Meeting with Damai Team

August 11, 2009

We tried to wake up early every day this week since.... we just don't have much time to waste. But can you imagine drinking every night and waking up early every morning for a week felt like for me?


Breakfast that packed with bad carbs, lards, msg.


However, I do like these. Kuih-muih(traditional steamed/fried pastries made of local ingredients, not always sweet, but savory too) with Kopi-O Kau Kau Kosong(the way local orders a black strong coffee) is the best.


This was Chicken Curry with mee. Mee is the term we used for Noodle. Well, this was good but way too heavy for me as breakfast.


We went to Kenyalang Park to buy a few items for wedding decoration needs. Kenyalang Park is the very first mall that I remembered as kid. When Mama Wong said "Let's go to Kenyalang" I would jumped up and down because it was fun to go there back in the old time, the seventies. There was a cinema back then, book stores, craft stores, fashion stores, restaurants. Now, it's all run down but still have some small businesses around. Oh, check out my eye bags.


We, the female team went to the famous, one of the kind "Orchid Garden" in Kuching. This business has been around as long as I am. It's the oldest Orchid Plantation in Sarawak. The owner also the only supplier that imports flowers from West Malaysia and sell it to florists in Kuching. They have limited selection. So we have to go there a few days early to book our flowers. Those flowers we booked were for Bride Maids. For Ann's flower bouquet, it will be something very special. You'll see it soon :)


Rushed to Damai Beach Resort to meet with the team that put together the wedding. I was a bit worry about how well this team can pull together a big party. The wedding list has about 350-400 persons, with rooms that we pre booked, honeymoon suites have to be decorated. You see I put suiteS because as a gift from Ann and Winston, they are giving Eddie and his new wife(not so new anymore lah) a decorated honeymoon suite. Lots of decoration that the team have to set up per Ann's design....But I crossed my fingers, I hope all things go well that day.


Hahaha, look at Winston's eye bags... big and black.


checked out the site. We specially request the Damai team, do not put all party animals stay at those rooms up at the hill. We want to be closed to the bar, the pool and the beach :)! The sky was gloomy, not because it's overcast but it was the haze from burning forests at Indonesia, and fucking Malaysia too.


Seems like the Damai team was set to go so we drove to a fish village next to Damai Resort, Buntang for .... food, not even dinner time yet, we just wanted to eat some fresh seafood.

Why the hell there was pink water???????????


It was a chemical reaction of salted sea water with used laundry water. So polluted. This water eventually will mixed with the sea water during high tide. Sad....


A view out to the sea. Can't really see the horizon line. Too hazy.


From left to right: The Best Man, The Groom, The Bride, The Bridemaid of Honor


These crabs were steamed with Guinness Stout, awesome taste and great fresh texture.


The size comparison. It's so big!


This was the best shrimps dish I had during my entire trip in South East Asia. It was so fresh. Steamed perfectly with rice wine and seasoned with ginger and salt. The sweetness of it brought tears to my eyes.... that good. yes.

Ah~! Another day. You know what we did at night. Repeat or I should say, continue on what we left off the night before, more drinking. Can't wait for tomorrow, yeah!

Family Dinners & Wedding Preparation

August 9-10, 2009

W and I arrived Kuching at the same day. W has been working in the Oil Town this past year, aka Miri. It left a week till his big day so he has to be back for all the preparation of the wedding.


Mama Wong and Ming. I know Ming before she was born. Mama Wong was Ming's nanny, even till now, Mama Wong is her guardian while she stay with us in Kuching.


Ming was a good baby when we babysit-ted her. I remembered she was only 1 year old, her mom dropped her off around 7am at our house and she would climbed the stairs slowly to second floor of my house where all bedrooms were. She then knocked on my bedroom door, "Doreen Jie Jie, wake up, it's morning already" with her cute, sweetest voice. She is now 18. I'm 36. Time flies.


W & N. Look at W, he had been out for too many nights of bachelor party.


Deer meat with ginger and spring onion. The meat was very tender, juicy and lean.


Steamed sea bass. This is called Teowchew Style and it's the best way to eat fish. My favorite way because you can really taste the freshness of the fish, the meat is soft and texture is smooth.


No meal is complete without fresh cut chili.

And we had lots of other dishes. I paid for the dinner because it's the first family meal at home and I want to feed my family.


