frutti.gummi

Eating out in Kyoto

2010-07-21T23:48:00.002+08:00

At the underground malls beneath Kyoto JR Station, we went pass one restaurant after another looking for something to eat for dinner. We kept looking at all the food displays and they all look so good and they made us even hungrier. And we couldn't decide! Finally, we narrowed down the choice to noodles because I wanted to have ramen.

Fake plastic food display. They look so edible!

Mouth watering desserts. And they're not even real!

I noticed that the plastic food displays are usually seen on busy streets and shopping malls. I've been to several restaurants on smaller streets and they don't have these food display. I'm not sure if it's because they are already well known for what they sell or there aren't many other restaurants nearby so they don't need to grab the passerby's attention.

In front of Okakita. No plastic food display and the 'signboard' is the lamp at the entrance.

We were planning to have udon at Yamamoto Menzo because they serve cheap and tasty udon. By the time we got there, it was almost 2pm and there was already a line. We were very hungry and we don't know how to ask how long the waiting time is, so we went next door to Okakita instead. Okakita serves good udon too but they have a much nicer decor. Luckily we could read Okakita in Japanese to confirm that this is indeed the place. Hehe. As I went in, I had the impression that the price would be quite high. So I was pleasantly surprised that they have noodles for less than 1000 yen.

In the evening, the Pontocho district comes to live when all the restaurants, bars, tea houses, cafes, pubs, and karaoke centers open. It consists of two narrow streets between Sanjo-dori (3rd St) and Shijo-dori (4th St). One of the streets is next to the Kamo river and the restaurants on one side of this street have outdoor seating, overlooking the river. Most of the establishments on this street seem to be more refined. The other street is divided by a canal and is packed with people hanging around outside the shops. It was very crowded on a Saturday night and it felt like walking through a Christmas market in Germany on weekends. We only managed to walk halfway down the street as the rain made it very difficult to maneuver while holding an umbrella.

Back of the restaurants with outdoor seating along the Kamo river

The front of the restaurants at the narrow street in Pontocho

In restaurants that we went to, we were almost always given a pair of wooden chopsticks. They are of the same disposable kind that you get when you buy take-out. I just find it odd that they don't use proper chopsticks when they bothered to serve the food using nice tableware. Surprisingly, there's nice chopstick holder on the table too! So why? Perhaps for hygiene reasons?

We were fine with just the chopsticks so I'm not sure if the restaurants have forks. Most of the restaurants we went to have English menu though. Sometimes we were automatically given English menu and sometimes we had to ask for it. However, most of the staff do not speak much English! They did not attempt to speak to me in English at all. I was always spoken to in Japanese and somehow, I managed to understand them. I guess after living in non-English speaking countries for a few years, I became rather good at making sense of whole sentences from combining the current context with the few words that I understood. Hahaha.

Eating soba in Kyoto

2010-07-17T22:22:00.005+08:00

For me, a nice vacation always include eating the delicious local food. I was very excited to try the food in Japan because I love Japanese food. I wondered if the Japanese food I had eaten all these years is really similar to the real Japanese food. During my short stay in Japan, Kyoto specifically, I managed to try a few different type of food. One of our lunch meals is for soba. After doing much pre-trip research on the internet, Honke Owariya seems to be the famous place. This restaurant has been around since 1466! One of the restaurant's specialties is called Hourai Soba. The soba is served in a 5-stacked 'plates' with various toppings on the side. The toppings include mushroom, egg, seaweed, and mini shrimp tempura. This special set even comes with an instruction sheet in English on how to eat it! Hahaha.

Reading how to eat the soba!

So, basically you remove one plate from the stack, pour some sauce from the little jar onto the soba, and eat the soba accompanied with the some of the toppings. Then you repeat the same steps for each plate on the stack. I think it's quite brilliant to serve the soba on different plates instead of one huge plate. The stacked plates concept not only looks better, it also keeps the soba from getting cold and soggy. After you finish the meal, you drink the tea which is boiled from the water that was used to cook your soba. This tea is believed to have health benefits.

In general, I think the soba did taste like the sobas I've had before. This one though feels 'lighter' and fresher. The taste of the sauce is quite subtle too. That's probably why one can eat five plates of soba without feeling stuffed. :)

The Hourai soba

Temples and shrines in Japan

2010-07-11T22:41:00.006+08:00

By the third day of our vacation, we realized that almost all the places we visited are either temples or shrines. Then, we started to wonder about the differences between a temple and a shrine. At first thought, they seemed quite similar to us. At both places, we saw people praying and buying various types of charms (lucky charms, protective charms, etc). Then I realized that there are torii gates at shrines but not at temples.

Torri gates at Fushimi Inari Shrine

At these shrines, they are often mini shrines where you can pray for something more specific, like good health, love, wealth, etc. The gates at Fushimi Inari go all the way uphill and at the top, you can pray for success in studies. I guess you if managed to get all the way up there, it shows that you have the determination and you probably have what it takes to succeed.

Temples on the otherhand, usually have a big compound with a nice garden. They also house a statue of Buddha and have an incense burner in front. These gardens are very beautiful with carefully "manicured" trees and flowers, and intricately lined rocks and pebbles.

The garden at Ginkaku-ji (The Silver Pavilion)

Sometimes you find a shrine right next to a temple. For example, the Love Shrine (it's proper name is Jishu Shrine) is right next to the Kiyomizudera Temple. This shrine is popular with women, especially school girls. There is pair of stones about 60ft apart called the "Love Stones". It is said that if a person manages to walk from one stone to another with their eyes clsoed, that person will find their true love.

A school girl in front of one of the stones.

Some charms sold at the shrine.

Part of the praying ritual includes tugging at the hanging rope.

The temples are Buddhist temples while the religion practiced in shrines are called Shinto. It's quite interesting to see how these two religion blend seamlessly into the life of the Japanese people.

Mid-year financial checkup

2010-07-05T17:55:00.000+08:00

After six paychecks, I thought it would be wise to check whether I'm on track with my savings target. And if I'm spending more than what I make, I certainly don't want to wait until the end of the year to find out. I made that mistake once and I remember that life wasn't as pretty the following year.

I also got a bit nervous after returning from a nice vacation; wondering if I spent the money which is supposed to go into savings. Anyway, after doing some calculations, I'm happy to see that I've already amassed about 50% of my target amount. :D

I thought I wouldn't be able to afford to go on vacation this year! So it's a very nice surprise to find out that I can afford a nice vacation and still achieve my savings target.

Looks like Less social life = More savings is working quite well for me at the moment as I'm at the stage where my happiness is derived mostly from the amount of money I have. Hahahha.

I guess I just need to continue with the current lifestyle and I'll achieve my goal.

Wish I'm still in Japan

2010-06-30T23:20:00.000+08:00

Exactly one week ago, I boarded the flight for my maiden trip to Japan. I was really excited to see the place where a lot of my favorites come from, including sushi/sashimi, cute stationery, cool gadgets, and anime/manga. Of course, Japan is also a very beautiful country and the people are polite and nice.

I spent the entire trip in Kyoto and went to Nara (an hour away) for a half-day trip. The cities are really beautiful even during the summer with different shades of green. I can imagine the beauty of these places during the spring cherry blossom and the colors of fall. I hope I'll be able to visit again during the spring or fall season.

I think what really made me want to stay longer, or even considering to move there, is the people and their culture. People smile and greet each other, even strangers. You get excellent service at stores and restaurants. They give way when walking down a crowded street. They also tilt their umbrellas away to make way. On the subway, they don't push. Instead they make a line while waiting to board the train. And everywhere is just so neat and clean, even the streets.

Oh and the food....amazing! The plastic ones look so real that I sometimes double check to see if they are indeed plastic. Hahaha.

I had a great time and it is even better than what I had thought it would be. :D I'm already adding Japan to my list of possible trips for next year. Hehe.

My travel packing list

2010-06-23T17:30:00.000+08:00

Passport
Air/train/ship tickets
Cash in local currencies
Credit card
Insurance card
Camera + Charger
iPod + Charger
Phone with local sim card (if I have) + Charger
Book
Umbrella/Water-proof shoes if weather forecast says it might rain
Cap/Hat/Sunnies when I'm going to sunny places
Travel card e.g. Oyster in London (if I have)
Maps/Guidebook
Clothes
Toiletries

Hope I don't miss anything.

What to write?

2010-06-15T23:31:00.006+08:00

It's been almost two weeks since my last post. I didn't feel like writing. I was too distracted reading conversations on Twitter. And I did find some interesting links and blogs. Following one link to another and another is really never ending!

Anyway, I was thinking that perhaps the real reason why I didn't feel like writing is I couldn't decide what to write. I need to find a topic or theme that I enjoy writing about. Maybe travel stories? I know it kinda sounds like I'm forcing myself to write but I really need to practice writing. Why? Because I realized that it has become something that I don't like to do. I don't know when it started but I want to be able to enjoy writing again. I want it to be something that I can do effortlessly again. And I'm currently in the stage where I'm trying to do things out of my comfort zone.

I do know what I'm NOT going to write about. Work. And I do find it quite hard to resist.

Phrasebooks

2010-06-02T23:58:00.001+08:00

I now have three phrasebooks, the newest being Japanese. I bought the German and Italian ones a few years ago when I moved to Europe. I found them to be pretty useful. The book is divided into several chapters, e.g. on banking, buying food, seeing a doctor, and even dating! I especially like the culinary section that lists the words for food and drinks. It also contains notes on local culinary specialties as well as local customs and culture. All these books that I bought have the same content structure so I'm already familiar with the content and can retrieve specific information as fast, even on the new book.

I think these books are more suitable for people who are trying to live in the specific country because they contain extensive information that a visitor/traveler usually do not need. The presentation of the information is also not geared for easy retrieval.

I've carried my phrasebooks around with me for the first few months in Germany and Italy. I rarely needed to take them out but I wanted to be able to say or understand something when I need to. And I could when I had the books with me. For example, I had once forgoten how to say the color blue in Italian. I wanted to ask if the top comes in blue as well. Phrasebook to the rescue! As my grasp of the languages improves, I have kinda abandon them though. At least I still kept them.

My friend mentioned that I should get one of those electronic dictionaries that most of my Chinese and Japanese friends have. I think the device can also say the phrases. It is very handy to be able to just pick a phrase and have the device say it to the local person. But I still need to be able to understand the reply! Maybe the person can type the reply in the device and then it'll be translated into English? Anyway, I'll just stick with my phrasebooks. I enjoy learning languages. :) But I usually only learn them when I need to. I guess that makes me a lazy learner.

The verdict on Twitter

2010-05-25T19:02:00.003+08:00

I've been using Twitter for about a week now and I've posted 28 tweets so far. Do I like it? Not really. There's too much noise in the data. I'm not exactly interested to know every single tweet in real time from the people who I follow. I find it really annoying to see my phone blinking all the time. I just hate having unread messages. It makes me feel stressful knowing that I still have pending 'work' to do. In the case of Twitter, the 'work' would be to read the damn tweet that I probably don't care about. I don't seem to be able to find a setting on the BlackBerry Twitter application to send notifications to the phone only on direct messages and mentions. This behavior is really getting on my nerves that I'm considering to remove Twitter from my phone.

Another thing that I find annoying is, the tweets that I have read on another desktop or web application would still appear as new tweets on my phone. Then I have to mark them as read. Otherwise, the phone will keep blinking and it'll be stressing me out. Maybe I should just remove the app from my phone and everything will be fine.

Edit:
About 6 hours after I've written the above, I found the settings screen that allows me to set notifications only for replies and direct messages. I'm such an idiot LOL

Twitter @Anywhere

2010-05-16T22:56:00.008+08:00

I've signed up for a twitter account just today and it took quite a while to configure the profile page because the internet is too slow. Managed to upload my photo though :) Still haven't gone around in exploring the data space.

