Wine Tasting and Theatre

After having a nice assignment/holiday in China .. getting back to more mundane assignments in Penang feels a bit anti-climatic. But luckily enough .. my first two assignments since i got back were pretty fun ..

Firstly was Petrosains' National Theatre Competition .. at Dewan Sri Pinang. Basically it was stageplays with scientific themes. It was quite entertaining, as most schools chose to portray lots of humor in their plays. Front row seats helped too.

Unfortunately, Hamid Khan won. Nothing against the school .. but I was supporting Ave Maria Convent .. their play was much better in my opinion, and the costumes were more colorful. More importantly .. most of their team members were so cute ! Which was probably why i was cheering for them .. haha.

Second assignment of the day .. a wine tasting and mixing workshop at E & O Hotel. Lots of fun .. you get to drink as much wine as u like, and mix the different wines to come up with your own blend. Some of the bottles cost over RM 400 .. and we got to drink for free .. its nice being a journalist at times.

Pics to follow soon ..

Blackburn - 13 years on

Time flies .. It just seems like yesterday when I watched my favourite team, Blackburn Rovers, win the Premiership title .. exactly 13 years ago today, in 1995. Winning the league is a great achievement, especially if your team is not among the big clubs .. but thanks to Jack Walker, or Uncle Jack (below) as he is affectionately known .. he has brought joy to the hearts of many loyal fans. Sadly, Uncle Jack is no longer with us .. but his legacy remains to this day .. as his family still owns the club .. and runs it according to his principles.

Seven years would pass, before Blackburn returned to such heady heights .. with the League Cup win in 2002. Although a trophy nonetheless, the Premiership title was still a bigger honour ..

Here's waiting for the next trophy .. it may take months, years or decades .. but when it comes, it will surely be a sweet feeling.

80% Holiday, 20 % Assignment

Just returned from a 5-day trip in China. As mentioned earlier .. was sent on assignment to cover a Mother's Day contest. Well, the contest was only on 1 day .. so actually I had 4 days to go around sightseeing and shopping.. Lol. Best of all , everything is paid for .. airfare, accomodations, food, taxi fares .. and still, I'm getting paid to write the article when i get back. So basically i'm getting paid to go on holiday ! =)

This post will be heavy on pics .. too lazy to write much. First of all, departing Malaysia .. watching the sunrise at 30,000 ft is a beautiful sight :

A typical shopping street in Shenzhen :

One of the nicer buildings :

The mall where the contest was held .. same owner with Gurney Plaza :

The inside is a bit nicer than Gurney i guess .. best thing of all, no tukau's aka idiots doing breakdancing in the mall :

Funny wordings on the immigration card .. apparently in China, we're all "Aliens" .. yeah we're monsters from outer space. That goes to show, translating mandarin into english word for word doesn't work :

This amused me the most - "Aliens shall not be employed in China without the permission of the competent authorities of the Chinese government"

So, do aliens require permission from the Space Agency or NASA to find work? And how can the Chinese government call themselves competent, when they call people aliens. This should make for a lot of LOL's when the Olympics come around. This is nice.. too bad our local McDonalds dont have it ..

From the Window on The World Park .. China is renowned for immitation stuff .. now they've immitated all the world's landmarks also ! Lol .. but anyway, it's quite a nice place actually.

This is supposed to be Japan : A replica of Sydney's waterfront .. this would be more convincing had there been no condominiums at the back:
Holland's flower gardens :

I went to Egypt too .. lol :
Scaled down Niagara Falls ..
Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC :
Mount Rushmore :

The Snow World was meant to recreate the Harbin Ice Festival ..

It looks nice actually .. Now i wanna see the real thing next year ..
Buckingham Palace and London Bridge :
The Arc D'Triomphe Gardens :
Fountains in front of the Arc :

Shenzhen's tallest building .. some banking company's office tower : This is supposed to be their newest mall .. MixC .. funny name .. but looks nice :
I just love the colors on this random shot :
Indoor orchid gardens at Changi airport ..

Sunset at 30,000 ft ... surreal

Not that i'm complaining, but the place wasn't as nice as I hoped. Being more of a nature lover, I would have preferred to go somewhere with more scenery .. instead of buildings and malls. But i'm quite thankful anyway for a free holiday, it was pretty good overall.

I guess i'm looking forward to next year, visiting China or Korea in winter .. looking for somewhere scenic with beautiful winter landscapes .. possibly Harbin or Jeju Island .. any suggestions?

Who knows, if i accumulate enough money, then i might probably upgrade my destination to Switzerland or Norway instead. That should inspire me to work harder !

Food Review - Spice Market Cafe, Rasa Sayang Hotel

Food reviews mean more food. And when the food comes from Rasa Sayang Hotel, you know its of a certain standard. So, getting the chance to sample their new buffet for free was something i've been looking forward to all week .. and i wasn't disappointed.

