My Birthday - One of a Kind

30 December 2011 @ Somewhere Nearby

After a heavy pasta lunch, I headed home for a dinner with my family.

Don't know why this year, my dad suggested to have something extraordinary for my birthday and I kinda like his idea - which is Red Wine Chicken Mee Sua.

This dish originated from the FuChow clan and Yours Truly is a proud descendant of the clan.


My mom poured a little too much of the red rice wine into the soup thus making my face turned red very soon after eating it.

Then, my brother took out 3 cakes for me to choose. 2 swiss rolls and a marble cake. I gave him a wth-look and picked the marble cake. Well there it is, my birthday cake.


Later in the night, my whole family headed out to the club lounge for a round of beer, karaoke and pool game. There were only couple of people but they left a while after we invaded the place.


We had plenty of fun singing our hearts out in the lounge while my brothers play pool and darts. We stayed there till around 1am.


Feeling a little thirsty and hungry, we stopped at the nearby McDonald's for another round of makan. Eat again! Yay!

And that's how I celebrated my big day with my family last year. Kinda miss the red wine chicken now... Billy, out.

My Birthday @ Secret of Louisiana

30 December 2011 @ Secret of Louisiana, Plaza Kelana Jaya

It was my birthday!!

My dear JooLi brought me to the Secret of Louisiana for pasta!! Oh she knows me too well.. keke...


For only RM15.50, you get:
- free flow of Iced Lemon Tea
- free flow of Soup
- free flow of Garden Green Salad
- Ice cream
- Tea / Coffee
- and UNLIMITED servings of pasta!
*weekdays only


There were 8 different types of pasta to choose from... and they're all good!


We ordered 6 servings of pasta and we're stuffed... Can't imagine how the record-breaker can consume more than 10 servings!


Our lunch ended with a scoop of ice-cream each.


And it's presents time!


Love the pasta. Love the present. Love the company. Love everything that happened to me that day. Billy, out.

Bangkok Revisit - Wat Pho & Grand Palace [Part 3]

12 December 2011 @ Bangkok

Third day in Bangkok started off early with a boat ride to Wat Pho. We took the BTS to Saphan Taksin station and hop onto the Chao Phraya Express Boat to Tha Tian Pier.

The water level at the river banks were still on a higher side. We had to walk on elevated platform so that our feet won't get soaked.


The main attraction in the Wat Pho temple is the gigantic reclining buddha statue. The statue is 46 metres long and 15 metres in height.

JooLi joining in the fun

Covering an area of 20 acres, Wat Pho is also regarded as the biggest and oldest temple in Bangkok.


I find the colourful stupas in the compound quite interesting - something different from the usual Gold covered stuffs found in most temples.


We then walked to the Grand Palace, which is just next to the temple. Upon arriving, we saw a sign that says Vimanmek Mansion is closed for maintenance. DANG!
*You can use the same ticket to enter Vimanmek Mansion, which is about 5km away

The ticket price has also hiked up. DOUBLE DANG!

So we decided not to enter the palace and just look the photos printed on postcards. Cheapos. Haha..


Found a local shop for cheap food and there's where we settled our hunger issue. Cheap and yummy!


The adventurous side of me tickled and we hop onto a local bus to try our luck getting back to MBK Mall. The bus fare was around 6.5 Baht only.


After 30 mins on the bumpy and dusty bus ride, we finally reached our destination. *PHEW*

It's quite challenging to take a bus ride when you can't speak their language nor read their signboards. But we made it anyway!


The rest of the day was just shopping, shopping and more shopping. We also went for a Thai massage near Silom and took our dinner at the streets nearby too.

Oh how much I miss the Pad Thai...

We went out for more shopping at the local market the next day before departing back to Malaysia. Things are really cheap in Bangkok...

This is only half of what we bought

That's the end of my short vacation to Bangkok with my family. It is really a shopping haven and I'm definitely coming back again! Billy, out.

Bangkok Revisit - Chatuchak Market & Chinatown [Part 2]

11 December 2011 @ Bangkok

Chatuchak Market is a place you MUST GO for shopping because it's the largest weekend market in Bangkok. It covers 35 acres and has more than 5,000 stalls!!


