know how to achieve a balance. I know I should just give up - not on the relationship but on trying to make sense into him. Either he does not, and will never understand; and so I will forever continue to expect; or he just does not know how to take baby steps at a time. I doubt that he will ever understand that, eventually, things will change, but only if you are willing to make the changes.

I so believe in "A little effort goes a long way". The little changes and baby steps you take now will, in time, become huge and when the time comes, everything will become crystal clear that you have at least achieved something out of it, albeit small to others, but it will be so significant to you - the one who knew how hard it took for you to get there.

The last thing I want to do is make him feel pressured and that he is not worth for me.

The worst feeling of all is, I think I have done just that.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

I hope my wallpaper can make me feel calm enough to realise that life is still worth carrying on.

http://www.diversionary.net/daily/2005/07/music_to_wake_u.html

Not always a good thing to be "considered"

A lady named "Lisa" (ring a bell? =) from Jobstreet called yesterday during my working hours, and asked if it was convenient for me to talk at the moment, well of course it obviously wasn't, considering the fact that my colleague and manager were within close vicinity and so I suggested a time later last night for her to call, but she said she'll call at 9, of which is a.m. or p.m. is unknown to me, since I turned down the volume of my mobile so the content of the conversation will not be heard.

After work, my manager asked us to join in for dinner with one of the people from the complaint dept from corporate office so we went for dinner at Siam Express, Gurney Plaza then headed onto Honolulu for an unwinding session of wine (or was it whisky?) the whole nite I was a bit anticipating the call but it never came and so I thought Lisa was talking about calling me tomorrow (Saturday), and i set my alarm to go off at 8:45am just so I could wake myself up in time to pick up the call. Out of curiosity, I checked my phone back for her number and surprising to see that it's a KL land line number, so I thought to myself : probably it's a call on behalf of the "Advertiser" to ask me for an interview? Considering that my application status for the job was "Under Consideration".

So by now you would've guessed it - the call never came even this morning at 9 am, and I was pretty pissed coz i slept around 1:30am and now I've gotta wake my lazy bum up for nothing! So I went back to sleep after 9:45am and thought to myself : maybe she meant Monday 9 am? I can only find out on Monday then *shucks*

Anyway, so I went back to MyJobstreet and logged into my account to have a look at the stats of the job i applied for, and this is what is showed:-

Note : Look carefully at these 2 stats:-

Total : 119

Total Under Consideration : 117

Application : Under Consideration

What the hell?

The night before it just showed 40 under consideration and all of a sudden the hiring person decides that everybody except for 2 unfortunate applicants do not deserve to be "considered". Hah! And for a while I thought my application proved to deserve the "considered" status. *eyes rolled*

Kiss the "Under Consideration" goodbye coz it ain't real! It's fake! For goodness' sake! n I so wanna kiss LISA goodbye too..

Shove it behind my back for now coz i'm gonna take a nice shower and go hang out, it's Saturday!!

True Love Is Like... I Love You

Love Angel says :
"True love is like... I Love You".

HAKCHANG SIJUL = School Life in Korean.

Thanks Jin, for being a part of my uni life and leaving me fond memories, hope we can still keep in touch and forever be friends. I don't wanna lose you coz you mean so much to me - you, and Catherine.

C'mon rambo - there you go

Rambo is usually shy by nature. I wonder how he/she walks comfortably with such short legs (?).
Sometimes when Rambo is more receptive or when he/she feels like flying, suddenly the ears are all flapped up, ready to go.
Go Rambo! Love u always! U cheer me up when I nearly lost hope - I wish I could fly too - just like you.

PpG comes in boxes too ya know...

The PowerPuff Girls is making headlines again with its line of square box tissues! I shouldn't say it's a come back, actually the box version should be launched head-to-head with the tissue packets, just that I didn't notice it but lucky me! It didn't manage to espace from my forever PpG-GPRS-locater eyes and I saw one of the PpG boxes at the supermarket...
















and was even more surprised to find that they come in F.O.U.R. as well!















To be honest, upon scrutinising the boxes close up, I found the quality of the boxes to be rather dodgy, as well as the finishing touches a bit too cin cai, with blots of dried up glues clearly visible on the sides where the paper board's joints are. I can't help it coz I, too, am slowly catching the disease of people who are in the paper industry, more so coz we are one of the main suppliers of Box board (board used to make boxes duh).