Anyway, I found something interesting when I was Googling for twitter related info; the @Anywhere API. It provides a simple way for the blog/website readers to connect with other twitter users.

You can link people to their twitter accounts when you mention them in your blog, e.g. I follow @kyspeaks and @simonseow on twitter. When you point the mouse on the link, a small box will appear showing the person's twitter information.

You can also easily create a "Follow me on twitter" badge like this:

Twitter @Anywhere Follow Buttons are smart in that they reflect whether the current user already follows the member. If the user is already following the user for a given Follow Button, the button's label will be updated with the text "You're following @username".

Another feature is a customizable tweetbox like this:

The examples are taken from the API

Twitter has landed ...

2010-05-12T12:11:00.002+08:00

It has parked itself on my phone. I have no idea how it got there. I woke up one morning and saw the twitter icon next to the media icon. It messed up my icons arrangement. The applications icon is not where it used to be and I had to re-arrange them. Does the Blackberry knows how to update itself? I'm quite certain I didn't download it coz I still don't have a Twitter account.

So, now that I magically have Twitter on my phone, should I just sign up for an account? I'm not exactly interested in knowing what other people are doing in real time. But I guess it's useful for knowing the latest news around the world. It's also a huge conversation space and I'm sure I can find interesting conversations. I suppose it's kinda like the channel chat in IRC. Hmmm....I'm curious. Wonder if I will get instant tweets from the people who I follow. Can I choose not to receive instant tweets from certain people? How powerful are the settings? What are the privacy issues?

Perhaps I shall sign up and explore the Twitter world. Find new adventures. Hehehe.

Interesting Twitter apps: Twitoaster, Twitterfall

Not exactly sick

2010-05-05T16:53:00.001+08:00

Haven't been feeling well lately. Some minor body aches and sores, fatigue, feeling hot, feeling cold, feeling low, and the occasional headache. Not sick enough for the doctor to diagnose me with anything so I haven't been to see one. Can't remember the last time I was sick. It's definitely more than 4 years ago. I remember taking extra care of myself in 2008 so that I don't get sick and could finish my thesis in time. I also told myself that as long as I can finish my thesis, I don't care how sick I'd get. Just wait and let me finish my thesis first. Well, I've finished my thesis. I don't mind being sick now. I rather be bedridden for a couple of days than feel miserable for a week. Is this psychological rather than physical?

I hate this feeling.

Want someone to hold me.
Want someone to hug me.
Want someone to pamper me.

But you just couldn't be here.

10-minute pasta

2010-04-29T22:09:00.001+08:00

Spaghetti with green peas

It's really quite easy to whip up a delicious pasta in just 10 minutes. When I was in Italy, I learnt that green peas are one of the basic ingredients used in pasta. Instead of just plain tomato sauce, the addiiton of green peas gives a nice color contrast to the pasta.

OpenCourseWare

2010-04-26T17:07:00.002+08:00

One of the courses that I enjoyed most in college was Music 101. I've forgotten most of what I've learnt and am interested to take a similar course again. I found this music course from the Yale University. The course is taught by the prof who wrote the textbook which was used during my course. I've started lesson 1 and it looks like it's going to be a fun course.

One way to waste time productively. Haha. What an oxymoron! :p

Anyway, if you're interested in obtaining college level course materials, check out OpenCourseWare. I think the most famous site is from MIT. There are a wide range of courses available; Arts, Medicine, Engineering, Literature, etc. One can still follow classes without having to be enrolled in the university and also not be physically there at the university. Isn't that great! :D

Oh I forgot to mention that it's all free!

Alice for the iPad

2010-04-21T23:07:00.004+08:00

Throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts – they realistically bounce off her

Shake your iPad, the Mad Hatter gets even madder!

Play with the Rabbit's pocket watch.

Source: http://www.atomicantelope.com/alice/

This is the coolest book ever! And I want it.

Ooohh...I wished I've pre-ordered the iPad. Now I have to WAITTTT. :(

Carbon footprint

2010-04-15T22:18:00.000+08:00

Quiz taken at http://www.myfootprint.org/

As I have guessed, most of my carbon footprint is from transportation. I was hoping that my recycling and water and energy saving activities would be able to offset a substantial amount of it. Apparently not. Sigh!

I drive to work 5 days a week, doing about 25km per day. That will be about 3.75 kg of CO₂ a day, for a car with CO₂ emissions of 150g per km. (You can find your car emission rate here.) If I drive 10,000 km a year (a very modest figure), there'll be 1500kg of CO₂ a year! Besides driving, I also take flights when I go on vacation. Just one intercontinental flight would emit about the same amount of CO₂ as driving ten thousand kilometers in my car!

So, I started thinking if it would be better if I work from home instead of driving to work. I have to turn on the a/c for about 8 hours and that would be about 8kWh. With the cost of electricity at about 420g of CO₂ per kWh, that will be 3.36kg of CO₂ a day. (Source: Power sources & Carbon Emissions)

So, 3.75kg of CO₂ from driving and 3.36kg from a/c. The difference is less than half a kg. I guess working from home is not a very feasible option. Well, I'm already doing my best here. I don't want to be a vegetarian and live like a hermit.

100 days

2010-04-10T23:51:00.001+08:00

When I met up with friends whom I haven't seen for a long time, the usual questions I get from most one of them are:

Why did you come back and work here/Why don't you stay there?
Am I getting used to living in Malaysia?
Am I'm back for good?

And my short answers are; This is home, it's ok/not bad, and for now, yes. Even the long answers could be summarized as such. But I haven't considered how I feel. Am I happy? Excited? Disappointed? Frustrated?

It's been a hundred days since I started my "new" life. I'm back to being a responsible adult, going back into the workforce, and contribute to the country's economy. I also started to participate strongly in family matters. On the surface, everything seems like how it used to be. The going to work, going home, going out routine has made the transition easier, due to familiarity.

When I 'look' closely, I noticed all the little details that are different. I work for the same company, but about half of my colleagues are new to me, and I have different job responsibilities. Well, even the office is located at a different place now. I actually quite like this mix of something familiar with something new. I guess I'm pretty much exhausted from all the completely new experiences that I got in the past few years.

I'm also glad that I now play a larger role in my family. I feel less helpless now that I can physically be around for them. I spend a lot more time with them and there's more communication going on. So far so good but still a long way to become one of reasons for me to stay put.

I'm not exactly used to living back in Malaysia yet. I hate the hot weather but I can tolerate it better now. I have to consciously remember not to fill my cup with water from the tap. I feel displeased when I see people who carry lots of plastic bags and when I come across trash that's filled with recyclable stuff in it. Anyway, all these do not annoy me enough for me to consider moving away.

I'm currently open to the possibility that I would stay in Malaysia for the long term and I've finally discovered one thing that I would stick around for. However, I still have no idea whether I would be able to obtain it.

These first hundred days have mostly been about adapting to living with family, living in Malaysia, and holding down a job. I think I have fared pretty well so far. Next, it's time to think about what I want to do with my life.

SMS text from unknown number

2010-04-05T23:40:00.003+08:00

"Hello when u free? We meet up. R u Dating lately? :)"

When I received the message, my first thought was to reply and ask who sent it. Then a second later, I realized that the person could be a total stranger since I don't think I left out anyone's number on the contact list. Then I thought if it could be a new way of picking up girls. Just send a message to a random number and hope for a positive reply. I think it can get quite costly though.

Well, if the person really do know me, they'll contact me again so I didn't do anything about it. This was about a week ago and I have completely forgotten about it until tonight.

Tonight I know who the person is. She sent me another text stating her name first and that she ran out of credit on her phone. Hahahha.

Favorite dessert - "il gelato"

2010-04-01T21:15:00.004+08:00

I love gelato!!! When I was living in Italy, my place is about 15-20 minutes away from the center of town. And I would surely go and buy gelato almost every time I'm there, except when they're closed during the winter. I even developed a very nice routine. Every Tuesday and Thursday after my Italian classes in the evening, I would go and treat myself a scoop of gelato at the gelateria closest to the bus stop. This shop is in between two bus stops so I usually walk towards the next bus stop while eating gelato. At times, I managed to finish when the bus arrives and I got on the bus. Other times, I just continued to walk home.

When my Italian classes for the semester ended, I only eat it when I'm in town for a pizza or shopping. I also had a pizza-gelato routine. At first, I would get a drink together with my pizza. And when I walk past the gelateria, I'm already too full and feel sad that I couldn't have any of the nice-looking gelato. One day, I realized that I could just skip the drink and have a gelato after the pizza! Yay!!! So after pizza, I would head directly to a gelateria and ask for "una palina di [flavor]" (a scoop, although literally palina means ball. I have heard Italian friends saying "balls of ice-cream". Weird isn't it? Hahahhha).

There are so many flavors to choose from and they are usually in two categories: fruit-based and non-fruit based. I prefer the fruit-based ones. Some of the flavors that I like are stracciatella, pistachio, strawberry, mango, kiwi, almond, chocolate, honey, raspberry, and mixed berries. I don't usually like strawberry ice-cream because they taste more like cream with a hint of strawberries. However, the strawberry gelato is without cream! So it tastes like fresh strawberries in your mouth. The best one I've had is in Sorrento, a town near the Amalfi coast. Except for mango, kiwi and honey, I think the rest of the flavors can be found in every gelateria.

The mango gelato is similar to the Haagen Dazs's mango sorbet, which was a permanent resident of my freezer in Chicago. The honey gelato is very special. I've only seen it in a shop in Rome. It was just so good! My sister and I kept returning to the gelateria every day that we were in Rome. The kiwi gelato is my favorite of all. Very few shops sell it (could be seasonal too) and from my experience, the quality varies quite a bit so it's not easy to find good ones. The one in my town is just so-so. The best kiwi gelato I've had is at Malcesine, one of the small towns along Lake Garda.

There are other common flavors like yogurt, fior di latte, coffee, and melon. I've also tasted special ones like champagne and other alcoholic flavors, and weird ones like Zuppa Inglese (literally translated as English Soup). All the flavors I mentioned earlier are available in single scoops or mixed in multiple scoops. You usually buy them and eat standing outside the shop. If they do have seats, it's usually very limited. If you want to sit down and enjoy your gelato, you can either to go restaurants that serve gelato as dessert (limited choices) or a big gelateria. At the big gelateria, they have a colorful menu, its pages filled with a variety of different combination of gelati. These big "cups" with multiple scoops usually costs around, if not more than, the price of a pizza/pasta main course. I've tried one with amarena (dark cherry) and it came with pieces of cherries inside. I absolutely loved it! :D

I've seen a few places selling delicious looking gelato inside the shopping malls in KL. I shall try them when I'm ready. :P

Sleeping late

2010-03-28T23:23:00.000+08:00

I have been going to bed late almost every night, for the past two weeks. To me, after 1am is late, especially on weekdays. I ended up waking up late and feeling tired. I know I could have gone to bed earlier as I wasn't busy with work and I wasn't even out most of the time. Somehow, I just spent the time at home and by the time I looked at the clock, it was past midnight. Still had to take a shower before going to bed. Tonight, I shall break this routine and go to bed before midnight. I just hope I could fall asleep soon.

Bread making class

2010-03-22T23:06:00.003+08:00

Recently I have developed an interest in cooking and baking. I've thought of taking part-time classes but these classes are usually a few months long and cost a few thousand bucks. I'm not sure if it is something that I really like to do yet so I'm not comfortable with making such a big up front investment for it. Plus, I don't have much money at the moment. After much searching, I came across one day workshops which allows me to have hands-on experience along with the guidance of an expert.

Since I'm currently not interested in making cakes, I specifically chose a bread making class. I also think that making bread should be less complicated and easier to learn. So I finally went to a bread making workshop and I came home with lots of bread. It was my very first bread making experience and I totally enjoyed it. The instructor is awesome as she did not only taught us the practical skills but also gave a bit of the technical background involving math and science. I never knew you need math skills to do baking. Hahaha.