Here we go. The last week before the wedding on weekend. Lots of things to do but first we need to get carbs packed breakfast before we start the day. We went to Kuching famous Laksa place at Golden Arch. It's hard to find parking there.


Koo Loo Mee. It literally means "dry-stir-noodle". This is the staple of Kuching people and it's our pride.


When I was young, I always wish Mama Wong had to run errands in town and can't cook lunch for us to bring to school, then she would give us RM$1.00 to buy lunch. I would buy Koo Loo Mee and a soda for just RM$1.00. I remembered eating the noodle slowly to enjoy every bits of it. Then drank the soda because I was too thirsty from msg used in the noodle! The taste is actually pretty basic but it's the noodle itself that makes the different here. It's very "Q".


Ladies and Gentlemen, this is all Sarawakians' pride. It's usually seafood soup base in coconut milk with lots of spices. It's spicy and served with belacan sambal. We eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner or just anytime you would like to. Yes, it's heavy for breakfast I must say. And paired with a strong Kuching Coffee...yes, it's send you to toilet right after.


There is a place in Kuching where they sell wedding preparation items for Chinese style only. As you can see here, red, gold is the must color for wedding. You wonder why baskets, luggage are sold here right? Well, in the old time, the bride would be carry to the groom house and with her gifts from her family that packed in basket. The luggage, well now it's modern day some bride uses luggage instead of basket.


The couple choosing Ang Pau for the event. Ang Pau is red envelope in Hokkian dialect. They have to give out Ang Pau to kids on that day and to their friends and family who helped with the event.


There are a lot of symbolism in Chinese wedding. Like this here, all those beans mean having lots of off spring.


I joke you not(I heard a lot of Malaysians said like this.... ), some people really decorate their room like this.


This is "spit bucket" symbolizes having lots of off spring again.


Our family is not traditional at all. We didn't get any tacky stuffs to symbolize anything but just some red cloth. The cloth will be hang at the door way.


A few of this


A few of that


Let's move to the check out line. The second basket was gift we got for Eddie.


Next on our to do list was: Getting bottled waters, soda, juices for guests at our houses on the wedding morning. So we went to this whole sale supermarket. I saw this big bag of MSG. I hate MSG. Whenever I order food at restaurant I will tell them no MSG and insists NO MSG because I'm super allergy to it and can cause me serious reaction and I can die.... Yes, I say that sometime just to screw with them. haha


Met up with Mama Wong for lunch. Check out her new tattoo. Didn't see it? It's right there... there above her eyes.


We took Tau Keh W to Bee Hin Goldsmith for a new pair of pearl earrings. I was too busy catching up with Uncle and Auntie Liu. I didnt' take any pictures. Aiya! Then we hang out at Carpenter Street. I saw this. Talk about safety.... this is complete violated electric code if it's in USA but it's Malaysia, anything can, no problem. Aside that, I think it's a cool picture.


It's dinner time! Two mothers so concentrated on their food. That is W's mother.


oh mine, this restaurant sucks ass. We ordered a few dishes and they came out one by one instead of all together. I hate eating like that.


Look at this sorry ass soup....


Shrimps were over cooked and sauce was way too gluey.


Only dish that night that I gave a thumb up was steamed fish. Very fresh but I gave a thumb down for serving the fish last!!! We already fulled and the fish was served. WTF.


W was politely serving fish to everyone. That's E over there, W's brother.


Is it cool how the cook(I won't call chef) split the fish in half so it's easy for customers to eat the whole fish without flipping the side. In Kuching, you order fish in whole, there is no fish fillet.


At night, we had meeting for the wedding committee. W was being a good host and served beverage to his/our guests.


He had the first sip while other listening carefully to N.


One bottle done.


Second bottle half done. T started to get a bit silly while N still seriously discussing about her big day.


I had some instant tanned too. That's what I called healthy glow!


The ceremony handout still in it's first draft. Need pastor to do his final review.


The time schedule for the big day. I was the time keeper.


We have a very spacious property. Mama Wong did a good purchase and Ann managed the remodeling last year while I did the conceptual design. Aside of poor workmanship, I really like the house. Big sliding doors, lots of natural light and air. So if you happen to visit Kuching, feel free to stay here. We love to have guests.


W enjoyed his tuak (Iban rice wine) with fancy crystal glass.