Mainly because it had all the food I liked, and more. Cheese, ice cream, chocolates, lobsters, oysters, Italian cuisine, North Indian cuisine, tandoori, roast beef, papadams, marshmallows.. every single food that i liked, the buffet had it.

Started off with a good helping of fresh lobsters, yabbies and oysters .. yabbies are freshwater crayfish, a crossed between prawn and lobster. Second round, I went for the risotto, served on a hollowed out block of cheese. That block of cheese was so huge, if it fell on someone's head it would probably have killed him. The risotto was cooked to perfection, just like how it should be .. creamy and aromatic.

Then I helped myself to some cheeses and naan breads. Before i finally gave in and raided the dessert section. Unlimited servings of Haagen Dasz ice cream, with as much toppings as u could possibly want. Tried some pancakes with apricot too. Then some marshmallows dipped in white chocolate.. heavenly! You could also mix a choice of 8 different fruit juices and create your own cocktail !

And some pics to prove my point ... first up, the seafood on ice section, lobsters, yabbies and oysters :


Next, white chocolate and dark chocolate fountain ..

Now some pics of the hotel grounds, very nicely done since the refurbishment .. being a nature lover, beautifully landscaped gardens attract me much.

All in all, for a price of RM 94++, it was very worth it .. but even better, being a member of the press, i got to eat for free. The person who showed us around was Tunku Abdul Rahman's son, Suleiman. Yes, our former prime minister's son is the hotel director .. and it was very nice of him to take time out to entertain us and joined us for lunch. How often does one get to dine with the prime minister's son?

The high price is also a good thing. It ensures only educated people come here to eat. No pigdogs (aka tu-kaus), no noisy aunties talking at the top of their voices, no irritating kids running around or crying. A nice meal, in a nice atmosphere, with nice educated people .. and most of all, good quality food .. its worth every cent. A+ and two thumbs up from me.

By far the best meal i've had in a while. Don't get me wrong, i'm not a monkey-out-of-the-jungle going to a buffet for the first time. I'm just delighted because this buffet had everything I liked.

You know .. sometimes when you go for buffets, they may have only a few of the dishes u want, but don't serve some other dishes which u crave for. This one had every food item i crave for .. 10 out of 10. I'll definitely be back in a few weeks time, but this time i'm paying.

Edit : Well, the story came out in Star on 16th May, the weekly gourmet pullout on Fridays. Frontpage sommore!

Midnight Visitor

I awoke at 2am to the sounds of meowing. At first i thought it was my cat demanding food .. but then i realised the sound was a little different. So i took a peek outside and found this little fella looking up at me.

I actually said hello, good morning to her. Yes, i talk to cats. I know it seems kinda silly, but talking to animals is just therapeutic. I ended up talking to her for a couple minutes, all the while my own cat was grumbling, she was probably jealous at the attention this stray is getting from me. This little cat, looked at me, then meowed a few times, as if she was answering me.

Aww, I just love cats. Especially one as cute as this. It looked kinda fat to be a stray, so it was probably someone's pet passing by .. or some idiotic irresponsible moron moved away and left their pet behind.. those kinda people are scum.

After a while, she gave a final meow and walked off. Never to be seen again since. Well, I hope you're fine and well Mrs. Kitty .. and do pay me a visit the next time you're in the area.

Food Review - Fisherman's Grill

Another food review, this time at Fisherman's Grill. This cosy, quaint little outlet sports an underwater decor .. with fishes painted on the walls to give you the illusion you're dining under the sea. You gotta applaud the effort.

The food itself was quite good, tuna steak being the highlight. Sweet, aromatic, but slightly chewy .. its not the tuna we're used to eating out of cans. Good thing is, they had mocktails too. Blue, green, red, orange, yellow, it came in whatever color you fancied.


Dessert was tapai ice cream .. yes tapai, the malay fermented rice. I actually liked it, cos it smelled of alcohol. And I lurve alcohol.

Iron Man

Labour day, or Iron Man day .. May 1st. Well after all the hype building up to the movie's release, I decided to go watch it on the first day of its release.

For the clueless, Iron Man is basically a story about a billionaire weapons company CEO, who gets kidnapped and builds a suit of armor to escape. Donning that suit, he realises his weapons are causing more harm than good, and decides to right the wrongs of his past. Typical superhero movie storyline .. but the main attraction here is the CGI.

It was almost flawless, everything looked real, the action sequences are beautifully choreographed. I would put it on par with Transformers. Alas, the company who did the CGI for this film was the same company that did Transformers .. ILM , thats Industrial Light and Magic. They surely know how to weave magic on screen though.

Overall, I'd give it 8/10 .. or an A-. It was good, but not perfect. Pretty entertaining though. In keeping with the Iron Man theme, this post is even done in its red and gold colors .. LOL.