There were only 3 students including myself in the class and all three of us are noobs. Each of us got to operate the dough mixer and knead the breads. We made five types of bread: wholemeal, white loaf, walnut+raisin+chocolate chip, sweet bun, and french baguette. Not all of them turned out well because there was only one oven and it was a bit problematic. The wholemeal breads were pretty good as they were the first ones we baked. The french baguettes were alright too except that they were not as porous as they're supposed to be.

Wholemeal breads

The walnut-raisin-chocolatechip and sweet buns ended up browned on top because the oven was already hot and it didn't require as much time as we had anticipated. When we were baking the white loaf, something went wrong with the oven. The heat went off. We were not aware of that and kept waiting for the the breads to rise. We found out when we went to check and had to restart the oven. Even though we tried to continue baking them, it didn't work. Only the bottom part of one loaf is edible.

Baguettes in the oven, walnut-raisin bread waiting for its turn in the oven, and fellow student making the dough round

Softbuns (Hamburger & muffin shapes) and the Instructor cutting the white loaf

By the time the class ended, my feet were aching like mad. I had been standing and walking the entire day. Luckily I was wearing flats. I guess the class had also been a good exercise for me. After making several attempts at making the dough round and smooth, I even felt slight pain on my upper arm. Well, all the hard work was worth it for the breads that I got to eat. Hehehhe.

The workshop has been a very informative session and I did learn a lot. More importantly, I realized that I might enjoy baking afterall.

Depleted savings

2010-03-18T15:53:00.000+08:00

After three years of being away from work, my savings is gone. When I decided to go back to school, it never occurred to me that this could happen. I thought that since everything is paid for, I didn't need to use any money. Well, that held true when I was abroad. However, I forgot that I still had ongoing expenses in Malaysia. I've spent the bulk of my savings paying off my car loan, giving money to my parents and buying Europe-Malaysia round trip air tickets. Just the air tickets alone had cost me about 15k!

When I moved back to Malaysia, I was aware that I didn't have much money left. In spite of this knowledge, I still chose to start work in January instead of December. I thought it was enough to sustain me for another month but I forgot to take into account that I need to use money when I go to work (lunch money, toll and gas) and I'd only be paid at the end of the month. Lol, it's amazing how quickly I forgot about these things just after a few years of using almost free public transportation and cooking my own lunch. Anyway, I managed to survive the first month without incurring any debt and was overjoyed when I received my "first" paycheck! :D

Now, after two paychecks, I have a bit more savings and feel more secure. Also feel more comfortable going out and spending a bit more on food. For the past two months, I wasn't very keen on spending more than 10 bucks for lunch and I went home for dinner most of the time. I'm also not in a shopping mode and I think it's mostly because I'm still a bit averse to crowds. So instead of having much social life, I've finished reading 3-4 books and still catching up on quite a few episodes of some tv series that I was watching.

The plan is to stay debt-free, keep expenses low and grow savings as much as possible this year. Hopefully will be able to amass at least 50% of what I had.

Lint on black clothes

2010-03-12T15:30:00.003+08:00

My black clothes are covered with an unusual amount of lint. When I want to wear a black top or pants, I have to spend a few minutes getting rid of the lint. Under room lighting, they are not so obvious but under sunlight, they really stand out! Since there's no window in my room, I have to go to the next room and stand next to the window to do that. Even then, I only managed to get rid of some because my house don't get much sunlight in the morning. It'd the totally weird to stand outside the house to do this. Hahahha. Now, I keep a lint remover in my car and I do it in the car. The problem is, if I'm already wearing it, then I can't reach the back. Lol

Anyway, I don't remember having this problem before. I wonder if my place has more dust now and they start sticking on my clothes. They seemed alright after I washed them. I hang them to dry outside under the sun but I don't know if they are covered with lint after they dry coz I'm not the person who collected the clothes. Then,
they usually sit inside a basket for at least a week before I iron and hang them inside my closet. By the time I take them out for ironing, they are already covered with lint/dust. I have the impression that even if I remove them before/after ironing, they will have lint by the time I want to wear them. So now I just remove them when I want to wear them.

I'm going to find out the root cause of this problem and fix it so that I don't have to do lint removal every time I wear black.

Aging wireless router and other hardware

2010-03-10T22:40:00.002+08:00

My 7-year-old wireless router have started to show signs of aging. The connection dropped suddenly just now. I can still see it on the network list but could no longer connect. I tried with my phone and it also didn't work. So, I restarted the router a couple of times but the phone still wasn't able to connect. I thought that I needed to buy a new router and wondered if the new routers are backward compatible with wireless-B. I know that's ancient technology but I still have a very old Mac iBook running. Anyway, I got an idea to change the SSID and the router is working again! Hehehe. No need to buy new router for the time being.

Now that I think about it, lately, I had to restart the router as well as the modem about once a week on average when the internet connection dropped. The indicator lights on both the router and modem are blinking fine and no warning message in Windows. However, I just cannot load any website or connect to any IM. Am not too sure that it's the router and modem problem because I know my laptop has problems with wireless connections sometimes.

China Travel -The Language Challenge

2010-03-03T17:11:00.005+08:00

Having spent the last few years living in non English-speaking countries, I've pretty much got used to seeing words and hearing conversations that I don't understand. Although I don't understand the words, I still could read them because they consist of Roman alphabets. So when I was deciding whether to go to Shanghai, I was a little apprehensive because it's more challenging. More challenging in the sense that I can't read Chinese script, in addition to not speaking much Mandarin. Then I thought it shouldn't be that bad since it's Shanghai where lots of expats live so people there should understand some English.

Having convinced myself that I'll somehow survive, I decided to volunteer in Shanghai for a month at the end of last year. Overall, it was a rather unique experience and I shall expound on that in another post. Coming back to the language challenge, there is another element which I did not take into account. Because I look Chinese, people expects me to speak the language and it takes them a while to realize that I actually don't speak their language and they get confused and don't know where to place me. And this in turn makes me feel like I don't fit here nor there, and sometimes like an outcast. I could sense that they are uncomfortable talking to me but I don't blame them because it is out of their normal experiences.

I did manage to go about town on my own because the street signs and subway have English words that I can match with my map. However, the English words are not useful for asking the locals where a certain street or place is located because the words have no pinyin intonation. Chinese words can have totally different meaning in different tones and some streets have similar sounding names. So it's possible they point you to a different place! Furthermore, some of the name of the landmarks are in English and not a translation from Chinese, e.g. The Bund, People's Square, and Oriental Pearl Tower. It took me a while to know the respective Chinese names because when my co-workers asked me if I've visited any place, they said the name in Chinese and they don't know the English name. Eventually I managed to match the two together. Hahaha. Besides street signs, the ticket machines for the subway and train stations have English version. So if you can read a map well, you shouldn't have any problem getting around Shanghai.

Shanghai subway map (partial)

Besides fast-food and upscale restaurants, most of the restaurants and food stalls do not have English menu and the staff don't speak much English, if at all. As a result, I had limited choices when I'm on my own. There is a small restaurant around the corner from my aunt's apartment and we order food from there once in a while. I memorized the name of the few dishes I like from the menu so that I could order them when my aunt is not around. Otherwise, I could still cook instant noodles. Hahahaha.

After spending a month in China, I'm now more comfortable speaking Mandarin, not that my Mandarin improved much though.

Making a photobook

2010-02-25T23:41:00.001+08:00

I've accumulated a lot of photos during the years which i lived in europe.
Some are photos of social events but the bulk of them are vacation photos.
Some of these photos are my only souvenier of the places I visited.
I have to limit the amount of physical objects I have because it's a hassle to move from one country to another with too much stuff and it gets very expensive.

I wanted to show my family and friends my photo collection and I prefer showing the photos on paper instead of on the screen. I just feel that it's more intimate that way. However, I don't like the standard 4x3 prints because I cannot annotate them. Then i remembered about photobook printing services.

I really like Blurb's BookSmart but they're based in the UK. Their software is very intuitive and you can just drag and drop your photos onto the pages and move around to arrange them. I did a few pages during my last week in Europe but didn't have the time to finish it.

In Malaysia, I found Photobook and saw that they're offering 40% discount.
So, I decided to try their software. It pretty much does the things that BookSmart does, just the interface is not as smooth and sometimes it gets very slow.

I like the idea of the photobook as it allows me to have a combination of photos of different sizes and text on a page. I chose the large square book (11"x11") and managed to fit up to 16 photos in a page. I only have one page with that many photos though. I've managed put together a nice collection of photos into the 40 pages and have them printed into a hardcover book. I received my book in just a few days time. It was delivered via courier and bubble-wrapped in a box. Opening the box gave me the feeling of opening a Christmas present! Hehehe. Well, I was also afraid that I might have made some mistakes and was so happy to see that the book turned out beautifully :D

Weekend cooking

2010-02-22T22:21:00.003+08:00

I got the opportunity to have the whole house to myself this weekend when my family went out of town. After living back home for about 8 weeks, I'm starting to miss living on my own. So I actually stayed home during the weekend and managed to do the things that I enjoy; cooking, sleeping, watching videos. Hehehhe. I cooked chicken porridge for lunch using leftover chicken drumstick from CNY dinner and some mushrooms from the sea cucumber with oyster dish. For dinner, I finally get to eat a big slab of meat; Steak with baked potatoes and some cherry tomatoes and green peas on the side. The steak took a bit more time to cook than I thought but it's sooooo juicy! :D When I set the table, I found out that my house don't have steak knife so I had to use the smaller meat knife to cut the steak into strips first.

On Sunday, I made bacon and egg for brunch. Although the bacons are over 100g, about 50% of them are purely fat! I don't mind if the fat is between some meat but the ones I bought, 99% of the fat is on one side. Should've looked properly before buying. Anyway, I ended up discarding half of the fat away since I cannot stomach just the fat alone.

I'm on a meat eating mode lately. Lol. Gonna buy more meat.

Hot Chinese New Year

2010-02-16T18:21:00.000+08:00

Although I had not celebrated CNY at home for the past several years, I can remember the super hot weather and the amount of food that we eat. For those reasons, I don't look forward to CNY and avoided being home if I could.

Well, this year I am home and it has not been a very pleasant experience, mostly because it is extremely hot at home. When my uncle's family came to visit on Sunday, I had to play host since my mom went out. Otherwise, I would have hid inside an aircon room upstairs. I offered them food and drinks and sat in the living room to chat with them. Although I could feel the air blowing from both the ceiling fan and the stand fan, I was sweating. My butt and thigh were especially wet and sticky! Was lucky I didn't have to cook but I did help with the dishes after dinner.

My family don't go out visiting relatives so we've been staying home most of the time. Hence, it's also super boring. At first I tried not switching on the aircon, but I eventually gave in and switched it on. I've been watching tv, videos, and reading books in the room.

After several meals of the same CNY food (chicken, Chinese sausages, roast duck, steamed fish, prawns, mushrooms, abalone, sea cucumber, etc), my dad suggested we go for Subway yesterday. I was so relieved that we can take a break from eating all those food coz I don't really like them. Hehehe. The fridges are still full with all those meat and vegetables and I think it'll take us a week or two to finish everything. There is hope when my mom suggested we make Thai chicken salad last night; instead of just re-heating the plain old steam white chicken. :D As for tonight's dinner, I'll be making spaghetti ai gamberi (prawns). Mom was being super generous yesterday and we bought very expensive tomatoes at cold storage, over RM32 per kilo! For four medium sized ones, they cost about RM15. Those are the kind of tomatoes that I buy in Italy. Hehehe. Hopefully they'll be as good.

