why wy?

On the first day of Chinese New Year, I drove at least 200km in 24 hours, including four trips to the East Coast. So much for Singapore being a small island.

Too much stress? Try this revenge test to see if you have what it takes to boil rabbit soup.

I've been tagged by Dee so here goes:

Four jobs I've had in my life:
1) Selling men's shoes
2) Waitress at a chinese restaurant in Australia, where people compliment you on your english
3) shop assistant at an organic food place - that was fun
4) Admin assistant at a volunteer centre - that was pointless

Four movies I could watch over and over again (not to be confused with favourite movies):
1) Any pixar cartoon
2) The first three star wars movies, and by that I mean ep 4, 5, 6
3) Hannibal
4) 2046

Four TV shows I love(d) to watch:
1) House MD
2) Seinfeld
3) Sex And The City
4) Iron Chef

Four places I've lived in:
1) Ghim Moh Road (Sing)
2) Roberts Street (Melb)
3) Eveline Street, (Melb)
4) and that's it. My parents haven't moved since I was born.

Four places I've been on vacation to:
1) Cambodia (going this weekend!)
2) Sabah
3) Norway
4) Vienna

Four places I would rather be:
1) Greece
2) Brazil
3) New York
4) Palau

Four of my favourite foods:
1) Nasi lemak
2) Miso soup
3) Chicken rice
4) Sashimi

Four websites I visit daily:
1) pixelgirl
2) Google
3) Yahoo! Mail
4) Boing Boing

Four tagged:
1) chlim
2) take the mickey, where karen has written a fantastic piece on myanmar.
3) gnat
4) puck
who still has done his meme yet.

My grandmother is one cool lady. She turns 80 this year and still makes incredible handiwork like this dog made entirely of hong bao (red packets) and beaded toys.



Here's a close up. Note that there are real dogs that are actually this small.



She wanted me to take pictures "for the newspaper' but I guess this is the next best thing. Another interesting story about my grandma: She's been on telly before, telling her story of the Japanese occupation - how she was dressed up as a boy when the soldiers came knocking. She almost fooled them when one noticed she had pierced ears... luckily the soldiers didn't harm her but her parents quickly married her off so that she wouldn't be a target.

And in other related Chinese New Year dog news - I saw a dog sandwich on a motorbike today. Man, terrier in between, woman. Pity I was driving, otherwise I would have taken photos. PS, the dog didn't have a helmet.

Remember the offroad journey in the rented proton? This is what we did - a trip to the northernmost point in Borneo. This is what it looks like in the brochure:



What they don't tell you is that only this part of the road is paved. You need to drive about 5 to 10km over dirt and gravel and potholes. Where the dirt meets road:



Try not to run over the buffalo and the strange livestock (my mum saw the photos and thinks they are turkeys).




But the view is worth it. Pity we didn't plan the drive to include a picnic on the beach.



and the very tip itself.

So we didn't make it up the mountain, and we didn't check out the mulu caves, but we did do something that would make karen proud - eat bak kut teh - twice.



The very nice man at the hotel we stayed turned out to be an old friend of my cousin's, and he gladly took us out for dinner. Mr Pang likes this place Yu Kee, which is one of karen's recommendations.

Having tried both places, I definitely prefer Yu Kee. The soup at the Kolombong place is more herbal, and tends to get more bitter the more you have. However, the Kolombong place does draw significantly more business than the BKT place next door, so it must have its supporters. Pricewise, both are reasonable. We paid around RM30+++ for the spread above for 4 people.

Since bak kut teh is heaty, Mr Pang took us to a herbal tea stall located under the overhead bridge next to KK plaza. Everything is in chinese, so unless you know exactly what you are drinking, it's all a matter of luck whether you get the superbitter or the sweet one.




The best part is the ABC desert stall in the same row. The auntie makes her own green worms and uses real gula merlaka. ABC is the malaysian version of ice kacang and comes with everything - red bean, chin chow, corn, green worms, ice and gula merlaka.

The real worms we avoided (hopefully, since my mandarin isn't exactly hot). They sell these massive bugs in a ready-to-boil packet in the supermarket - apparently it is a tonic for babies.



And this is joe's idea of a low-carb meal, veggies, seafood and beer. But no rice.

From the departure lounge of Senai airport... the tv system is beyond sight and sound literally.



The second is on the streets of Kota Kinabalu. It looks like they merely sell clothes, next to shah ruk khan. Talk about branding.