But~~~~!!! The designs are full of colour and they are simply - Awesome!!!! The overall design concept of the boxes are actually an extension of the tissue packs, whereby they have the same 'maturing' quality in all three of the girls, but the boxes come with an extra touch of having LV-like monograms (oOoooOooohhhh....), bearing what else but mixture of 'ppg' wordings, heart shapes, four leaf clovers, flowery patterns and snowy dinglets (i think I just invented a new word :o) They look quite classy but cute at the same time with the monograms and I just love 'em.... and as if the LV-like monograms are not enough, they even have this global franchise thingy lined all over the bottom of the box in black - Paris * Milan * Townsville * New York; and the Million Dollar question is...............

Which of the global franchise location is true in this case? Is it..
A. Paris
B. Milan
C. Townsville
D. New York

This is so not a million dollar question coz obviously C is forever the correct answer, even in this post!

So let's kick it off with my fave Bubbles!!!






























There's actually not a lot of words to describe these cute li'l things except cute, cute... and sooooo.... cute!! @#^%* (these are symbols of enthusiasm and should not be interpreted otherwise)

Ok.. the lower left corner actually says "I love the special softness of Premier" (i doubt the statement but let's just go with it for the sake of PpG shall we?)

The Bubbles one actually says 'Glamour Zone' with a playful her posing the model S-to-the-front pose on the side, while there are 2 lady-like poses on each of the 2 main sides of the box:- 1 in the seated position while the other standing.. and her ever-big round eyes stood out like they're telling me 'u made the right choice picking me as your fave!!' (imagine it uttered with Bubbles' cartoon-ish voice) And the last pic highlights the lid where the signature PowerPuff Girls logo can be seen in Black and White.

Next up we have our leader Blossom++++






























Blossom is one time posing in a lying position with her pretty face when suddenly she storms up and flashes her ever long auburn hair! Cool! Blossom's statement is "Wanna dish?" with a sweet, inviting look from her on top.

Last but not least, thou shall not forget Buttercup as she has grown to be very prim and proper :)






























Buttercup looks a bit mischievious even while standing very straight on one side while the other portrays her trying hard to pose in a seducing grin... hahahhaha... The side is equally cute with Buttercup sitting on one side while holding her legs to another, maintaining her flash of an all-winning Darlie smile :D

The black one is most definitely the most unique one as black colour was never one of the essential colours in PpG and it actually looked mysterious yet classy to put all the PpG together in--















The "ppg" monograms actually stood out more in black and even both of the main sides bear the same design, my ultimate liking was the side design with Bubbles and Buttercup smilling away happily that their eyes formed a thin wavy line! It's the cutest of them all !!!!!!!!!!! Here is says 'diva x 3' and they indeed live up to it, nevertheless a cuter version.

I don't know if i can really use the tissues or if i'm ever gonna throw the boxes away once the tissues run out.. it's such a horrible thing to do to PpG... but for the time being, i'm gonna keep them... and keep them.. and keep them....

Ayam Beg LAH~~!!

Translation : Ayam Beg = Chicken Bag in Malay - but it should be read as "I Am Back" in this context. [reference : my gal pal SL]

It's been quite some time since I last updated my blog; and this sqara (i still like to call her siew moi moi - gosh she even invented her own short form "smm" - sounds like double dose of SM to me hehe...) has been bugging me on when i'm gonna update it.. well sorry yeah siew moi moi, so here I am!

The past week has been quite a roller coaster ride for me - had a really down and sad previous weekend due to my bf not being able to accompany me, resulting me all alone with occupied frens who've got no time to entertain me, added up with some shit from my brother and even more money favours he's asking from my parents and my grandma... i really despise him man.. really do.. i've never seen any 'ta po kia' (son) like him, so to speak, as he is also the eldest and only male child in my family, as well as being the eldest male grandchild my grandma has (my granddad passed away long before i was even born); all i can see is, he's very much enjoying the fact that he can always take advantage of my grandma's male gender preference and hence, never failing to fuel him with money; and taking advantage of the fact that my parents will always help him out whenever he's in trouble financially (whether it's true or otherwise nobody knows). He's bought a freaking expensive house in KL apparently and now my grandma has already fueled him a whopping total of RM 23,000 to date, and God knows how much more he's asked from my parents, especially my mom.