So, CNY is not so bad after all. As long as I get to stay inside aircon room and not have to eat the same kind of food every meal. And I get to cook what I like! :D

Postgraduate Researcher

2010-02-11T11:29:00.001+08:00

During the course of my thesis, I was quite sure that I would be moving back to Malaysia after I've completed my studies. Unlike many of my friends, I didn't look for jobs or Phd positions. Instead, an opportunity came knocking on my door. My thesis co-advisor asked me if I am interested in joining his research group. The work that I do could be counted for my PhD when I officially enroll.
Since I've never thought about pursuing a PhD before, this will give me the opportunity to see if it's something I would like to do. After giving it much thought, I decided to give it a try. And so I moved back to Trento in Jan 2009 to start my "PhD".

I worked together with a bunch of other students in an European project and during this time, I found the area that interest me most: Recommendations. Since I had zero knowledge in that area, I had read lots and lots of papers to get to the state-of-the-art. Because it's a multi-disciplinary field, there's so much that can be done. Most of the time, I enjoyed reading the interesting articles and everytime I found a good article I get excited, it's kinda like treasure hunt. Hahaha. I read so much that at one point I neglected writing my research proposal and my advisor told me that it's best I don't read too much so that my brain won't get polluted. It made me realize that I already had sufficient knowledge of what's out there and I should resume my attention in my work, that is recommendations of scientific publications.

This experience has given me an insight into the world of academia. After about 5 months, I knew what I wanted if I were to do a Phd (it's a possibility now) and I realized that the current group I'm with is just not a good fit for me. I know that if I wanted to, I'll manage to stick it out for 3 years to complete the Phd but I'll definately be miserable. After much discussion with friends and family, I decided to put it off for now and just get a job like an average joe. I wrapped up my work in Oct and moved back to Malaysia the following month.

I know I like the research but I also know that I don't have enough passion for it. I guess it's one of the things that can be parked under the "nice to have" category. Hehehe.

Wrapping up - Graduation

2010-02-08T20:02:00.008+08:00

It's been over a year since my last post. Occasionally, I did thought about updating the blog but had kept putting it off. Over the last couple of weeks, I get this feeling as though I have not wrap up the work that I have started. I mean, thesis submission is not the end yet!

I started writing this blog when I first moved to Europe for graduate studies. So I felt it should have a post about graduation; the end of graduate studies. Well, unless I didn't graduate. Hahahha.

The fact is, I did graduate. I received my diploma from Germany in February 2009 with pretty good grades (1.3 for thesis, woohoo!) and another diploma from Italy at the end of April. However, I did not attend the graduation ceremonies. I received my German diploma through the mail as I was living in Italy at the time. As for the Italian diploma, I picked it up from the secretary's office after I got back from my London trip. So yeah, I finally graduated in spring 2009 with two diplomas. :D

Update: The reason why I didn't make any effort to attend the graduation ceremonies is there's no elaborate setting and no graduation gown involved :p

Thesis submitted!

2008-12-17T19:01:00.000+08:00

For the first time in my life, I did not get much sleep for one consecutive week. My supervisor only managed to give me feedback on the first quarter of my paper a week before the submission deadline. Over the next few days, while I revised the introduction and background chapters, I also received the feedback on other parts of the paper. By the end of the week, I managed to make most of the major revisions. I wasn't sure how long it would take to make the printed copies so I tried to finish everything by Saturday morning. Then I went to the printers and it turned out that it would take 2-3 hours for the printed copies to be ready. So, I decided to print them the following Monday. I spent the weekend fixing small mistakes and grammatical errors. I'm very thankful for friends who helped me to proof read parts of my paper. Well, I'm glad I managed to finish everything in time but I'm not satisfied with the quality of the paper. It's really a pity that my supervisor didn't have the time to read my second draft earlier when it was ready more than a month ago. Anyway, I've learnt a lot from the experience of writing this thesis. I was so surprised to find out that my writing has become so sloppy.

And with the thesis submitted, I'm unofficially graduated from the master's programme. It's kinda strange that I didn't feel anything special. No joy, no relief, just as if another work has been completed. Perhaps I was already focused on the next task of moving out of my room. I initially planned to have one big box but it didn't work out. I needed two more medium boxes. At last, I packed everything and shipped the boxes to Trento and carried my luggages home to KL. So, goodbye Aachen!

Writing papers - 16 days to go

2008-12-01T01:10:00.005+08:00

According to my plan, I'm supposed to finalize my thesis today so that I could enjoy two weeks of freedom. However, I still have not received the feedback from my supervisor. Furthermore, I'm still stuck with writing the conference paper because the deadline has been extended till Thursday. I'm starting to get tired from all these writing in the past two months.
I finished a draft of the conference paper on Wednesday with minor changes on Thursday morning. When I met with my supervisor on Friday evening, he hasn't read the paper yet. 90 minutes later, he managed to go through half of the paper and we went through the other half together. So based on his comments, we worked separately over the weekend to complete the paper. This afternoon, he sent an email telling me that the deadline has been extended and we should continue to improve the paper in the next few days.
I hope that my supervisor will still have time to read my thesis and give me the feedback before the end of the week. I really would like to submit it by the end of next week so that I could at least enjoy the weekend.

Cooking teriyaki chicken

2008-11-24T06:10:00.000+08:00

This week, I have been eating food that can be cooked in a short time, like instant noodles and fried rice. I thought I would also be very busy this weekend writing the conference paper but since my supervisor is not exactly contributing to the paper and I don't know whether I'm headed in the right direction, I decided to take a break. I was also looking forward to the snowfall but there were barely visible. It started again this evening and now I see about 2 inches. I hope it continued over the night and I'll wake up to a nice white scenery :)
For me, a nice day always consists of a nice meal. Hehe. Since I had to finish the chicken I bought, I decided to try making teriyaki chicken. I didn't have the ready made sauce so I googled for the recipe. It's very easy if you have sake and mirin which I don't. So I made up my own version with chicken stock and honey. It's doesn't taste exactly like teriyaki but quite similar. Slighty sweet on top of the saltiness. :D

Post second draft - 23 days to go

2008-11-23T19:45:00.000+08:00

I finished my second draft a couple of days later than what I had scheduled. It was also partly due to the fact that my supervisor was so busy last week that he suggested we meet on Friday. So I took my own sweet time to complete it. I also continued work a bit on the conference paper by copying and pasting some of the materials from my thesis. Now I have a total of 5 pages without abstract, conclusion, and any figures. I figured it's a pretty good start.

When I met with my supervisor on Friday, there wasn't much of a discussion about the papers. Since he is still going to be very busy, he said he'll try to read my second draft as soon as possible. He also said that it's pretty unrealistic to write the conference paper now that we only have a week left. But since I have already started writing something, he'll try to support me. I tried to discuss about the content of the paper but my supervisor wanted to read what I had written first. I hope he managed to squeeze some time to do that and we can have a short discussion on Monday. Anyway, instead of writing the paper together, I'll be writing it myself and hopefully my supervisor have the time to review it the end of the week because it's due on the 30th.

Post first draft

2008-11-03T06:30:00.003+08:00

I was reading my old entries and I realised that I had pretty much stopped updating this blog since I started on my thesis. Anyway, my thesis has been progressing well. I just finished writing the first draft. 70+ pages! I've never written so much in my entire life :D I just hope that it's of the acceptable standard. I'll find out when I meet with my supervisor next week. Pretty much done with the development work. Just a bit of fix here and there when bugs are found. And I have a conference paper to write as well. I hope I could get started on that tomorrow.
This weekend has been rather nice in the sense that I didn't do any work. I just watched a couple of movies, coincidenly both have the word 'sunshine' in the title, and cooked myself some nice meals. It's a nice change considering that I had 2-3 meals of instant noodles in the past week. Plus, I have been staying put here for almost 2 months now and it's a record! Haha.. I did shop once in a while and ended up with quite a significant damage. I definately will have trouble moving all my stuff out when I leave. Aahh I shall worry about that later. Hehe

Scottish Experience

2008-08-14T23:39:00.005+08:00

Was told that the weather was at its best. A couple of days of pure sunshine followed by cloudy days with drizzle and then very wet rainy days. And the cycle continues. Pretty much managed to make the most of the few sunny days. :) In the cities, bagpipes are often heard and I was surprised that they play contemporary music as well! Last minute short trip to the highlands was a wonderful experience. We didn't do much hiking though. The view from above would be absolutely stunning. Hope to return to visit properly, at least a week or so. Oh it's gonna be expensive!

Cooking chicken with pepper and tomato

2008-07-05T03:28:00.005+08:00

It has been quite some time since I cooked chicken. I guess I ran out of ideas as I've been experimenting with various ways of cooking chicken. This is the first time I ended up with a recipe I really like. :) Or maybe it's just because it's a tomato based sauce. :p And I topped it over plain risotto. I was surprised that the rice still managed to absorb the sauce pretty well despite being cooked 30 minutes earlier and has gotten cold and a bit dry. Oh, I'm also glad that I still managed to cook the risotto just right! :D I haven't been making risotto from scratch during my one year in Italy. That's coz I found instant risotto packets. Hehe.

Happy July 4th!

Shopping damage: 235€!

2008-06-29T18:17:00.004+08:00

I didn't go anywhere this month because I have been quite hardworking. :P So I thought I could save some money for traveling in the future. But instead, I went shopping and ended up with a monetary damage comparable to taking a short trip. Well, shopping does feel very good indeed, especially when I managed to buy most of what I wanted. :D And it has been a couple of years since I spent so much on clothes and shoes. A little over one third of the amount was spent on shoes so I don't think it's that bad.
I have been looking for a nice pair of black leather kitten heel and I saw them in the store 2 months ago. I thought it was a bit pricey and since I didn't need it asap, I decided to continue looking. A week ago, I finally gave in to the SALE signs everywhere and stepped inside the stores. Then it occured to me to check if that store would have the shoes on sale. And lucky me, it's 30% off and one last pair of my size. :D
Similar thing happened to another pair of shoes that I bought. I like the design but only the beige color was available for my size. I prefer the dark brown color so I decided to look around for others. A week later, I went shopping in Cologne which has a lot more variety. Still, I couldn't find anything that I like more so I decided to go back to the store to see if that pair of shoes is still available. This time, I saw a pair with my size and the color I wanted. SooOOoo happy!

Cooking tamagoyaki

2008-06-21T03:08:00.006+08:00

I had 3 eggs which expires today so I somehow had to cook them all if I don't want to throw them away. So was I thinking what I could make and I remembered seeing my Japanese flatmate made the egg omelette in an interesting way. I googled for 'Japanese omelette' to check if that's what it was and I found recipes for it. Although it looks easy to make, I find it a bit challenging especially to evenly spread the egg in as thin a layer as possible. This can be eaten warm or at room temperature and should still be good the next day when stored properly. :D

Recipe taken from Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette

hiatus

2008-06-11T17:38:00.004+08:00

I haven't been posting lately simply because I didn't feel like writing. Well, I've also been busy but that's just an excuse. So in the past two months or so, I have traveled to Rome, Prague and Amsterdam at different times. Also made a long day trip to Koblenz that consists of a short hike, castle visit and boat ride. In between traveling, I worked on my thesis and about two weeks ago, I presented my work proposal. I'm currently starting to do the development work; learning .NET 3.x Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). After playing around with it for a while now, I have a better understanding of the major concepts. I'm starting to think of a GUI design that is most user friendly but what can be done is also limited to my newly acquired WPF knowledge. Anyway, I don't have travel plans for this month yet and I plan to get as much done as possible before I go away again. :D

Yael Naim - New Soul

Tuna pasta salad

2008-05-11T03:35:00.003+08:00

Today is the first time I made something new since I moved to Aachen. Well, I haven't been cooking much either. I'm trying to get used to the super small kitchen and very limited utencils that I have. I have also been traveling for a bit so it was difficult to keep fresh ingredients in the fridge. I managed to make this salad with penne, canned tuna and canned mix veg (carrot, corn and peas). I was surprised to find a tomato in my fridge so I made use of it. :D It's a nice cool salad for the rising temperatures. And I'm off to Amsterdam tomorrow!