The third is an example of what passes for cars in Sabah, and the advantage of having a 4 wheel drive when it comes to parking. We rented a proton to drive around, and I had to turn off the aircon to climb the slopes of mount KK. Did I mention that the speedometer wasn't working? It's a great advantage when you are careening around hairpin turns like the road to Cameron Highlands. We also took it offroad (more about that later).


The fourth is an old english gent we met trekking at the foothills of the KK national park. We ask if he is planning to climb the mountain and he shakes his head, saying something to the effect of I'm not quite in shape, too much effort. The next day, we meet him CYCLING down the road, which means at some stage he had to cycle UP. I'm not sure what is his idea of being in shape, and I don't think I want to know.

The resort, the room, and the school of pilot whales we saw. Am definitely suffering from holiday withdrawal symptoms.

Just got back from a great dive trip in Sipadan, and while everyone is complaining of being wet in Singapore, at least we were wet underwater.

We decided to spoil ourselves at Sipadan Water Village and the room was massive, to say the least. It looks way better than on the website, so will put some pictures up even though I may lose some friends.

For non-divers, Sipadan is pretty amazing, but you won't appreciate it until you've been to places like Tioman and Phuket, where you have to search for ages to see anything decent. It is very easy to get jaded because there is just so much to see in one dive site on Sipadan. So in point form...

best sighting - 2 devil rays sweeping past us. In the deep, big fish check you out, not the other way around.

the one that got away - a hammerhead shark the other group saw. Also a pygmy seahorse that only joe saw, because I was too sick with food poisoning to dive.
Murphy's Law man. The one thing I want to see, he sees.

see until bored - turtles. At one site I counted 8 turtles, turning my head from left to right. You pretty much see turtles on every dive, even at the house reef on our check-out dive. There was one turtle being followed by a procession of 3 batfish, very cute. Italian divers have a thing for turtles, apparently.

grumpies - the big fish tend to look angry, for example the tuna, the lone barracuda, the mantis shrimp, the big groupers and napoleon wrasses. Even the turtles. Now that everyone dives with a camera, it feels like swimming with the paparazzi - this poor fish is going what the f***, piss off.

the small stuff - leaf fish, lovely ghost pipes just under the jetty, cleaner shrimp, crab eye goby. We made friends with some KL divers, so will link to them when their pictures are up.

win some lose some - I actually got down to my dream weight, thanks to the above mentioned food poisoning incident. I have since put it all back rapidly, and more, thanks to my Tawau cousins who insist on feeding me every two hours.
"You must try this, Singapore don't have."
"No, don't eat from that stall, standard gone down. I take you to a better place."

Now I know how foreigners in Singapore feel.

Tomorrow, I haul my hefty ass to Kota Kinabalu, where I am planning to conquer a bowl of bak kut teh. We have decided to follow good advice and not attempt mount KK because it will hurt - a lot. Part of me still wishes we were going up, although it is too late to book huts and make the necessary arrangements. Instead, we are going to do a couple of short treks around the foothills.

It is raining. A lot. Three days now.
That is the view from my apartment, before and now. The rain varies from big fat drops to standing in the shower wet in a matter of seconds. How can there be so much water in the sky? I'm sure if we could collect all of it we wouldn't have to drink recycled pee.

Read a commentary today about how China is resorting to panda diplomacy to win over Taiwan. Ah, the power of a pair of cutesy woosy eyes. Better than long-range missiles. NYT also has an article about the growing influence of cute. To prove their point, I went completely gaaaahhh over this t-shirt. Too bad my birthday is miles away.

From 4pm today, I am now officially unemployed. This is the third time I'm leaving the same office and I feels sad and unsettled each time - like I shouldn't be leaving, survivor's guilt perhaps? I don't know.

I'm surprised how much I've really enjoyed working this time, even though the workload has doubled for the holiday season - people are working 12-hour days, which is no joke when you start at 430am. I guess the colleagues-turned-friends more than makes up for the crappy hours, and it is also an ego boost to be valued after a year of student jobs.

From Tuesday I am officially on holiday. Sipadan, here we come! We might even do Mt KK and the Miri caves, ala Karen, if we still have energy.

What can I say, gnat inspired me. I got this new template here. Tweaked the main text cos it was too small. Happy New Year everyone!

So far, I have had
mulled wine
piper champagne
red wine
a sip of sangria

I spent the stroke of midnight with joe, in a traffic jam on the expressway, watching the fireworks go off over the city. If not for the jam, we would have zoomed past and our timing would have been off. Sorry no photos, fireworks are notoriously tricky to take and I was too busy going waaahhhh. Use your imagination, it's a terrible thing to waste.