Honestly, I am pretty upset about the whole buying house thing - if he's soo damn capable and sound financially, why can't he fork out the damn money himself with his gf's help? Why come to some 60 and 80 plus year old people and say 'look i'm buying a house show me the money'? Just doesn't make sense. It's already so bad that he hasn't contributed to my parents a lot over many years of his working life and even now he's still milking money out of my parents and grandma. And here he is, telling me things like 'if u can't afford to pay ur course fees then better for you not to study; if u can't afford a car then don't buy one yet; you must stay in a job and not quit yet until you find another', Fcuk him! It suddenly struck me : Why are you buying a house that you can't afford then? If you can't afford it, then better buy a cheaper one, rather than asking money from my parents and grandma. And I can so remember many years back when he quit his job in Penang just because he was madly in love with a girl who works and lives in KL; only to find himself jobless for many months; and how he insisted to buy a car eventhough he hasn't got enough money to buy it back a few years ago. Who the hell is he then, to come and give me all the shit, teaching me lessons of life? Pushing me to get a better job and pressuring me to finish off my studies soonest possible so I can take care of my parents and render him less burden? Arhhh.. Just freaking Fcuk off.

I have recovered from the trauma of his piercing words and how he's manipulating my family members to his own financial advantage, but forget i cannot. I just learnt to let go - as in putting it behind my mind and go along until things pop up then worry about it later. This is the only way i can remain sane.

Anyhow, 'nuff said about the sad stuff. Let's move on to something new coz him taking money from my family members are ancient old practice so there's nothing new about it.

I've promised siew moi moi (sqara) to post up scribblings on the PowerPuff Girls box tissues but have yet to do so - it's 12:43am now n i'm pretty lazy to take out my camera to take shots of the boxes - but I will, however, do it tomorrow nite and post it up here. It's kinda hard to post the pics though, coz all the boxes (4 altogether) have significantly different designs on every side of the box - I just don't know which side to take pictures of??!!??

On the sides, I remembered dreaming about my first ex-bf a few days ago and he told me about his studies and how he was struggling with it, even contemplating to give up (don't ask me why i dreamt of him and he's not even anywhere near to studying nowadays); and I can vividly recall how I advised him not to, encouraging him to have the heart and strength to carry on till he finishes the thing, and how I can totally relate to his agony in continuing his studies.. bla bla bla.. it was a pretty sad situation in the dream, i remembered, coz he looked quite down and we were seated quite close facing each other - come to think of it, I really think it was as if I was talking to myself, telling myself to be strong and endure the remaining laps needed to complete my master studies; and never to think of giving up no matter how hard and stressed I feel; coz my studies has always been in my mind every single second of my life, and I just cannot see myself holding a Master of Science cert in my hand - the image is just too blur.. the dream meant something to me, as if someone was trying to be Me and telling Myself to have faith and keep going, and as to why my ex bf appeared is still beyond my comprehension. I don't have anymore feelings for him other than friendship; and he's already married with a son now (Gosh! how time flies).

I applied for a few jobs online and finally got something reading 'Under Consideration' but I'm just hoping for 2 things:-

1. The employing company is firm and stable (as it was put up as 'Advertiser' only)
2. They are really keen on developing its employees and that includes giving people who are worth a chance to join their organisation

Anyhow I do hope for the better - every single day.

My day wasn't bad - I had lunch with my fren who drove me to the Rich People's neighbourhood - Jesselton where I saw for myself how the rich and famous lived - finely decorated 3-stories bungalows; Italian themed, palace-like mansions with huge garden and landscaping, etc.. etc.. I could hardly keep my mouth closed immersed by the sight of all the beautiful houses, imagining if I owned one of them and how it will actually feel like; along the way we saw a few unoccupied lands (obviously belonging to someone); and I asked my fren how much will it cost to buy this land, build a 3 storey mansion with the 3rd floor being able to rotate as well as having a glass roof so I can see the sky, also not forgetting to build a mini roller coaster ride on the sides - and he told me roughly 100 million will do - HAH! That was indeed the Joke of the Day.

Anyhow, later today my bf brought me to the famous 'Ship' for dinner and i thought my chicken soup was better than his mushroom - eventhough he disagreed; the garlic bread was quite nice and we had a great time yacking away about non-sensical stuff during our nearly 1-hour waiting period for the main course. We headed to Dome after that when it was pouring outside and my bf ordered a trial run of the new Dome Durian shake drink and he insisted that it must be made from durian ice cream blended with milk - but I had a few sips of it and the taste is really Durian-ish ok!! It's as if we are actually eating the durians! Really nice for people who appreciates the smell of durians... hmmmm I wonder if take aways of this drink will be allowed into Hotels ;)

Well it's way past 1 am now and I'm sleepy - chao

Haze Attack!