Italian Allure

2008-04-08T02:41:00.004+08:00

After just a month in Germany and especially having had about 2 weeks of lunch at the school cafeteria, Italy feels like heaven. I went back for a workshop over the weekend and I truly enjoyed my stay. Spring has already arrived with warmer weather, blooming flowers and plenty of sunshine. The event was held in a building on the mountain side looking over the entire town. So the view is just excellent. I was lucky enough to get a room with the same view! The food and drink provided were delicious. I get to have cappucino for breakfast and machiato during coffee breaks. I miss machiato because it's not common outside Italy. I also craved for gelato and was about to go on a gelato eating spree. At first I bought 2 scoops and finished it while waiting for the rest to get theirs. Then we hung out in the piazza for a while and since no one had any idea where to go, I suggested to go to another gelateria. I went in to buy mango gelato and was surprised that most of the others also bought more gelato. When we were walking to another piazza passing a couple of gelaterias, I was tempted to buy more. However, I wanted to save some space for dinner and also didn't want to take the risk of getting sick since I was to be flying off the next day. Besides the weather, food, and beautiful scenery, I also experienced superb Italian hospitality. People are friendly with smiles on their faces and Italian guys can be really charming. With a combination of all these, one could easily fall in love!

View of Trento from the building

Having gelato

Trip to Maastricht

2008-04-01T03:53:00.006+08:00

Founded by the Romans, Maastricht is considered to be the oldest city in The Netherlands. It is home to many historial sights such as the Roman bridge, the city wall, churches and other buildings. It also has beautiful scenery; the Meuse river that runs through the city, the park along the city wall and vast grasslands. The city center is mostly a pedestrian only shopping area. For a small city, there are big multi-level department stores here. The city is charming with a nice blend of the old buildings and the new glass buildings. A 12th century church is even converted to a bookstore with cafe. It's amazing!

We also went to visit the pentagon shaped fortress and a small section of the caves with a total of more than 20,000 passages, which are the result of centuries of excavation of marlstone. Oh..the Coffeshop here is not a place to have coffee. Instead, it's a place where people can buy and smoke small doses of soft drugs. There isn't much free time to walk around because we took the guided tours by the tourist office. It was already 6pm by the time we finished. Surprisingly, all the shops are already closed. Even the waffle shop. :( Since it is only about an hour from Aachen, I hope to return to check out the stores and take more photos.

Along Meuse river

Park outside the city wall

Bookstore inside church. Photo by Roos Aldershoff.

Snowfall

2008-03-26T18:33:00.000+08:00

I just love the sight of snowfall. I can just keep staring out the window. It has been snowing every day for the past week. :D There weren't much accumulation though coz it didn't snow continuously. It's more like heavy snow for 20 minutes followed by light snow and then the sky cleared. After a while, it starts to snow again and then clear again. I think it's due to the strong wind we have here. Still, it's nice that I get to see beautiful snowfall everyday and it feels magical walking under it. This has been the best winter experience I had in Europe. There's no ugly side to this kind of snowfall as there are no dirty snow piled up by the street, no water puddles everywhere and no icy walkway.

Clean street.

At the entrace of my residence.

Developer documentation

2008-03-23T20:51:00.003+08:00

I've spent the past week reading some papers on related research projects and playing arond with the application while consulting the user guide. The user guide is the one that comes with the original installation of the app. It is not very useful because the app has been extended with some sort of project management functionality which I am supposed to work at. Although my advisor is patient enough to show me the features that were implemented, there isn't any documentation. So when I'm playing around with it, I have to figure out what is working and if not working, whether it is a bug or a feature that is not implemented. The development environment on this app is through a very bad UI which one can create objects and make references, etc. I don't really know how to do this yet since there isn't any manual for developer.

I know that non-existence of proper documentation is quite common. However, in order to develop something, I'm sure there would be a list of what is desired to be developed. And since this is a group work, I don't think people just keep everything in their heads. Oh, there is a wish list and a bug list but not the current list . Maybe I can try coming up with a current list by looking at those two lists. Hmm... not sure if these list are written in German though coz there are only limited project related papers and documentation written in English.

Being Malaysian

2008-03-19T05:50:00.002+08:00

"Where are you from?" I have been asked this question almost everytime when I meet new people in Europe. This almost never happened in the States. After they know where I'm from, they're usually interested to know more about the country and its people. And this is a problem for me. When they asked what language I speak at home, I said "English". Then they would want to know what is the national/official language and I said "Malay" and they assumed I also speak it. But due to my hesitation, they weren't so sure about it. Friends who have seen two non-Malay Malaysians in conversation were puzzled as to why it was carried out in English and not Malay. So they asked "When do you use Malay then?" In terms of entertainment, I know we have some local shows and music scenes but I can't name them because I only know the imported ones. And traditional dance? I don't remember! I did it in primary school and haven't seen one in ages. Oh it's funny when it comes to names. Why do I have an American/English name? What's a typical Malaysian name? I don't know how to answer. At least in terms of food, I've managed to give satisfactory description from the eating experience (very interesting) I gained while working in Malaysia for 3+ years. I thought I became more Malaysian but now I'm not so sure. Anyhow, at least not so American anymore.

This has been in the back of my head for a while. I wonder why when someone meet another person from his/her country, somehow they can get along. It's like they have something that binds them together. Same culture probably. However, I find that it's not as easy among Malaysians. Or maybe it's just me being not so Malaysian. Actually, how do you define being a Malaysian? Just by being a citizen or PR? What makes a Malaysian different from others?

Thesis on process management

2008-03-16T06:18:00.004+08:00

I met with my advisor yesterday to discuss about the thesis. He did most of the talking, explaining about the project and showing some of the applications. The focus of my thesis would be on process management. Since I already have some related experience, I could easily understand the big picture and the goals of the project. The difficult part is to understand how the existing systems work because part of my work is to port a research prototype to a production system. He printed a few papers for me to read and hopefully I'll get a better idea about the existing apps. I'll also be getting access to the lab's computers so I can play around with the apps. He told me that it'll take 2-3 months preparation work to come up with a specification for the project which I'll have to present to the professors and other group members. After that, the development work will probably take about 6 months and of course, I'll need to write the paper in the end. This will mean that I can finish by the end of the year if I don't take any vacations. Most unlikely since I already have some travel plans in mind. I guess I just need to work more when I'm not travelling.

Good shopping

2008-03-12T06:31:00.004+08:00

Just feels so nice to shop here. Groceries are a lot cheaper than Trento especially the fruits and vegetables. I finally managed to buy seedless grapes here and chinese pears! There are also a lot more variety of candies, chocolates, chips as well as drinks. In the few supermakets that I've been, I've only seen soft drinks sold in bottle form. I'm looking for them in can form so that I can limit the amount I drink. Surprisingly, pasta and pasta sauce is very limited. Even fewer variety than what I can get in KL. No wonder there are so many food joints selling pasta. People here don't cook them at home I guess. Retail stores here are a much bigger too and with more well known brands like Mango, Zara, H&M, etc. After being in Trento, I don't find that clothes here are that expensive anymore. There are plenty of home decor stores and a variety of dollar stores that I scoured for cheap kitchen utencils and stuff for the bathroom. I found quite a few handicraft stores too selling beads, ribbons, paper, etc. Kinda reminds me of the times I made presents for family and friends. Oh, I did manage to go to IKEA in Heerlen, Netherlands. It's an hour away by bus from town. I bought a few things including a reading lamp. Some of the stuff are really cheap and I shouldn't have bought the kitchen utensils earlier in the other shops in town. Oh well, now I know where to go for cheap stuff.

New room

2008-03-08T03:03:00.001+08:00

The student residence I live in is in the suburb of Haaren, 5km from Aachen town. It's the only place available with a single room with attached kicthen and bathroom. My room is quite spacious and the furniture seems new. It's on the second floor so not much of a view from the window. I expected a blanket and pillow to be provided like in Bonn or Trento but these aren't provided here. I'm so glad I found a really cheap blanket at the discount store around the corner. I had to use it for a night without cover since my shipped luggage only arrived the next day. When the house master told me that I'm getting a new bed since the previous bed was broken, I really thought it's going to be a new bed. However, it turned out to be just another bed taken from another room. The bed is too soft. I wonder if there's any way to make it harder. Add a mattress pad? The room is also dimly lit; not suitable for doing anything productive like reading or cooking. There are plenty of power points so I guess they are for additional lamps. Gonna find out how to get to IKEA to buy some lamps and other stuff. The small fridge does not have a freezer compartment like the one in Bonn so I won't be able to enjoy the convenience of frozen food.

Besides being far, it's also expensive. I was thinking of looking for something cheaper and closer to town but now I got quite comfortable with my room. Even though I have not unpack most of my stuff, I just don't feel like moving again. The main street is just around the corner so everything is near by; supermarket, pharmacy, bank, bakery, diners, and cafes. Just one bus stop away, about 5+ minutes walk, there are bigger supermarkets and a McD that opens 24 hours a day! Hehe. So, I quite like it here. Once the internet is activated in a week's time, I should be home often.

Weather change

2008-03-06T17:05:00.000+08:00

It was pretty warm in Trento when I boarded the train. Spring seemed to have been skipped and staright to summer. When I sleep, at first I didn't need to use the blanket provided. As the train was going through Switzerland, I could feel the temperature was dropping. After the train passed the German border for a while, I started to feel cold and got up to cover myself with the blanket. When I woke up in the morning and head outside my compartment, I was greeted with a white scene. Snow everywhere! And it was still snowing heavily. It only lasted for a short while towns had lesser and lesser snow as the train head towards Cologne. I saw Bonn also had some snow and it was already melting. When I switched train to Aachen, I was looking forward to see some snow and I was glad that there were still snow when I arrived. :D I like the sunny and cold weather here although the wind makes it a lot colder and it's quite breezy here.

Turin - Chocolate Festival

2008-03-02T22:20:00.005+08:00

Spent my last weekend in Italy in Turin, host of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The current attraction is the Chocolate Festival that is held every year. When someone mention chocolates, I would think of Swiss or Belgian so I was surprised to find out that chocolate candy was invented in Turin and the Swiss came to Turin to learn the trade. The most famous chocolate sweet is called "gianduiotto", made of a coca-hazelnut paste and dates back to the 19th century. It taste like Nutella and of course, Nutella is also from a nearby town. The festival is held in one of tbe many big squares. Local retailers set up booths selling a variety of chocolates, cakes and drinks. Most of the retailers are just selling the normal forms of chocolates while I was expecting to see some special stuff. Anyway, besides the festival, Turin is pleasant town with wide streets, big piazzas, and great food. Try the calzone and pizza. It also seems like the cafe culture is popular here too. The Egyptian museum here is home to what is regarded as one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities outside of Egypt. It is really worth to visit especially when you don't know when you can go to Cairo. Hehe.

A year in Italy

2008-02-28T02:27:00.004+08:00

Living in Italy has been a truly remarkable experience; the culture, the people, and the lansdcape. Italians are very close to their family. Out of town students go home almost every weekend even when they have to take 3+ hours train ride. During the week, they would also call home almost every day. There also aren't many big stores like hypermarkets and department stores here because Italians encourage entrepreneurship. So there are lots of little stores everywhere. A lot of buildings in the town area consists of shops on the ground floor and apartments above. In Naples, I've seen shops selling fresh fish on the ground floor and there are people living above! I wonder how the residents can stand the stench. The banks are also different here. One cannot just walk into a bank. At the door entrance, an employee will have to buzz the bullet proof glass door open for you to walk in. Some banks even have double doors where once you entered the first door and it is closed, then you can press the bell to get the second door opened. The type of transactions the bank perform is quite surprising too. My friend actually bought his ticket for a football match from the bank. I'm glad I managed to travel around a bit here and see the country. Each region is quite distinct from another. When I move to Germany next week, I'm really going to miss the gelato, the pizza, and the mountain view.