Third bottle done. W confused and not sure what's his task was....


Women went to the room for further discussion.


Mama Wong's handy work. She made all the flower girl dresses and N's wedding gown and night gown. She is truly talented and skilled. At age 71, she still have good hands.

We went to bed late. Tired but had lots of fun. More preparation work for next day.

Mama Wong's Jewelry

It's a family tradition to pass on jewelry from mother to daughter or son. Especially for soon to be wedded daughter, the mother usually will prepared special jewelry for her. Since we were all home for a big event, Mama Wong spent sometime "analyzing" her humble jewelry collection and equally divided between us. Every single piece of her jewelry has a story behind it. It's not something she went shopping and bought it.

Even though all these jewelry have been wore for a long time and the design is outdate but I have to say she did a good job "modernizing" some of her jewelry to give us. I'm so impress with her gift. Also the reason she decided to give them all to us because she wanted us to receive the gift on a happy event instead after her death. She is very thoughtful.


Inside this jewelry gift box is a jade pendant. Mama Wong had wore this pendant since she got it from her dad when she was nine year old. The story was grandpa asked Mama Wong to pick a number for lucky draw and she picked number 9 because that year she turned 9. Grandpa won the lucky draw with that number and bought Mama Wong a jade pendant as a gift for the good luck she brought him. It is now a gift to pass on to Eddie's wife. Mama Wong said it will later pass to their daughter or daughter in law. So Eddie, ... time to make baby.


I got the diamond ring which to me, it's the most important gift from Papa Wong to her. The gold pendant was a gift from Ah Ma(my grandmother from father side) to Mama Wong when she married to the Wong family. The gold bracelet is actually my jewelry. I only wore it during Chinese New Year. Till I turn 12, it was too small to fit on my wrist. Another piece of jewelry that is not shown in here is a jade pendant in leaf shape which was given from Ah Ma. All these are under my possession.


For Ann, she got a few more pieces. Mostly jewelry that Mama Wong had been wore for a long time. She added a new pair of jade earring to match the jade bracelet. Thank god she used a nice, velvet gift box instead of the plastic gift box.

For Eddie, she asked Uncle Liu to custom make a super Ah Beng ring with a big alphabet E. So Ah Beng that I didn't take a picture of it.

What did Mama Wong wears now after she gave away all these jewelry? No worry, she has a few more pieces that we bought for her as gifts for her birthdays during all these years. Mostly pearl earring, pearl pendant and pearl ring with small diamonds which are so much elegant on her. She told me all those I should keep after she pass away.

The Most Priceless Gift

I arrived home safely and went to lunch with Mama Wong, Ming and Ann. Then hung out in Mama Wong's bedroom for afternoon nap. Mama took out three red boxes under her bed. It's the familiar gift boxes from Bee Hee Goldsmith.


Mama Wong gave this to me to keep. This is a very important gift from Papa Wong. Back in the 70's, family life was not easy for a medium income family with 6 people. I remembered it was our parents' wedding anniversary. Something like that, I was too young to remember clearly. Papa Wong called up Uncle Liu who lived at least 10 miles away from us. Uncle Liu is our family friend who owns Bee Hee Goldsmith. It was night time and Uncle Liu without hesitation drove all the way by himself with a box fulled of all kind of rings with rocks-diamond. Mama Wong was surprised, overwhelmed with those jewelry. Papa Wong only gave her an small diamond ring for wedding ring prior to this. I don't know where Papa Wong got the money. I don't know the price of diamond at that age. Mama Wong spent sometime and carefully made her pick. The ring has very unique design. I'm not sure if it was made by Uncle Liu. I think it cost rm$800 and absolutely Uncle Liu gave a big discount to Papa Wong. The size of the diamond is over 1 carat. It's not a big amount for now but back in the 70's, it was huge! Over these past 30 something years, Mama Wong only wore this ring on special occasions.


She gave it to me. I'm honored and touched. I think she knows no man will give me a diamond ring and I will not buy a diamond ring for myself, at least I have a diamond ring from someone, someone that loves me. I will keep this till the day I die and pass it on to someone else in the family.

Home Sweet Home 2009

Yes, I was back to San Francisco two weeks ago but had been busy trying to adjust back to the working mode. So far so good, workload is really light for me as my project is done and right now I'm just act as support for teams that need any kind of help, nothing particular, whatever they want me to do I'll do it as long as I have an account to charge my 40 hours per week schedule.