Don't know whether it's a curse or something, On Thursday 11th Aug our colleagues in Subang (KL) were just sending us shots of how severe the haze situation in KL was and we were horrified to view the pics for ourselves coz it was totally dim, dark, and you can almost 'feel' the thickness of the haze just by looking at the pics alone.

Thereafter, I personally took some shots from our office in Penang and sent the pics to them not to be sarcastic or show off how blue our skies were, but just to share with them how it's like in Penang, well I personally find it a bit odd to have such severe situation in KL while not far away in Penang we are still able to enjoy clear blue skies.. how wrong have we been coz just shortly yesterday (12th Aug), after 1 or 2pm, our clear blue skies have been robbed from us and the long dreaded haze is fast approaching.... ironically, the situation in KL is getting better and better with visibility levels getting higher as well as te API (Air Pollutant Index) recorded lower in average.

I managed to take some shots from my apartment on 12th Aug 6:30pm and in comparison with the shots taken today (13th Aug @ 11:30am), the haze is getting worse by the minute. I woke up being greeted with the smell of haze and even as I type now, with my table fan directed only to myself, I am still inhaling smoked haze.... bummer...
Even while the winds are blowing quite strongly outside, it doesn't seem to have sufficient power to entirely blow away the haze, and I can even see sunlight struggling to get through the blanket of haze only to find light orangish sheds of sunlight that made it through to our grounds.

There's a large-scale concert to be held at Fort Cornwallis tonight called Summer 8 degrees concert and previously the radio stations have been heavily promoting it, citing that the although the haze situation is getting to an emergency level in KL, nevertheless the weather in Penang has not been affected. Now I just can't imagine the crowd that will still be flocking the place to catch the concert - I know I won't... what the hell for anyway? It's gonna be aired live on TV anyway. Nothing's worth risking your health, especially something like this.

The view from my office

All the pics below were taken during an unusually windy day, prior to a storm. Our office is located at the corner lot, at the top most floor of the bulding, hence capturing an unobstructed panoramic view of the sea and also everything else.

Panned from left of my office to the right:-
The clouds were pretty scary by the looks of it and coincidentally I brought my camera to my office coz I wanted to download the pics I took in Jakarta onto my company PC, to be sent to my eagerly awaiting colleagues in KL, so I snapped the views from my office.

Penangites will probably have figured out which building I work in by now- if they're quite good with directions and landmarks :)

Awwww.. It's Power Puff Girls! ~~ Tissue that is

Introducing one of my favourite cartoon character - The Power Puff Girls! I've been a really big fan of 'em since.. errmm... I went to Australia for holiday back in 2001 and spotted them at Sea World where they sold many PpG merchandise, and I started watching them on Astro (our local pay TV provider), where I had too much time to spend, having quitted from my job and waiting for everything to settle in prior to my departure to Brisbane, Australia for my studies.

Knowing how big of a fan I am to Power Puff Girls, my colleague Dorene told me about these Power Puff Girls pocket tissue packs that was in the supermarket she shopped in, and as a pocket tissue pack collector herself, she bought a normal pack of 12 of the PpG girls tissue and showed one of them to me. And seeing how I liked it so badly, she was really kind enough to give me the set of 4 different designs that come in a pack of 12 (the remaining 8 comes in repetition of the 4 designs). The tissue was rolled out by our local tissue manufacturer Nibong Tebal Paper Mill - with the brand Premier Kids for this Power Puff Girls range. It even has the PpG logo at the back with the TM of Cartoon Network at the back, as PpG is a trademark of Cartoon Network.

I bought a pack of 12 myself during my recent shopping trip with my parents:-
Here's a closer look at the 4 different designs of the tissue packs:-

A little background intro to PowerPuff Girls first : It consists of 3 cute little girls, all creations of a professor who used everything nice to 'potionise' and out came these 3 little girls each with unusual superpowers. They all live in the City of Townsville, where these 3 little girls go to kindy just like any other kids, but when the mayor of the city notices trouble from the bad guys, he will alert the PowerPuff Girls' direct line(located both at their kindy and in their home) and they will come to the rescue :D

So there are 3 distinct 'colours' to PowerPuff Girls - they are Bubbles (Light Blue); Blossom (Orange); and Buttercup (Green). Bubbles always wears her hair in 2 buns while Blossom wears her long hair in pony tail; Buttercup having the shortest boy cut hair and is the more boyish one.