Cooking tortellini

2008-02-23T02:28:00.002+08:00

Sometimes people add extra ingredients to instant noodles make it more like a proper meal. An egg, a few strips of vegetables, some meat, etc. Well, the same can be done with the ready made stuffed pastas that I mentioned earlier. I've added broccoli and strips of fried spam to the mushroom stuffed pasta. I'm just using what I have in my kitchen at the time. If it were to be a true Italian pasta, then sweet peas and speck would be used instead. I'm sure the Italians will scorn at me for using such ingredients. Maybe that's one of the reason how fusion food comes about; lack of ingredients. Haha.

Italian instant noodle

2008-02-19T01:56:00.003+08:00

Stuffed pasta: Tortellini and Ravioli. These ready-made stuffed pastas available from the yogurt, cheese, etc section in the supermarket is the closest counterpart to asian instant noodles. In a way, they are quite similar to dumplings or wantons. The stuffing include mushroom, spinach, cheese and prosciutto (uncooked dried cured ham). They take about 2-3 minutes to cook in boiling salted water. After the pasta is cook, drain the water and just coat well with olive oil and top with grated cheese. It taste a lot better when coated with the mixture of melted butter, olive oil and cheese but that means having an extra pan to wash. Hehe. Buon Appetito!

Blank mind

2008-02-15T01:49:00.004+08:00

I've finally finished my project for the last exam. When I showed my work to the prof, he was satisfied with it and said that's all. I'm going to get my grade for it tomorrow morning. So, all that's left now is my thesis. This is the toughest part. I don't know what I want to do. I realised that I have lost interest in this field. I'm no longer curious about how things work, how things can be made better, or what is missing. I don't even have motivation unless wanting to graduate soon is counted as one. Since it's pretty much impossible for me to propose anything, I'm just looking for something easy, interesting and can be finished by the end of the year. I hope I'll find one soon after I start putting some effort to look for it.

Skiing in the Dolomites

2008-02-10T23:40:00.000+08:00

I've only skied 1-2 times before and after I got home from skiing last night, I realised that the last time I went skiing was in the winter of 99/00. And it's 2008 now! How did time go by so quickly? Anyway, the view up there is just magnificent. We took a cable car up to the 'base' where there are restaurant, playground, a small slope for true beginners, plenty of space for sunbathing (bring your own chair) and ski lifts to the ski tracks. I started with the small slope and I felt that I was going very fast and ended up quite far away from the automatic ramp and takes people back up the slope. Then it was a challenge for me to ski/trudge back there since the ground is pretty much flat.

When I finally got back up the slope, I met my friend who somehow managed to convince me to try the blue track (beginner). At first it seems doable and I was fine. As I was skiing down and at one point, a section of the path was not visible because the slope is steep. I got scared and fell. Took some time to get up and continue skiing down as there is no other option. This time, I felt that I was going too fast and wouldn't be able to stop and then hit the trees at the end. I got scared and fell again and slided the rest of the way down. Hahaha! Took the chair lift back up and I just stuck to skiing in the little baby slope, learning how to turn.

By the end of the day, I got better at moving in flat surfaces and uphill. I got a gist of turning but still wasn't able to do consecutive turning. AlsoI think got better at controlling my speed when skiing down. We had a great time and hopefully I get to go back again before I move to Germany. Both my upper arms are so sore this morning!

From Skiing in the Dolomites

Recently

2008-02-07T01:30:00.000+08:00

Haven't been feeling too well lately. Although I can still go about with my daily life, I feel like I needed more energy to perform them. I think I'm going to fall sick soon since it's been almost a year since I was ill. Feeling half sick is worse than being sick itself coz I can't take medication or sleep for long. Not having internet at home also means that I have to come to school to check my emails and get my dose of entertainment. I tried to download some videos to watch at home but wasn't able to because someone else had already downloaded a huge file from those megaupload, rapidshare, etc sites. (same IP since everyone have to use proxy). Sigh! I finally went to the library to borrow a book to read instead. Anyway, I showed my project to the professor and he suggested a few enchancements which are quite simple to implement. I should be able to finish them tonight and showed it to him again tomorrow. Next, I have to start planning how to move back to Germany end of the month.

Venice Carnivale

2008-02-07T01:19:00.001+08:00

Naples & Pompeii

2008-02-03T19:18:00.000+08:00

I quite enjoyed this vacation even though it's a little tiring. The best part is the view of the ocean. Been about 5 months since I last laid eyes on a sea and I really miss sitting by the sea. The weather was also excellent being in the 60s and super sunny. I've been told that the southern part of Italy is very different but I never expected it to be such a huge difference. Naples is a big and very densely populated city. The city streets are dirty, with litter everywhere and plenty of dog shit on the sidewalk. It's also the first time I've seen stray dogs and cats on the streets. Above the streets, laundry are hung out from many windows and balconies. Pretty much every inch of the walls are filled with graffiti, even on the ground! People cross the streets whenever they want and young adults zip through the tiny streets in their vespa scooters without wearing helmet. Cars are double/triple parked on the the side, even at bus stops. While we were there, we were told that they found an old WWII bomb while digging for the subway line and everyone in the area had to be evacuated. We spent the day wandering around other parts of the city and since it was a Sunday, almost everything is closed including pizzerias.

Naples along the coast

The Pompei exavation site is very interesting. I had expected to see just bits of ruins here and there but surprisingly, the entire layout of the city is intact. We spent about 3 hours covering three quarters of the city. The audio guide we rented gave very good commentaries on the buildings. Most of the time, blocks of walls (numbered) lined the streets. These are usually shops or houses. One of the most facinating spot is the brothel. The drawings of various sexual positions are still visible on the walls and some graffiti can be seen in the walls of the rooms.

Street of Pompeii

Relief

2008-01-26T06:44:00.000+08:00

I've finally finished all the exams that required studying of the course materials. :D Only one exam left and I just need to complete the project for it. Somehow halfway though this semester I have lost the motivation to do well in exams. I guess I went back to working mode where I just need to know enough to understand the topic and where to find the details when I need to use it. But in order to well in exams, one need to know the stuff really well. I don't quite like the grades that I'm getting but I know I deserve them coz I didn't take the exams seriously. Ah well..it's over and I'm so glad I don't have to take anymore classes and exams. After I complete this project, it's just gonna be the thesis left. I can't wait to finish grad school. It starts to feel like it's taking too long. Anyway, I'm off to Naples!

Lunch+Dinner at 4

2008-01-22T06:05:00.000+08:00

I've been having trouble sleeping early since the beginning of this year. I could only fall asleep past 3am. Even on the days which I had to wake up super early, I still wasn't able to sleep early at night. Maybe it's because I took 1-2 hours nap in between. Anyway, waking up at around 11 would normally mean skipping breakfast and just have lunch at noon. Yesterday, I had a light breakfast and wasn't hungry until almost 4pm. So I decided to make one meal, slightly bigger portion, for both lunch and dinner. I did the same today and it works out pretty well since I snack when I study for exams. Having to cook twice a day, I'm running out of ideas of what to cook anymore. Also, I didn't want to stock up food since I'll be going on vacation this weekend for 5 days. Still, I'd like to return to my normal bedtime.

Projects & Exams

2008-01-18T04:24:00.000+08:00

I've finally submitted my project for the exam next week. I know I could have done a better job if I'd started working on it earlier. I didn't really have other stuff to work on since Christmas but yet I didn't start on this project. For at least two weeks, from Christmas till after New Years, I have been watching a lot of asian dramas; maybe close to 10 shows and each with episodes ranging from 10-20. I thought I had time because I was only planning to do a simple project. But didn't expect that it was difficult to fit so much information into limited number of pages and also spent a lot of time trying to type formulas with weird characters.

Towards the end of this semester, I just don't feel like studying anymore. I couldn't really be bothered and just managed to make myself do the minimum to pass the exams. While I got pretty good grades at the beginning of the semester, I barely passed the last exam. It's not so bad for the classes that takes the average of the exams. For the next few exams, I'm just hoping to pass them. Eventhough I'd like to get higher marks, I just couldn't make myself to take them more seriously. I'd rather watch more dramas, go out, travel, and sleep.

Ingrid Michaelson - The way I am

2008-01-16T06:49:00.000+08:00

Stumbled upon this song and quite like the tune.

Cooking beef sukiyaki

2008-01-12T21:29:00.000+08:00

When I went groceries shopping a few days ago, I came across thin sliced beef. I don’t remember seeing them before in any of the supermarkets in Trento. I could probably get it by asking the butcher but I don’t what it’s called in Italian. Anyway, I was immediately reminded of Kobe beef and how much I miss Japanese food. So, I bought the beef and that night, I was excited thinking what I should do with it and decided on sukiyaki. Haven't been cooking anything nice this week and am finally in the mood to make this for lunch today. So glad it turned out well especially the sauce, although the beef is not so nice. (maybe I'm expecting too much, it ain't no Kobe beef to start with)

Sukiyaki sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
1 1/2 tbs chicken stock (to replace sake)
3 ts sugar
2 tbs water (according to taste)

Beef sukiyaki with chinese cabbage, mushrooms and egg

Cooking mushroom and spam bucatini

2008-01-09T06:36:00.000+08:00

Was trying to make a creamy sauce with this but I ended up using too little cream because I was afraid of the result having a strong cream taste. I guess people would normally use bacon instead of spam but I only had spam at the time so I made thin strips and fried it till crispy. Later, I found this combination on a restaurant's menu in google. Bucatini pasta with mushrooms, bacon, prosciutto, peas and tossed in olive oil, butter and garlic. Sounds delicious. I think I'll give it a try next time.

It snows!

2008-01-06T06:51:00.000+08:00

The next day after coming home from Munich, I woke up and saw snow everywhere. It's such a pleasant surprise to start the new year off. It snowed a bit in Munich and on the train ride home, the winter scenary was very beautiful. Mountains and plains all covered in snow. But as the train head closer to Italy, the snow got lesser and eventually no snow in Trento. So I didn't expect it to snow here yet. But it did snow for the past 3 days and we've got 3-4 inches. Went out to have some fun in the park. Although the snow is kinda hard, like a mix between snow and ice, we managed to make snow angels and build a weird looking snowman. Snowballs could be made very easily but it's as hard as ice so we couldn't have snowball fights. Hopefully the next snow would be better.

Snowman with a funky hairdo!

New Year's eve fireworks in Munich

2008-01-03T06:41:00.000+08:00

The celebration there is very different from what I have experienced. As we walked along the shopping street heading towards the square at 11pm, there were already tons of people on the street loaded with all sorts of fireworks. Some shot up high the sky, some are on the ground and some are body level. It kinda remains me of CNY. We had to look out for the fireworks because sometimes people throw them at you or kicked it to you or it was misfired. It became more intense as we reached the square. The square was surrounded by people and people in the frontline were the ones who usually lit the fireworks. Standing in between the crowd was not safe either. Sometimes there were small fireworks who explode on the ground. So when we felt something hit our leg, we quickly kicked it away. There were also fireworks that backfired. One firework actually shot past my ear! It was a little painful but luckily my hair did not caught fire.

We were surrounded by fireworks everywhere. When I looked up, I can see all sorts of fireworks all around me. I'd never been so close to a firework display before. Although they were totally random, somehow they seem to blend well together. At first I thought the fireworks were the small simple ones but some of the ones I saw were actually similar to the ones in major fireworks display. When midnight arrived, there was no countdown; just plenty of fireworks being shot up in the sky and people wishing Happy New Year or Buon Anno or Gutes Neues Jahr! The fireworks only toned down after 2am.

