Suppression

Whenever I looked up, I want to see something. I know something is there, but it refuses to show itself. As I'm keen on playing Word Mole on my phone now, I use that as my reason to look down when all I wanted is to look up.

Maybe I should spell "confuse" on this Word Mole game.

(I'm getting better at this game)

KL by foot

*Sejuk dohh*

Just out of the blue, I'm reminiscing this mini-walk-around-KL I took with my certain someone sometime ago. We walked pretty much everywhere! Agak berpeluh-peluh juge yerr, Malaysian weather kan. If I can recall, this is the route we took:

LRT to Pasar Seni

(I bought bracelet hehe)

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then, walked to Masjid Jamek

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Dataran Merdeka

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Jalan TAR-Masjid India-Nasi Kandar for lunch

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walked along Sungai Kelang or Sungai Gombak

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Stesen Keretapi Tanah Melayu

(We even went inside)

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Masjid Negara

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up,up,up along Taman Burung

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Taman Tasik Perdana-Memorial Tun Razak

(Did you know they have Taman Rusa & Kancil at Lake Garden?)

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down down down to Masjid Negara

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back to Jalan TAR

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SOGO, to kill time

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Coliseum Cafe, where we enjoyed steak for dinner

(Very old cafe..I believe dated back to British days,

the sizzling steak was very worth it!)

Yes, we walked to all these places. Back when I was still in primary, my dad made us walk everywhere in KL and that's how I got to know & remember these places. Somehow, somewhere in the middle of the desert I craved for the same "adventure" all over again!

I said "we can enjoy steak after that calorie-burn-out-walk we just had all day"

Darn, this is something for me to cherish life-long xx

Of desert and winter

If you see somebody from Muscat in your blog traffic...Hey, I could be reading your blog! I'm off to the desert in a few days. I miss it a bit. Huacachina in Ica, Peru remains the only desert I've ever been to and surprisingly, I love deserts!

It's gonna be winter soon and I bet winter in Omani desert is gonna be cruel to me. Geared up with only a rather-thick-sweater, I'm praying for my past Canadian-winter-experience to be my saviour. Even day time is only 29 degC in Muscat, and that is pretty low for Middle Eastern countries.

I think I will find some time to write down my Muscat story; although, it's not too elaborative so far :(

It's funny how back in Canada, I would be eating shawarma or briyani cause it is the only Halal option available. Then, I gorged Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese food, too. And now, I'm eating the same kind of food when I'm in Oman and when I was in Vietnam. Sigh...

I'm all on black & white mode; hence all the extra-effort-edited-photos on display:

Fort in Matrah, approximately 20mins from city centre

The beautiful beach near Shangri-La Hotel.

The massive & grand chandelier at Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

The panel as my header was also taken at the same mosque.

This mosque definitely exudes the grandeur feeling above everything else!

Al-Zawawi Mosque near to my hotel. The mosque is pretty small, but grand, nevertheless

p/s: far away, again.

On display

Time: 02:13

Random edited photos for display.

My night is officially occupied!

The view from the balcony of my apartment.

The clouds above the Twin Tower sort of light up!

I almost forgot I had this ring. Been wearing it all week!

Birthday gift from my sister: a bright pink wallet.

Beach or Mountains? Mountains, for sure.

So when's my next adventure?

*my eyes are fixed on a certain location*

(Credit: MBN. The mountains along the Inca Trail, 2009)

Loosen up for a night! New head scarf by the way.

(one boring night back in Vietnam)

p/s: Spotted organic cotton tshirt at ZARA. I think this is my call. I need to get it. Haha. Now, where's my size?

Willingness

I question willingness. Willingness is like time; the virtue of it is ambiguous because like time, it is treated as a sacrifice. Sacrifice has an extent, the limitation of how far one would go to comply. And when one complies, one lacks sincerity. Sincerity above all is a priority because it adheres all as one. And when all is one, I go back to willingness. I do not see the need for it even when I have time to sacrifice.

I appreciate it, nevertheless.

And I agree with Eleanor Roosevelt, “It is not fair to ask of others
 what you are not willing to do yourself.”

Cheers to Kuala Lumpur

I'm back in KL and all is the same to me.

Despite people's critic/complement of me being too thin (a.k.a tak makan ke dekat Vietnam?), I'm determined to start on rigorous heart pumping activities after this. Why? Cause 2 months of eating out made me sick and I felt I had consumed a lot of junk stuff. I need to shed some kg(s). It all starts tomorrow (in a finger-crossed tone of voice). La la laaa...

p/s: what I eat and what I buy? They all matters!

Messy Love

I've always thought having someone dear to you makes your life wonderful because you are always happy. Little that I know, it's a bumpy ride. As I'm answering "yes" or giggled to all people's Qs on my certain someone, I still have my head throbbing from the bumpy ride. Maybe I can blame my life-long commitment to single life that I'm not so BF-ready for a second person in life. Nevertheless, I always go back to "You & Me" by Dave Matthews Band cause like I always tell him,

"You and I, we're not tied to the ground

Not falling, but rising like rolling around..."

It's perfect. And I sure know we're perfect.

Love you, beau.