My fave of them all is Bubbles! Coz she's very cute and always the manja (cute and spoilt) one.. hehe..

Anyway, back to the tissue *ahem*, I find the artwork a bit unusual as PpG is always the little girls but the artwork portrayed the PpG to be slightly too matured with lady-like attributes such as having make-up (lipstick), wearing heels and matured longer dresses, and most importantly, keeping longer hair that makes them more matured-looking and lady-like. It's as if the 'authors' attempted to speed up the growing up process of the PpGs, by giving us a glimpse of how the girls will look like in 10 yrs' time :S

Personally, I don't really fancy this 'look' they've portrayed, I rather have back the cute li'l PpGs that run around doing the things that kids do, yet having the bravery and power to combat the evils. All in all, I still like the pocket tissue packs - I like everything that has them in it anyway :)

Part II - Jakarta training trip

C'mon... gimme a break, I know I'm a freak but hey, this is, afterall my first ever trip 'abroad' that I don't have to fork out the money coz it's all under company account so here I am again, talking about it ;)

Anyway, the first part actually went on more about the hotel I stayed in, some of the scenery captures but there're still some details I find quite interesting. As a re-cap, I went on a training trip to Jakarta from June 2nd to 5th, visiting 2 of our paper mills - Serang and Pindo Deli.

During our first official training at Serang mill, we were served some rather interesting packet drinks, some rather uncommon ones if compared to the ones we get here:-















(L-R) Sosro Teh Botol; Ultra Sari Kacang iJo; GoGo Strawberry juice drink and GoGo Guava juice drink

We were served these drinks when we came back to the meeting room after a sweaty mill tour surrounding the paper machines as well as the finishing area, QA/QC area as well as the warehouse and loading area. By the time I got back from the ladies, there were still 2 unopened packet drink left - GoGo Strawberry and the green bean drink (Ultra sari Kacang iJo), as I was feeling really thirsty, I thought I'd go for GoGo Strawberry instead of the green bean drink. There was, however, another Teh Botol which my colleague was telling me how nice it tasted and she was comtemplating to keep it so she could drink it later tomorrow, so I didn't choose it.

All in all, GoGo Strawberry tasted fine, probably due to my high level of thirst and all the drinks were refrigerated (from the pic where droplets of water can be seen); and I actually tried some of my colleague's Teh Botol she had during the first half of the meeting and the tea in the packet really tasted good! not too sweet and it tasted just right. I am, however, still rather fascinated and keen to try how the green bean drink would've tasted like - as it said "Nikmat & Bergizi" on the outside; but I was really too lazy to keep them in my bag as it was heavily loaded with stuff like my passport, camera, purse, notebook, mobile, etc etc.. and most importantly, we were heading for shopping mall afterwards so it'll be kinda inconvenient to be shop shop and shopping away with a bag full of stuff.

Anyhow, you would've guessed it - i'm gonna go back to Nikko Hotel again, just can't get enough of it. I managed to capture the 2-tier snack/pantry area of my room and there were tempting goodies on display on the top tier, as if saying "come... you'll like me, take me!...... and pay the price!"














There were Loackers that come in 2 flavours, one of which is 'Vanille', a cute mini-sized Mr. Potato (competitor of Pringles), Oreo chocolate biscuits, Toblerone chocolate and a Mr. P dunno-what - I suppose it's a nutty snack kinda thing.

View of the bottom tier:-














On the bottom tier, there is the usual 'water boiler' that comes in a cute roundish outlook, put in place in an upside down manner until guests wanted to use them; tea bags, coffee, sweetener and sugar sachets, and I was most impressed by the so-called mineral water they provided us! It was not any normal mineral water that comes in a plastic bottle, it's actually Danone Aqua brand water that comes in a glass bottle! Wow honestly I've never seen one of these before. We were given 2 bottles in our room coz my colleague and I were sharing a room and it is really a good service to always have our items replenished every single day until the day we check out. The 2 Danone Aqua water were replaced everyday, the toilettries' items were replaced everyday from the shower cap to bath, shower, hygiene set, soap, tissue boxes, but unfortunately not the toilet rolls. The toilet rolls were quite thin but they were smooth, nevertheless the quality was a bit average for a 5-star hotel :) but hey, we do get house slippers, bathrobes, replenished Nikko Hotel big paper bags (one of my collectable items), and many more amenities.