As the crowed slowly dispersed, I saw tons of broken glasses, bottles and used fireworks on the ground. Although quite a number of the crowd had alcohol in their hands, there were no fights or arguments. I was surprised I didn't see any police or ambulance on standby either. This is one of the best New Year's celebration I've had. :D

Procrastination

2007-12-27T04:08:00.000+08:00

I haven't look at any course projects related materials since I finished Math Logic exam last Friday evening. Been telling myself that it's Christmas and I should take a break and enjoy. I spent most of the time watching the taiwanese drama series. I've finally caught up to the latest episode today so will have to wait another week for the next episode. I think my mandarin listening skills have improved a little. Hehe. I've also got Prison Break season 1 and 2 on my external hdd and hopefully I'll be able to hold off watching them at least until after new years since I'd really like to get some work done before then.

Walked around the neighborhood yesterday to see the 'presipi' (Nativity Scene). It's usually a setting with mountains that has a path leading to the stable. The stable has Jesus, Joseph, Mary, the ox, donkey , shepherds and sheeps. Some of these displays are placed indoor visible through the window and some are placed outdoor sometimes behind the fence. These display are made out of various materials like wood, paper, yarn, playdoh, computer parts, etc.

For dinner, was invited to a small Turkish party. Was introduced to sujuk which is similar to spam except that it's halal and also spiced. And of course, the turkish tea boiled from the traditional pot is just delicious. :) Makes me feel like visiting Turkey again.

Christmas break

2007-12-24T22:48:00.000+08:00

Even though it's Christmas tomorrow, it doesn't really feel like it. I guess having exams the week before Christmas most probably spoilt the mood. Also, didn't do any Christmas shopping this year. The shops here carry very limited range selling mostly winter sweaters and jackets which I already have enough. The home decor stuffs are very nice but I can't buy them since I have limited luggage space. There is a small Christmas market in Trento but the ones in Germany are tons better especially for the variety of food that you can get. Not much plans for the holidays this year since final exams starts in January. So, gotta start working on the projects soon. Anyway, wishing everyone a blessed Christmas and a marvellous New Year!

Backgound by dimant

Gummy bear dance

2007-12-20T03:48:00.000+08:00

oh i am a gummy bear
yes i am a gummy bear
oh i am a yummy tummy funny lucky gummy bear
i am a jelly bear
cause i am a gummy bear
oh i am a moving groving jelly singing gummy bear
oh yeah
ba budu bubu yum yum
ba badu badu yum yum
ba badu budu yum yum
three times you can bite me
gummy gummy gummy gummy gummy bear

Cooking creamy tuna pasta II

2007-12-17T02:52:00.000+08:00

After using the cream previously for the first time, I checked the ingredients on the box and found out that it’s just plain cream. I thought it was already seasoned with herbs coz the label says ready to serve. So this time, I took a different approach. Tthe cream taste is masked pretty well by the other ingredients while I can still taste the zesty peppery taste of the tuna. :)

Ingredients for sauce (a slight variation from alfredo sauce)
25 ml cream (about 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 ts ground black pepper
water if needed

1. Put penne rigate to boil.
2. Heat half can of tuna in a pan with just a little oil from the can. The tuna I used is already soaked in olive oil, garlic, basil and chili peppers.
3. When the tuna is hot, take them out, leaving the oil behind and set aside in a plate.
4. About 3 minutes before the pasta is due to be ready, pour the cream into the same pan with remaining oil and stir.
5. Add grated parmesan cheese and ground black pepper. Mix them well.
6. When the pasta is ready, drain and pour into the pan and mix with the sauce.
7. Add in the tuna and mix again. (I do this last coz I prefer tuna in chunks)
8. Scoop into plate and serve.

美味关系 - Sweet Relationship

2007-12-15T06:33:00.000+08:00

Stumbled upon this taiwanese drama while searching for something to watch since all the english series are on a break. Started watching a few episodes with english subs and then found out that the english subs are not available yet for the rest of the episodes. Decided to try watching an episode without subs and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I could follow the story pretty well. But when they started describing the food and other things in detail, I could only get a gist of it. And sometimes when they say some short expression, I can only guess from the body language. Perhaps I could improve my mandarin by watching more drama. Haha!

Cooking creamy tuna pasta

2007-12-11T20:55:00.002+08:00

Wasn't sure which pasta goes better with the cream so I took a shot at using small penne. The amount of cream it carried was ok except that the taste of the cream overpowered the taste of the slightly spicy tuna. I guess I shouldn't have used the cream by itself. Gotta mix it with something that will blend with the tuna. Hmm..gonna google for some inspiraton. Maybe something like the dressing for tuna salad.

Italian Christmas

2007-12-09T18:39:00.000+08:00

The Christmas scene here is very different from I what used to see. The decorations are a lot simpler. Just some decorative lights on the street and on the christmas trees. Nothing fancy. As Christmas is considered a religous celebration, it is usually not associated with presents. Santa Claus is not that famous here either. The more famous character is called La Befana. La Befana is an old crone who on the eve of Jan 6th, fills the socks of children in Italy with candy if they are good or a lump of coal if they are bad. She is usually portrayed as an old lady riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl and is covered in soot because she enters the children's houses through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper filled with candy, gifts, or both.

Cooking French-style fried rice

2007-12-07T05:25:00.000+08:00

When I was working in KL, this is one of the dish that I usually order when I dine at Wong Kok Char Chan Teng. I have no idea why it is called French-style though. They use ketchup instead of black sauce. I made my own version without onions and it's pretty good for 1st attempt. Now I just need to remember the portion of light soy sauce to ketchup that I used.

Not sleeping well

2007-12-05T02:23:00.000+08:00

Haven't been sleeping well for almost a week now. Difficult to fall asleep at night even when it's already past midnight. And woke up before 7 the next morning. When I woke up, I knew I was dreaming of something weird. A good night's sleep for me is when I don't remember anything during my sleep. I did try to sleep longer during the weekend but I didn't get extra sleep, just ended up being lazy in bed.

I normally would have difficulties getting out of bed on Monday mornings but this Monday, I got up before my alarm rang and I went to school. When I opened the door to the lecture room, I saw another lecture was going on and I remembered that my class is after this one. Only then I realised that my lecture starts at 10:30 not 9! This afternoon, my friend was asking me if I'll be attending the lecture in the evening. I said yes and when I checked the time, I thought I was already late for that lecture since I need some time to get to school from home. Then I thought, I normally have some time after lunch before that lecture. So I confirmed with my friend and it turned out that the lecture is an hour later. Phew!

Hopefully I can get some good sleep tonight.

Jay Chou - 彩虹 (Rainbow)

2007-12-02T21:47:00.000+08:00

Checking out Jay's latest album, On the Run. I quite like it. Started to listen to his older songs again too. :) Found this site with neat pinyin lyrics. Hehe.

哪里有彩虹告诉我　
Tell me where there are rainbows
能不能把我的愿望还给我
Can you give me back my wish?
为什么天这么安静
Why is the sky so tranquil?
所有的云都跑到我这里
All the clouds have come to where I am

有没有口罩一个给我
Have you got a mouth mask you can give me?
释怀说了太多就成真不了
I let go and said too much, then those things can’t be realized
也许时间是一种解药
Perhaps time is a kind of cure
也是我现在正服下的毒药
It is also the poison I am taking right now

看不见你的笑我怎么睡得着
If I can’t see your smile, how can I get to sleep
你的声音这么近我却抱不到
Your voice is so near yet I can’t hold you
没有地球　太阳还是会绕
The sun will still spin without the earth
没有理由　我也能自己走
I can still walk by myself without a reason

你要离开　我知道很简单
You need to leave I know it’s very simple
你说依赖　是我们的阻碍
You said that reliance was our obstacle
就算放开　但能不能别没收我的爱
Even if you let go, but can you not confiscate my love?
当作我最后才明白
Just pretend that I only understood at the end

(Rap)
看不见你的笑　要我怎么睡的着
If I can’t see your smile How can I get to sleep
你的声音这么近我却抱不到
Your voice is so near yet I can’t hold you
没有地球太阳还是会绕会绕
The sun will still spin without the earth
没有理由我也能自己走掉
I can still walk by myself without a reason
释怀说了太多就成真不了
I let go and say too much, then those things can’t be realized
也许时间是一种解药解药　也是我现在正服下的毒药
Perhaps time is a kind of cure it is also the poison I am taking right now

Cooking porridge

2007-12-02T21:01:00.000+08:00

Made porridge with Surimi (crab sticks) and carrot bits today. I usually cook porridge when I have chicken bones. Been cooking a few variety of porridge and running out of ideas. Oh I miss porridge with century egg!

frutti.gummi

2007-11-30T17:39:00.000+08:00

During a conversation, I said "My blog is at fruttigummi.blogspot.com". Later when my friend went online to look at my blog, he found other blogs with similar names. He typed fruitygummy.blogspot.com which I supposed is the proper English spelling. He told me he found another blog. So I checked it out and it seems to me that the blogger could be a Malaysian teenage girl. What do you think?

I've always thought gummi bear is spelt with an 'i' and not 'y'. I just found out that gummi is german spelling. Hehe. I did not purposely make up the different spelling. I just changed fruity to frutti to match gummi.

The inspiration for the name is from gummi bears. I like to eat them a lot and I found out that they were invented in Bonn, Germany, where I started this journey. Also, when I was leaving Malaysia, my colleague gave me a packet of gummi bears to munch on the flight. And when I arrived in Germany, I received a few packets of gummi Ampelmännchen as a welcome gift from my German friend. They both don't even know I'm a big fan of gummi bears. What a coincidence eh!

Wedding season

2007-11-25T20:15:00.000+08:00

When I received yet another wedding invitation yesterday, it struck me that the wedding season has begun. This time, it'll probably last through the next year since 2008 is supposedly a good year for marriage. Since I'm away from home, I could only send well wishes to the couples. There are some friends who I have not seen for many years and it would be really nice to be able to meet them again. Hopefully not all of them will get married in the next year or so. Then, I'll be able to attend their wedding. Hehehe. As for myself, I think made some progress in answering the question of "When are you getting married?" I have unconsciously changed my answer from "I don't know" to "Not anytime soon". I was rather surprised myself when I heard what I said. I guess that's quite a big step for me.

Futurama movie is here!

2007-11-22T03:40:00.000+08:00

Even though I have written about it some time back, I have totally forgotten about it. Was browing some movie sites and found out that the movie is out! I'm so exicted. I found this link to the movie online but my internet connection tonight is too slow for streaming video. :( Hopefully the link will still be up tomorrow.

Cold apartment

2007-11-21T04:21:00.000+08:00

How cold is 17C? At first, it doesn't seem very cold since that's the temperature I set to my AC in Malaysia. I guess in Malaysia, it doesn't feel as cold since it's warm outside. But having cold weather outside and 17C inside, it feels cold after a while. I think the temperature in my apartment has been hovering around 17C for about a week now. Everyone I know in the building has been complaining about the cold. The heater doesn't work well. There's a notice indicating the hours that the heat will come on but the heat doesn't come on according to the hours. Sometimes, the heat that comes out is so mild that you can't even warm your hands. It's really uncomfortable to study when the desk and chair is cold. Or even to read in bed. The hands will feel cold after a while. The worst time is in the morning when I have to get out of my warm bed.