Economy seems to pick up these past months. My company has a few big projects finally kick start as I heard and a few on hold projects are back on track. They have started to hire new specialty staffs to work on those projects as old staffs were laid off. I checked stock market every morning and recently just checked on my retirement accounts. There are good signs of recovery. Money that I lost last year is back in my account :) Phew~!!!! Never touch your long term investment account. Mama Wong sold her stock when it dropped without consulting with me. Gosh, I was so mad to find out she sold it and after long discussion to her about stock market... her came out with the conclusion: it's not a good investment for her because when stock drops, her blood pressure ups.

This trip home is so wonderful. Beside all the fun and new experience in other countries, and most important to me is the reconnection of friends from all over and family with new little one that I met for first time.

So here it is, I present to you ~ Home Sweet Home 2009 ~


Last minute packing. I had to work the next day and my flight was next day mid night.


I packed as many hot pants as I can. Forget about jeans when travel to South East Asia during the hottest month of the year.


Yeah~! Lots of Bikinis. Not all is mine but at least 3 pairs are :)

My luggage weighted about 22kg. My hand carry luggage was about 11kg. Good that Eva Airline ticketing staff was kind to allow me carry the 11kg on plane. Nowadays, airlines are very strict with how much weight and size of you carry on luggage.


SFO-Taipei. This is a special design Hello Kitty Nursery Room at the airport terminal. There is also a special Hello Kitty waiting lounge and gift shop that sells limited edition Hello Kitty junks. I have a transit about 4 hours at the airport. Walked around doing nothing as it was 4am in the morning. My flight was 9am from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur. It was bored as hell but good that there's free wireless internet connection. Most Asia airports provide free internet connection.


Arrived Malaysia!!!!


Street food is down dirty and cheap. You have to get use of eating at the road side where cars and motorcycles pass by.


Once again, I missed the chance to get up to the building. In order to get in you have to get the free passes that give away every morning and you have to be in line for that as early as 7am.


New construction sites keep popping up here and there in Kuala Lumpur. Some are really well design.


BUT..... look at this shit. The mosaic tile is 1"x1", just look at how thick is silicone caulking between the wall to the counter top. Look closely to the tile grout. This is unacceptable if it's my project. I would have the contractor redo it. But, usually for my project, during the installation I will check the workmanship while in progress to avoid this kind of crappy installation.


They used caulking everywhere to fill the off dimension. If you not sure what I mean, look at the left side of mirror where a big gap of white line between the mirror and the mirror frame/fin. The mirror was cut too small to fit the frame.

Not that I want to be such a bitch. I do understand the lack of skill in a lot of the labors from out of Malaysia. But it's a contractor's job to over looking their work and if they lack of skill, train them. In a lot of case, some contractors didn't even know how to do things correctly.


Say Fook and Yew Mun. I haven't see Say Fook since 1998. Over 10 years time apart without much contact but finally I met him. Same old Ah Fook, the connection that we have still strong and remain tight. Yew Mun still look as young as when I met him in 1992 to interview as his roommate. Time went by fast. We just met up for lunch and it is not enough to catch up but we had a good time.


We had lunch at this famous Indian restaurant in Bangsar.


Yew Mun was such a popular guy back in MIA. He has long silky hair and always wore this super beat up short. Girls in the college were admired that I was his roommate.


Say Fook back then was not our roommate but he was Yew Mun's classmate. He spent a lot of time at our rented house. Say Fook is a joker. Whenever Say Fook around, there's laughter. Say Fook, Yew Mun and myself, we like to speak in Malay.


Delicious Indian food. This place is always packed. You have to line up to get a seat in the restaurant.


At night, I met up with another group of friends. I knew them from junior high. Dad transferred his job from Kuching to Limbang. The entire family moved there in 1986 and left from Limbang to Sarikei in 1988. They were my classmates of three years while in Limbang. Kim and I kept good contact for this long. Then we all met again in Kuala Lumpur after high school to further study. when I moved to USA it was harder at the beginning to keep in touch with them. But Kim and I still wrote letters to each other till later email replace letter and then instant messaging replace email. Now thanks to Facebook, we all reconnect there.