Anyhow, the service has been excellent and I really liked the hotel. Awesome. Well, it should be, considering that it cost around USD 90++ per night, and we stayed for 3 nights... hmmm :)

Perfume Galore!

This post will feature 2 of my most recent additions to my perfume family, let's start off with the most recent one:- Yves Saint Lurent Baby Doll Candy Pink EDT (Limited Edition)















I received this as a pressie from Catherine - my dear fren whom I've known and grew very fond of in my Ozie years - who visited me in KL in June - she handpicked the perfume by telling the promoter that i'm a girl who's crazy, outgoing, happy and always young (LOL) and this is what the promoter recommended her.

The packaging looks really candy-ish with the signature YSL logo in the middle of the word 'Babydoll' - with each letter in 4 different shades of Purple/Pink (only 2 repetitions) - the other side of the packaging actually shows how the actual bottle within looks like but I rather take the actual shot of the bottle instead:-














The bottle is really nice-looking, living up to its whole concept of baby-doll-like attributes of twirl-like pink candy-like lines and girlish features such as the multi-dimensional diamond-like cap and it comes in a top-like shape and it can really spin! Look at it in action:-














Upon searching on the Internet, the original version of Baby Doll comes with a Gold cap instead of this silver one and there are no candy twirl-like designs etched on the surface of the bottle so it's all plain.. I'm glad I got this limited edition one - Thanks dear Catherine! Love ya!

As for the scent - the description on the outer packaging tells all - "A whirl of pink tones and delicious candy notes. A fresh and transparent floral-fruity harmony'. I couldn't agree more with this description coz it's really candy yet not too over-powering and you can still sense the floral and fruity touches to it - simply lifts up your day if you don't feel too happy!

Up next will be a perfume that I bought myself, which I had to pre-order it as it ran out of stock at that time - introducing Donna Karen New York's "Be Delicious"














The outer box comes in brown with the bold DKNY Donna Karen New York appearing in the middle and an oval-shaped "Be Delicious 100% Pure New York" label right on top of the wording - just like the labels on apples. The bottle looks just like a half-apple with the other half being silver-chrome with a tiny dent on one side, giving it the infamous Apple look.

Due to financial constraints at that time and my usual preference of getting 50 ml perfumes instead of larger bottles for reasons of having perfume varieties, I opted for 50ml instead of the 100ml size that the promoter recommended me. There is a distinct difference in the bottles for different sizes. The 50 ml comes in the Apple-shaped bottle like the 100 ml ones but the upper portion opens up completely to reveal the spray head; whilst the 100ml ones do not open at all and it is sprayed directly from the top.















The scent of Be Delicious really mesmerises me not in terms of intensity but how refreshing it is...with a light hint of apple scent.. its light-weightness and i like the bottle a lot as well!

Gurney Suite Spa - Highly Not Recommended

Before I get to the conclusion above, do allow me to re-cap me and my boyfren's trip to the spa.

So it was Saturday 30th July, I've made a booking for 5pm and my boyfren came to pick me up around 4+ pm and he said that he was hungry coz he didn't take any lunch prior, so since I thought we wouldn't be eating till about 7-8pm, we went for something and I specifically told him that he should only take a light meal, but still I didn't tell him what to expect. He was nervous and anxious at the same time but i wanna save the surprise bit till we get there.

When we parked our car and paying for the car park, he asked me "wow, you're bringing me to Gurney Spa?" n i just smiled. Off we went and the front lady showed us to our couple Suite which is Suite 1, and we were told to 'get ready' for the massage and the lady retreated from the room. The Suite has all the facilities - from the foot bath area, massage benches, jacuzzi bath tubs, sauna, changing room, to bathroom - together with amenities like 2 sets of Hygiene pack, soap, shower cap, slippers, bathrobes, hangers, towels, short pants and drinking water.

So we both undressed and my boyfren was still a bit hesitant and so I asked him to put on the short pants instead of just going naked underneath the bathrobe.