Ice skating & hot chocolate

2007-11-18T18:05:00.000+08:00

The ice stadium is almost an hour away from Trento by bus. It's located up in the mountains and we get beautiful view of the area from the bus. The stadium has 2 rinks. One indoor and another outdoor. The outdoor rink has the same design as a track and field with track being the ice instead of ground. It's used for speed skating. First time I've seen such a rink. It costs 4€ for admission and another 2.50€ for skate rental. The place is only open from 14:00 to 16:30 so I think it's rather pricey. The temperature was sunny around 0 degrees so it was nice for outdoor skating. We tried the outdoor rink for an hour before going inside. At first, I could only move very very slowly. Luckily I can still balance on the ice and can move a little. There is only one other guy who can skate in our group. As usual, all the girls who cant skate were holding on to the barriers while the guys were moving and falling all over. Hehe. After a few rounds, I got the feel of movement back and I could move more easily.

The best feeling was when we stepped into the indoor rink. The ice was so good! Somehow, I started being able to move freely, naturally. About 30 minutes later, I could go backwards. Although I could only do about 70% of what I could do before, it felt really good to be able to skate again after such a long time. There weren't much people in the rink so we could do whatever we want. We skated until the guy comes out with the zamboni. There was no announcement or anthing. People just move out of the rink when they saw the zamboni coming out. Well, it was a much enjoyable day.

On the way home, the bus took another route back to town and we saw another indoor ice rink and it was still open. Gonna find out if there's public transport to this rink. Hehe. When we got back to town, a few of us went to a cafe to grab something warm to drink. I ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and it wasn't exactly a drink. The hot chocolate is jello-like and very chocolaty. Have to eat it with spoon. It does taste nice when mixed with the cream and small biscuit like those on ice cream. First time I had hot chocolate in a cafe in Italy so wasn't sure if this is the standard way of making it. The ones from vending machines are drinkable though

I'm bored

2007-11-14T03:29:00.000+08:00

Now that the exam is over, I don't feel like studying or working on projects. So, what do I do? Since I've been watching lots of movies online, now there's not much to choose from. I also go around petting people's fluff friends on facebook. I don't feel like starting to read a book since I won't be able to finish it by the next week when the next exam comes. Still, it's too early to be studying for that exam now. I still daydream a lot but I just realised that I rarely do it at night. Is that why it's called daydream? We're getting a lot lesser daylight now. It's already dark at 5pm.

Unhealthy diet

2007-11-11T03:33:00.000+08:00

Haven't been cooking much lately since I have another exam next week. I need to munch on something while studying or I'll fall asleep. Since I eat while I study, I've decided to replace dinner with the stuff that I munch during the night. Getting energy source from lots of fat and sugar. I guess I'm also thinking that it's not so bad since I already have one proper meal in mensa during lunch. Plus, a full meal from mensa is very filling so having fruits or yogurt is usually enough for dinner.

(Un)Healthy food ranking from good to worse?
Roasted nuts (overdose = too much fat or issit carbs?)
Raisins (overdose = too much sugar?)
Gummi bears
Potato chips

Florence-Pisa

2007-11-07T03:56:00.000+08:00

Took a short vacation to Tuscany during the long weekend. Had a great time visiting the sights and enjoying the food especially gelato. The gelato was invented in Florence and we had gelato from one of the best gelateria in Italy. It was soOOOoo heavenly. After having the best gelato in our lives, we accidently found the best pizza in town. We went back to try it the next night and it was great. The crust is really soft and the toppings are juicy. They only make 3 types of pizza so we tried them all; Margherita, Napoletana, Marinara. Although we arrived only 15 minutes after the pizzeria opened, we had to wait for almost an hour to be seated. The place only has 4 tables and it was all occupied and there were 3 more 4-persons group already waiting outside. The Uffizi musuem has some nice collection but I don't think it's worth the 2 hours queue. If we had bought the tickets online in advanced, we probably wouldn't have to wait so long.

Additional travel note to add is to buy the return ticket in advanced.

I've uploaded some photos onto picasaweb instead coz my free flickr account already has more than 200 photos. Anyone wanna sponsor me a flickr pro account? Hehe. I'll buy a better camera and take nice photos :p

Fall colors

2007-11-02T04:11:00.000+08:00

Seeing that it's such a nice weather today, I went out for a walk around the neighborhood and took some pics.

Mid-term exams

2007-10-30T18:40:00.000+08:00

I'm just not ready to take any exams only after 6 weeks of classes. It still feels like the start of the semester and I'm just getting used to attending classes again after a long summer break. We had an exam last week and supposedly this week and people around got pretty tense. Although we're also planning for a trip, I don't see any excitement around. The good news came on Sunday that this week's exam is postponed and people suddenly became livelier. I see people smiling again and joy in their hearts. Hehe. And looking forward to the long weekend starting Thu.

New pan

2007-10-26T19:23:00.000+08:00

Since I came back after the summer, the apartment only has one frying pan left. My flatmates took theirs back when they left. Stuck with a really lousy, sticky pan, I was contemplating whether to buy myself a new one. Then I got news that everyone in the building might be moved to the new apartments on the south side. So I thought there's no point buying one when I'll get getting a new one in the new apartment. Earlier this week, my new flatmate broke the pan while she was washing it. The handle came off and there's a tiny hole in the pan where the handle used to be attached to. The hole makes it impossible to re-attach the handle. Anyway, I finally submitted a fault report after my exam yesterday and this morning, 2 guys showed up with a brand new pan! I can't believe the efficiency of the system. This is Italy after all. I'm going to ask my flatmate if she submitted a report earlier. The new, bigger 28" non-stick pan is great. I can make fried rice again without having all the rice sticking to the pan and I don't need to use as much oil. Way to healthier eating. Hehe.

Reginelle ai Porcini

2007-10-21T21:56:00.000+08:00

I made an 'instant' version of pasta with mushrooms after I burnt the soup. When my friend moved away last summer, I was given a box of long crinkled pasta labelled "Reginelle - Pasta di semola di grano duro". The packing was different from the normal pasta boxes so I wasn't sure if it actually taste like normal pasta. This ribbon-like pasta goes well with creamy sauce so I decided to try it with the mushroom soup I just bought. Italian mushroom soup is tons better than Campbells! Adding it to my list of goodies to bring home. Hehe. Anyway, make the soup real thick and creamy such that when you add the cooked pasta in, it has similar texture like a carbonara. Super easy and yummy!

Burnt soup

2007-10-19T16:28:00.000+08:00

I did have the thought that the soup could get dried up but I reassured myself that I put enough water and it's only going to be about an hour on very low fire. So I went to take a nap looking forward to have a nice bowl of soup for dinner. When I got up and went to check on the pot, it's all dried up and burnt at the bottom. The potatoes though looks like they were roasted. Hehe. Surprisingly, there was no burnt smell permeating the air. Had to throw everything away and make something else for dinner. Luckily, that something else turned out really well. :D

Trip to Venice

2007-10-16T02:51:00.000+08:00

Went for a day trip to Venice last weekend with a bunch of new friends. We walked around a lot and saw the famous landmarks. I think Venice is a city where you really need to take time to walk around, browse the little shops and sit down for coffee and enjoy the view. Although the company was good, we just don't share the same travel style. I'm for shopping for local gifts and trying out the specialty dishes while the rest of them are mostly into taking lots of photos. So, I did not buy anything during this trip. I did kind of look out for cute Italy t-shirts while we were zipping though the streets but nothing caught my eye. As for masks and Murano glass, I'll need plenty of time to check them out. Definately a must on my next trip.

Basillica di San Marco (St Mark's Basilica)

View from the famous Ponte Rialto (Rialto Bridge)

Carnival masks in a shop

Buying groceries

2007-10-12T18:52:00.000+08:00

Most grocery stores here are small and don't carry international stuff. The few bigger ones do carry some. After shopping at a few bigger stores, I know which store to go to buy a certain product. For example, ketchup. The one from the local brand is sweet so I don't like it. I found a few stores selling the McD version which is ok. To get the Heinz version in a squeeze bottle, there is only one store that sells that. This is also the only store that sells salad dressing! Italian salad dressing is olive oil and vinegar so you can't find other types in most stores. I found a small gourmet grocery store in town where you can buy a small can of campbell soup for over 2€. I never went back again. There is also the German store Lidl where I buy 1.5L 100% fruit juices, yogurt drinks, gummi bears, american chocolate chip cookies, chicken nuggets, mars or snickers bars. And I'm so glad to have found Heinz baked beans in the Thai shop.

I cooked pork

2007-10-10T02:11:00.000+08:00

This is my first attempt at cooking a pork dish coz I generally don't like pork. I bought some ribs for cooking soup last week and there are quite a few pieces left. So I searched around for ribs recipes and decided to make spicy honey mustard sauce to go with the pork. I boiled the ribs in water for about an hour to soften it. Then I make the sauce and marinade the meat overnight. I don't have a grill in the kitchen so I pan-fried it. After about 5 minutes, I realised that the meat is not as soft I wanted them to be. So I debone the ribs and simmer the meat with the sauce for another 5 minutes. The meat turned out really tasty :D

Recipe for Spicy Honey Mustard Sauce
Ingredients

For quarter pounds of ribs:
3/4 tbs oil
1/8 small onion finely minced
3 tbs honey
2 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs cider vinegar
1 1/2 ts red pepper flakes
a pinch of salt
pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a pan.
2. Cook the onions well or until caramelised.
3. Add all the rest of the ingredients and stir gently for 5 minutes.
4. Let the sauce cool slightly before using it to marinade the meat.

Russell Peters

2007-10-06T17:47:00.000+08:00

I just found out about this guy recently. He makes jokes about Indians and other races. It's hilarious!
Russell Peters: Outsourced

Aggiungi al mio pofilo | altri Video

Without dryer

2007-10-04T03:22:00.001+08:00

It's nice that the apartment comes with a washing machine and washing is free. There's no dryer though so we have to dry the clothes on the rack. It wasn't a problem before. During the winter when it was cold, the apartment is heated from midnight to early morning so the clothes get dry inside the apartment. When it was summer, the clothes get dry in the balcony even though there isnt much direct sunlight on the balcony. Now that the weather is cooler, my clothes just couldn't get dry after leaving them on the balcony for 2 days. It's still a little damp but no smell. Since there is no heat in the apartment yet, it couldn't be dried inside either. Sigh!

Seedless grapes

2007-10-02T02:23:00.000+08:00

I just couldn't find seedless grapes here. It's almost like there is no such thing. So since I moved from Germany, I didn't eat any grapes at all until last week. I could no longer resist the delicious looking grapes every time I go to the supermarket. I bought a bunch and they were sweet and juicy. But it was a mess coz I had to dig the seeds out for each one. I have eaten half and I figured it's just too much of effort. I doubt I'll buy anymore grapes here after I finished the remaining ones. I wonder why they don't have seedless grapes...

New Season

2007-09-28T05:54:00.000+08:00

The new season of those tv series I'm follwing have finally arrived. The premiere of Heroes was not as exciting as I had anticpated. House M.D was just ok. Desperate Housewives will air this weekend. Hopefully it'll be interesting. Thursdays are still my anime day. Thought of watching new series but kinda lazy to filter out those that I might like. Any recommendations?

Back to school

2007-09-24T20:05:00.000+08:00

First week of classes has been tough. Still having 8:30am classes everyday. I get headaches after attending classes on theoretical subjects. Need retraining to think like a scientist. Still quite lazy to study; prefer to watch videos whole day. Quite a bit of assignments and assessments throughout the semester so can't afford to start studying later in the semester when the final exams come. I find that most of the new students this semester are really enthusiastic about the courses and damn hardworking too! Makes me feel like I am extremely lazy, which I probably is. Oh, I miss the first year. It was pretty relaxed at the beginning of the semester so can slowly adopt to the change in workload. Well, I gotta start picking up more books to read before I drown in the courses. Hopefully I'll get more productive starting this week. No time to lose.

It's gonna be a tough semester to get through. Sigh!

Cooking again

2007-09-20T01:33:00.001+08:00

Just cooked up something simple...

Lunch - Stir fried chicken and vegetables with white rice

Dinner - Fusili with tuna in spicy olive oil