We went there early to avoid the big crowd which normally starts to pick up at noon time.

Didn't notice the clock tower the last time I went there

Clothes, food, accesories.. you name it they've got it, all at a dirt cheap price.


What I find interesting about the stalls there were almost every shop sells different things. It's like they have their own design or line of clothes for each stall. So you won't get bored walking round and round the place.


We had our lunch there as well and headed back to the city after that.

In the evening, we took the MRT down to Chinatown. But before that, we dropped by Wat Traimit - The Temple of Golden Buddha.


This temple housed the world's largest solid gold statue. I wonder if anybody tried stealing the gold...


We headed on to Chinatown afterward.


As you walk down the Yaowarat Street (the main street in Chinatown), stalls after stalls of food and drinks lined up at both sides of the road.


First up, we had Wan Tan Mee! The wan tan is really good as they were filled with pork and shrimps!! Delicious~


Moving on, we saw quite a number of stalls selling drinks - lime juice, pomegranate juice, etc... And see how they open up the lime!


Then, this stall caught our attention because there were so many people sitting around the stall eating. Out of curiousity, we stopped to look.


The stall was selling fish maw at 50Baht per bowl. We ordered one and it tasted really good.


JooLi can't take her eyes of this pancake stall. So we had one of those as well. Hehe...



Chinatown in Bangkok wasn't as happening as I thought. Probably it's the aftermath of the flood from the nearby Chao Phraya River.


While walking back to the MRT station, we took a photo with the Bangkok Train Station. Nothing much there either...

We took the MRT back to Silom, walked around the night market Patpong and headed back to hotel to call it a day. Billy, out.

Bangkok Revisit - Madame Tussauds [Part 1]

10 December 2011 @ Bangkok

I returned to Bangkok after almost 4 years, nothing much changed except for the water level which was still a little high due to the flood earlier on.

This time, I went with my family. Booked the Glow Trinity Hotel at Silom and it was great! A very modern concept room with affordable price. Chong Nonsi BTS Station is just a stone's throw away while Sala Daeng BTS and Silom MRT are also reachable on foot.


It was late afternoon when we reached Bangkok. We had a hard time looking for a place to eat as most shops were closed on that day. We found out later that it was a public holiday in Thailand - The Constitution Day.


The Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum was one of the places that I've always want to visit. But they're all so far away! Since they just opened one in Bangkok not long, I took the opportunity to take a peek in there. The entrance fee was 720 Baht per person (after 10% discount).


Upon entering, the first thing you see is of course the King of Thailand and his wife. Talking about the Thais, they really respect their king and their country a lot.

And so happen that we went in December (5th Dec is The King's Birthday), there were lots of gigantic portraits of His Majesty hung all over the city.


In the first room, there were some famous political leaders including our very own Tun Dr. Mahathir. But the one that captured my attention was the late Princess Diana. The wax figure looked pretty real tho.


Moving on, we took a photo with US President Barack Obama & his wife Michelle. What an opportunity! Hehe..


In the next room, there are famous personalities like Einstein (pic), Picasso, Dr. Pornthip, Mozart & etc.

Hoong, this is for you. Hah!

Moving on were the sports section.

Beckham seems to be enjoying his attention

This section also offers a lot of games for visitors - virtual penalty kicks, virtual tennis and a reflex game (pic below). Had lotsa fun there as I never thought that there will be games other than wax figures.


Moving along to the celebrities room. Out of the many famous international artistes, they also have a few local Thai artistes whom I have no idea who they were at all.

uh-oh!

Ahoy! We be t' pirates!

JooLi: "Save me spiderman~"
Spidey: "Choy Lei Dou Soh"

Ang~ Ang~ Ang~ Doraemon! My Fav!

That's me!

Big group

Now who's the real Jacky?

It was a fun-filled visit to Madame Tussaud's coz I had a lot of up-close and personal moments with the international superstars. Hehe..

And at the end of the museum, they showed the process of making the wax figures. It's amazing how much detail and effort they poured in to make the figures look so real.

We went for dinner and walked around the city before heading back to rest and called it a day. Billy, out.