Short while later 2 masseur came into our Suite by first ringing the doorbell and they prepared some hot water from the bath tubs to prepare for our foot bath. The foot bath was relaxing though the water she prepared for me was a little too hot. They scrubbed our feet with marine salt and honestly speaking my feet have not been pampered like this for a long time - come to think of it i never gave my feet so much of attention ever :S

After the foot bath, we were ushered to the massage bench (I don't really know how to call the massage bench/table thingy) and it took me quite some hiccups to take off my bathrobe - afterall I'm still shy to show my body to a complete stranger - eventhough it's a person of the same gender as I am. Anyway, finally it was over and done with and 1.5 hours of massage just went by in the middle of her strokes all over my body, from the back to the front, amidst the sounds of chirping birds, running fountains, sounds of raindrops on leaves and so on. (sounds from the pre-programmed central P.A. system of course)

But before the massage, I was a bit concerned of my boyfren's previous slip disc on his lower back and so I told my masseur about this so she could maybe communicate this to her colleague who will be massaging my boyfren, and my masseur just said "oh, in that case u have to ask ur fren to tell his masseur coz she will be the one to massage him, not me" and my expression went like "what the fuck?" why can't u tell ur colleague now that I have told u about this? what's so hard about that? coz both the masseurs can't speak a word of anything except Mandarin! And my boyfren couldn't speak well in Madarin. Anyway, I really don't wish for this to affect our massage moods so I just told my boyfren to tell her about it, and just as I expected in the end she didn't quite understand what he was trying to tell her. So i interfered by telling her not to put too much pressure on his lower back or avoid that area.

Anyway, after the massage, my masseur thanked me and before they both leave the suite I asked her in confirmation that we still have 30 minutes of spa and she looked a bit puzzled at first then asked me are we on the RM 155 package? And when i said yes both of them looked at each other and I knew they were not properly informed of what package we took as they thought our session was over with the massage, not realising that we still had 30 minutes of bath. So they quickly retreated after putting on the water taps for the bathtubs and one of them came back with some floral oils to go with our baths.

So me and my boyfren both immersed in our individual but joined side-by-side bathtubs, but not before some kinky fondling took place.. he was in the heat and wanted to go all the way but i refused coz it wasn't the perfect environment to enjoy it in a prolonged period of time :) coz hey, we only got roughly 20 more minutes max at that point..

After the bath we didn't took any shower, just patted ourselves dry and me busy taking photos of the place while my boyfren wears his socks and shoes. So here's some pics of the Suite with my boyfren sppearing in some frames:- (note that the lightings are so much dimmer than the photos coz flash were used at that time)

This is what you see upon entering the door and turn a bit left to go further inside.














So this is the view from direct opposite from the pic above:-















So this is from another angle (use my boyfren as a point of reference :) and here the entrance can be seen - it's the door on the upper right corner, the changing room is located right beside where my boyfren is seated and the hanger can be seen. The separate shower area is just to the left of the changing room.















From the below pic the full view of the bathtubs can be seen, as well as the sauna room (upper left corner, the shower area (right of sauna room) and the changing room (upper right corner)















We left the suite right on the dot exactly after the 30 minutes that we were given, and went outside to pay the bill. 3 staff were at the front counter yacking away even while one of them handled my payment and continued to chat away even after I've kept my purse and both of us stood up to leave the place - without any 'Thank You' whatsoever, whereby when this man (regular customer) came when my payment was being processed, one of the staff hurried to service him and told him that 'Alice' is already waiting for him and ushered him to his 'Suite' - with full smiles and all so friendly.

Upon leaving the place, the first statement both of us uttered was 'What a rude service' - 'khua kuan boh khua keh' (Hokkien for "treat highly of the so-called higher standards and lowly of the perceived lower standards") in other words - practicing double standard - both of us really hate this type of service coz it's not that we're not paying money to get service, even if the package that we took is not an expensive one, we are still the customer and customers deserve the best - not to mention a Thank You - it's just downright rude to treat us as if we're non-existent even when we're paying. It's as if they're not in service line at all.

So to all spa lovers out there.. please do not visit Gurney Suite Spa at 2nd floor, Gurney Hotel, Penang, for the simplified reasons below:-

1. Unfriendly over-the-phone service and rude over-the-counter service;
2. Non-coordinated and no team work staff;
3. Practice of double standard - this is the most prominent reason, to both me and my boyfren's standards.

A point to note is, both of us went limp roughly 1 hour after the massage and had to get some good sleep after that - so I guess we know that we should go for a massage like this during night time where we can head straight to bed afterwards. But no more Gurney Spa - we're not setting our foot there ever again. My boyfren was happy and very surprised of my effort and felt sad that I spent so much on it but he appreciated what I did and he promised to bring me to Northam Spa in the future - as a treat for me. How sweet!