This guy, I haven't see him for over 20 years!


Another group photo before we called the night off. Now most of them are parents.


Booze buffet... too funny.


A very high end shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur that just opened. It's called Pavilion. A lot of new malls in America started to use these kind of food court concept. They called it dining terrance instead of food court which sound cheap.


This mall has all the world famous fashion vendors. I do not afford to buy things in there.


Look at the traffic, it's always like this. Cars moved inch by inch. One of the reason I decided to left Kuala Lumpur back then was this. I felt my life was wasted on traffic jam.


Then I flied back to Kuching after 3 days 4 nights in Kuala Lumpur.

Vacation Time

The time is here! Yeah!!

After not taking any sick day, any vacation day for over 1.5 years, I have accumulated 1 month paid vacation. I'm so grateful for my team members for letting me go 2 weeks earlier before we hand in our last design documentation and closed up the project. But, of course before I leave, I worked 4 weekends, 2 weekdays of 9am-10pm hours, everyday. I made sure everything is taking care off and minimum issues for my team.

one whole month of vacation which I really needed. It has been a tough year of work but I am enjoying it. So now, I'm enjoying well deserved vacation.

First, reunion, reunion, reunion!!! Friendship is so important to me, I have keep good friends around. My kindergarten classmates still are my good friends, my junior high's classmates from Limbang, my Sarikei's gang, my MIA gang, still all in my life. This vacation, I will meet some college friends who left San Francisco after college and for the first time in 10 years I get to see them. I will see my beloved dear cousins and their kids. It just one word to describe my feeling, AWESOME!

But two friends rejected my visit because they are worry about swine flu as I'm coming back from USA. I mean they are really freaking out.

W & sista N are getting married. I'm happy for them. And it's great to have my best buddy become part of my family. Suddenly my family grow bigger with W and Eddie's wife. I wish Dad is here. I can imagine his cheerful big smile on his face. I miss him.

Bali, Bangkok, Taipei.... finally, for the first time I get to visit other countries during my trip home. For the past 13 years, I used my vacation to go back to Malaysia only. I can't wait to surf & dive in Bali, train Muay Thai in Bangkok, eat street food in Taipei. For the first time, I'm traveling with my family for vacation. It has been a while, our last family vacation was... when I was 12. I remembered we went to Brunei for the first time, then to Limbang to see our new place to live as Dad's job got transfer from Kuching to Limbang. After that trip, Eddie left us and went to USA. Since then, there was no family vacation anymore. Even though this trip, it's not totally "complete" because Grace can't go with us, I feel it's a trip for us to bond as family again.

I guess I'll gain 5-6 pounds for the trip. I'll try to run everyday when I'm at home and see if I can get some yoga classes. I want my Vinyasa doses!!!

Stay tune for vacation posts.

Should I?

I haven't posted anything about fights, boxing, muay thai for a while. Oh man, I missed training to fight. I really do. For your information, I can't fight amateur anymore because USA Boxing rules no fighter over 35. The same rule applies to Olympic. It's the only sports in Olympic that has age limit. Paris always asked if I want to fight "senior" or also called "master" class. It's not professional. The problem is... where do you fight female amateur boxer? Most 30 something females have family, kids, not working out ok, forget about fighting.

Anyway, I still do boxing and muay thai for weekly workout. It's something I will keep continue on for the rest of my life. I still went to many fight events, smokers, took lots of pictures. Just not doing any posting about them.

But I will post when some events worth mentioning in future. And when I have time. I always doing something, it's hard to get time to blog.

I posted about not blogging as much but facebooking is easier for my friends and family to get update. But.... I actually don't want to do that as much now because I have my coworkers on my friend list and some people that I don't want them to know what I'm doing, feeling. Yes, that's my practice. I separate personal life and work life. I do not like my coworkers know too much about me. It's harder to work together when you know someone too close. My job is about being critic and critic others' design. So maintaining certain distance is appropriate, that's my thought. So, I should just keep blogging here for something I don't want to share with some people.

So, what do you think about this???? My Nike Jordan boots is already 3 years old. I wear it 3-4 times a week. It's not in bad shape but I took it for repaired once. The leather still good, just the right sore is coming off. I'm so temped to get a new one....

Should I or shouldn't I??? It's recession and I try not to spend! But I know it looks good on me....