Always will & always have.

p/s: m digging on our differences

The-like*love-effect

I always felt I haven't really found myself yet in HCMC until a couple of weeks ago. Other than shopping and work, I hardly do anything else! I ate at the same places for the most part (due to Halal issues & I can't read the names of the dishes!) and since the past 1 month was Ramadhan I wasn't that much of an "explorer".

This year's Ramadhan felt more blessed somehow; the kind you felt after you've done something extremely virtuous. I tried to "khatam the Quran" but I was not successful (sigh) and I only got to juzuk 16 :( Since I spent my Raya offshore, I got back onshore with a vengeance of some sort. That's when I feel I found myself. I'm not in any ways trying to portray a certain lifestyle, but I just want to share some of the things I love, like JAZZ!

They played great music. We wanted to request Sade's "Smooth Operator" but we were 10 mins too late. They were already playing their last song which was James Brown's "I Feel Good" (cliche dohh!)

(at Sax 'N' Art, HCMC)

The fruit punch was awesome! It was a bit pricey, but nevermind I just got back on land!

...And CAFES!

Back to going around trying out different places but for I always left my camera out most of the time. Sigh.

I like cafes and I guess you probably know/realize that already. I passed by this cafe everyday to work and the only question I had was when oh when! So, I had lunch at Rita Cafe, Nguyen Van Cu. I had Hot & Sour Seafood Noodle and can I say it was freaking good! Anyways, I somehow think the shops in Vietnam are always very well decorated!

I'm loving the paper umbrella decor on the ceiling :)

...And MANI/PEDI!

And it comes down to feeling all good bout your body. I'd go to mani/pedi all the time here and I think I'm getting very comfortable with people doing my nails for me. Now the thoughts of buffing my own nails spelled M.a>laS! Manicure or pedicure is about $3-$5 here so why bother doing your own, right? The thing is, I never went to nail place in Malaysia haha! I have no idea why, but this kind of lifestyle has got to stop cause doing your nails at the nail parlour is expensive in Malaysia tee hee! My favourite here is Armani Spa at Dong Du St, but when I went there last Thursday...the made my my lateral nail fold bleed :(

...And ORGANIC THINGS!

Since I always berangan to go all-*cough-cough*-organic*, I sort of took the first step: I bought Yves Rocher "Organic Vanilla" shower gel. I know, you would say OMG perlu ker? but it's good to use organic-based product! I thought the L'occitane lip balm I bought was organic-based, but it wasn't. Sigh. I can't read both French & Vietnamese! BTW, I hate the lip balm. Chapstick $1.69 Strawberry flavoured is even better than this!

Love the vanilla smell and I like how the bathroom smells of vanilla afterwards :)

The smell is quite long-lasting.

...and the SEMANGATNESS of things!

The last time I went for a formal dinner event was five years ago. Now I'm in Vietnam, the company celebrated it's 20th year in Vietnam with a dinner for all the staff at one of the hotels here. I'm like, what do I wear? As if there's a lot of options as to what I can wear and where to get them! I don't have something to wear, handbag (I only brought my Lesportsac sling bag to HCMC! Imagine how colourful that is!), no high heels (pakai flats murah yang boleh buang je pasni) and no tudung! I somehow got excited about this dinner and bought almost all the things I don't have. This is me talking about how much I like to waste money in this sense just to look the part.

Anyways, it was a great dinner mainly cause I get to watch traditional Vietnames dance & songs (I didn't get to watch it at any other place). On the more lucky note, I get to mingle around with all the Mr-big-shots. It was nice to listen to their stories, work & off-work related. It makes you feel it is not impossible to be like them one day cause they started pretty much like where I am right now.

Terpaksa beli baju kurung, selendang licin (OMG!) and kasut...

I never tried wearing tudung like this and I only wore it this way for the dinner cause the scarf I bought was too "silky" and it was impossible to wear it!

(satu gamba dinner je lah)

BTW, you bet I have more than just the ones I shared here

I'm going back to Malaysia soon. Now I felt everything came sooner than I anticipated

p/s: has a love*like effect for someone tee hee

30 Aug 2011

My Hari Raya, as powered by coffee.

RAYA EVE: Mad at the telephone and internet at 0200 hrs cause it was down and caused lots of communication problems to me. End up sleeping at 0400 hrs. I was able to stay up that late due to coffee.

RAYA MORNING at 0800 hrs: Woke up at 0615 hrs to do report. Internet and phone line were occasionally down. I was still upset about it, but I had my first cup of coffee in the morning in 1 month. I'm all good to go until now at 1645 hrs; although, I was predictably hyper around 1100 hrs. Now, I've mellowed down and sleeping looks pretty good from here... *yawnnn*

On that note fellas,

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI

&

MAAF ZAHIR BATIN

(fire crackerrrss!! weee! weee!)

Cheers,

Me,

all the way from offshore Vietnam.

30 days and counting

A month into living abroad feels like I've never done this before. If I'm allowed to make one comment bout it, I'd say I've grown to know me. As in, I never know what I really want, until I got here.

and, cheers to that *raise glass!*

p/s: Dreaming of an imagination.