Today, the 31st of August, 2004 is Malaysia's 47th Independence Day from the evil British Empire. ;)
August 2004 Archives
This is the annual martial arts event which spans all the disciplines like karate, taekwondo, silat, wushu, and yes, even tai chi. It's held along a closed off street - I hear it's always Jalan Song Thien Cheok. I was caught in traffic congestion when they closed off the street in the afternoon and cordoned off the entire area.
The actual event is held at 8 pm but they were already setting up the stalls and preparing for the event way before the scheduled time.
There were lots of little kids...
...as well as some not-so-little kids.
I saw little kids being molested...nah, I'm just kidding, the instructor was trying to tie the belt on a funny kid who was trying to run away.
There was also an ambulance there, just in case someone...oh, I don't know, gets muscle cramps or breaks a fingernail. ;)
The event started with tai chi 18/4 (or something) which had instructors getting a long line of people involved, as well as the spectators. Watch the decidedly amusing clip here:
Download: Tai Chi 18 4 video [sixthseal.com]
I promptly decided I have better things to do on a Saturday night after this, so I wrapped up the event. ;)
The teams were on the sidewalk preparing for their on-stage performances.
The silat (Malay martial arts) group told me that performing is hungry work.
I watched the Wushu team prepare for stage:
Download: Wushu team practise video [sixthseal.com]
I got a black belt guy to pose for me...
...as well as the silat group
Lest anyone gets any ideas that sixthseal.com has changed its direction...
...rest assured, I got some girls to pose for me too.
My vote goes to far left. ;)
This is a box of 20 Bollero Kenner cigars. My friend got it from Indonesia but he didn't like the taste, and has been giving them away ever since.
The inside of the box is lined with individual plastic wrapped cigars, ready to be unwrapped and smoked.
The size of the cigar is about half of a full sized cigar - slightly shorter and with a lower ring gauge, oops, sorry...I meant thinner, than a Robusto. It's not in the cigarillo class, this one is bigger than those.
This is the band of the cigar - it says Kenner Flor Fina, with a red and gold motif.
This is the tip of the cigar - it's precut, so you can light it up immediately, which I promptly did.
Download: Kenner cigar review video [sixthseal.com]
You can see me play cigar aficionado in this movie. ;)
I didn't find any fault with the cigar - it tasted woody, with a smoky aftertaste. It's good, even though it wasn't stored in a humidor. I found it nice. The only problem was the uneven burn that it produced, but maybe that's my fault during lighting. It rectified itself after flame was applied on the uneven side.
I know you're not suppoed to do that...and you're not supposed to fully inhale a cigar too, but I like my tobacco products to give me a nicotine hit. Oh, and I did do that rolling the smoke in the mouth thing for the faux cigar aficionado taste test. ;)
I now pull in RM 2,500 with this permanent RM 300 monthly "transport allowance" that I just got. It's a token of appreciation for my work in securing proposals before the annual KPI salary increase, which I hope will push me into the RM 3k region. ;)
One can wish. Heh!
Oh, and I thought up the company new slogan too - Huygens means assurance. Simple, but I'm rather fond of it. It's going into our new batch of business cards.
I went out for dinner with a bunch of people from different age groups yesterday night at Jojo Cafe. I guess the best word for it is...networking, cliche as that may sound. It was enlightening; got to meet people from different fields e.g. management, design, publishing, education etc. and exchange business cards.
I'll like to give the person who first thought of the concept of business cards a big hearty slap on the back, coz I won't remember names and numbers the next day otherwise. ;) Anyway, back to the food, Jojo Cafe is located at 3rd Mile, Kuching and serves really good curry chicken (or so I hear).
This is their curry chicken - the meat was tender, and the curry was tasty. There's nothing wrong with it, except for one thing...it doesn't have the spicy curry oomph that I like. It's a good curry dish for people who don't take spicy food though.
Here's the kailan (a type of vegetable, stating the obvious ;)) cooked with salted fish. Now this dish is good, and hearing me say that a vegetable dish is good means it's really good, coz I'm not a big fan of vegetables at all. The veggies was fresh and crunchy, and still retains the original moisture and taste without any salted fish contamination (unless you eat that of course).
Next up is the mutton soup. It's cooked with a variety of spices, red dates, mushrooms, and all sorts of stuff. It's basically mutton soup, Chinese style.
I didn't find anything noteworthy about the mutton, but the soup was well broiled and tasted great!
This is tofu cooked with egg and vegetables, lying on top of a lettuce bed. I can't comment about tofu, coz long time readers would know that I don't like tofu. Well, I don't like the edible kind of tofu anyway, but the other kind of tofu... ;)
Now this is the main dish - mango fish! The fish was smothered with a delightful mixture of unripe mangos, peanuts, raw onions, shallots, and spring onions. It creates a wonderful fusion of colors, flavors and different textures, and the fish was fresh to boot. This is easily the best dish of them all - highly recommended!
After eating all that, should you feel the call of nature, management reminds you not to leave the left side of your ass behind (though how that is possible eludes me).
Ice Shop Asia is the once great empire that has seen its famous plastic cup and straw mammoth logo emblazoned all across town. Outlets after outlets were built, expanding like the rise of Rome, swathing a path of destruction over premium retail space like the Nazi blitzkrieg, and taking over the outlets like...er, the British Empire.
Alas, the glory days of Ice Shop Asia is now over, and like the rise and fall of civilizations, Ice Shop Asia now maintains a single battered looking outpost in the town of Kuching, the once proud metal cup dented and fighting off rust. The single lonely remaining outlet is the pioneering one, and there wasn't any electricity when we were there...
However, there was an aesthetically pleasing young female behind the counter, so we decided to get a drink despite the dim interior. ;) I ordered a passion fruit snow shake and a chocolate ice shake with pearls. A snow shake is ice blended and does not come with pearls while an ice shake is basically bubble tea made with ice cream instead of syrup with optional pearl balls.
The ice is shoveled into their standard plastic heat sealed cups...
...and added with ice cream for an ice shake
...or added with syrup/flavoring for a snow shake/bubble tea
Unfortunately, the device that does the ice crushing was not in operation due to the power failure and neither was their patented, really interesting heat sealing device (shown above). That thing automatically heat seals the top of your plastic cup with a poke able plastic cover, so you have to poke through it with a straw. I had so much fun with it last time. I didn't get the chance to do that though, coz the machine requires electricity to operate.
Thus, here's the naked (hey, didn't came with the heat sealed plastic cover) Ice Shop Asia drinks - the chocolate ice shake with pearl balls is on the left and the passion fruit snow shake is on the right.
The girl apologized for the unfortunate circumstances and I didn't mention anything about not being able to poke things through thin, flimsy other things. ;)
This post is so loaded with double entendres and innuendo...
