A new beginning

Have not been blogging for some time…. I survived my first 2 weeks at the new job. First week was basically spent attending meetings, meetings and meetings and trying to figure out who is who, adjusting to the new environment and I must admit I experienced culture shock. Second week came by, still very blur… ha ha ha. It’s totally a new environment, different working culture, people, product etc… everything is NEW…I have new sets of working clothes too, yeah I’m an uniform lady now, hubby commented that I can save a lot on clothing, I even have a new set of shoes, believe it or not I save on shoes also. So I expect to keep every single cents that I earned...

Generally colleagues are quite okay, a lot of documents to go through and oh my.. I really need to sign a lot of stuff here. Being in the same company for 12 years doesn’t require you to exercise much of your brain cells but I realized for the past two weeks, my brain is put into testing, I hope my brain won’t “crashed”. I experienced body pain, stiffed necks and shoulders (sign of stress, hubby commented) after the first week.

Wow I really missed blogging… it has been 2 long weeks since I last blogged and also to catch up with you all blogs out there.

On another note, next week is Michelle’s kindy graduation, the whole family is really looking forward to it. The grandfather and aunt is coming up for the ceremony too, wah they really give face hor. How I wish my mom is here to witness her grandchild’s graduation. Michelle will be presenting the students’ speech in Bahasa and will be grabbing a few awards too, we are so proud of her. Not forgetting the girls will be dancing too, it’s going to be a major event for the family.

1 more day to go

1 more day to go, my Singapore boss came to Penang for our monthly operation meeting and at the same time organized a farewell lunch for me today. Yesterday hubby and I invited him for dinner and together with my CEO in Singapore they gave me a little present, a Tissot watch. Wow, I don’t expect such a pricy gift. I returned the gesture by writing personalized thank you card for both of them.

As the day approached, I realized I’ve accumulated 12 long years of emotional baggage with me, don’t get me wrong, this baggage is a wonderful baggage fill with so much fond memories. At lunch today I shed tears as the bosses proposed toss and wish me well, my lady boss shed tears too when it was my turn to say something in return, I can see some female colleagues holding back their tears… I don’t expect this farewell lunch to be so touchy… Not just that, colleagues about 15 of them took turns to say a word or two about their thoughts on me, I’m deeply touched. I’m going to miss them.

Well, they still have to bear with me for another day, tomorrow will be my last official day but I will be coming back 3 weeks later to assist them on a customer’s audit. Next Monday will be the start of a new beginning in my working life, I wonder what’s in store for me. I keep on reminding myself to drive to the new place to work next Monday, after all, for the past 12 years and 5 months I’ve been driving to the same place to work, I need some time to reprogram my brain…

To all my colleagues, a big thank you.. to my bosses, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, your care and guidance have made me into the woman I’m today.

My bosses...


My colleagues...

Udang galah n Catfish Affair

We really ate out a lot this trip back, and this time to Tanjung Tualang. I blogged about it before but this time with pictures. Check my earlier post here.

This is our family favorite’s place for “udang galah” or fresh water prawns and certainly one of mum’s favorite dining place for they served fresh and superb prawns, steamed “pak soh kung” and homemade tauhu.

This is what we ordered:

1) 1 kg of medium sized udang galah @ RM58.00 a kilo
2) 1 medium size “pak soh kung” @ catfish
3) 1 kangkung belacan

Udang galah – before, swimming actively in the aquarium


Udang galah – after, steamed with egg white and Chinese Wine, 1 kilo consists of 16 medium sized prawns.



Steamed “pak soh kung”


Kangkung – forgot to take the picture

Grand finale – the bill!!!



Conclusion – we were all very contended and went our separate ways, we continue our trip back to Sitiawan, my dad back to Kampar. I’ll be coming back for more… so must you… For those who are interested, you may locate the place in the above bill.. Tanjung Tualang is not a big town so you will be able to find the place quite easily and I'm a lousy road director... don't want to bring you all to nowhere..

Bean Sprouts Chicken Affair

We ventured up to Ipoh during our long raya break and hubby being adventurous this time round (we normally go to Jusco and eat there during our usual trips to Ipoh) and with some help of my good friend’s direction we managed to land ourselves in the town of Ipoh. You see this Kampar girl seldom ventured around even though Ipoh is just around 30 km from my Kampar home. We spotted a restaurant cramped with people and thought that it must be good, we parked our car and walked a short distance.. as we approached the restaurant we realized they served the famous bean sprout chicken. Wow all the tables were taken, we waited for a while and got a table ourselves… quick quick ordered as the situation was quite chaotic with the workers running here and there and customers standing waiting for empty tables.

Here is the gang waiting for the food…



In less than 10 minutes, our plate of bean sprouts was here… hmm… see the chubby and fat fat sprouts… people said the bean sprouts in Ipoh are fatter and crunchier due to the mountain water… I hope so and it’s not due to any chemical reaction.



In the next 5 minutes, our plate of chicken arrived…. Looks good eh but hubby and I think it’s too fatty for us and we can taste a lot of “Ajinomoto” being put in it. However the girls love them because they like the smooth and fatty chicken skin… eee….


Just in case the next time round you happened to be in Ipoh and try this dish, you can dropped by at the 2 restaurants below, they are situated a stone throw away from each other and has equally customers patronizing their restaurants, so I guessed the taste should be okay. Frankly, hubby and I don’t actually like it, maybe we are quite health conscious folks who don’t like oily and fatty food.

The restaurant that we dine in..


The restaurant opposite the street.. equally famous

Raya Break (1)

Here are more photos of us in our baju kurungs… the morning of 2nd day raya, 2nd October; we were all dressed up to my sis’s kampung in Bidor. We took this picture at my father in-law’s house, the plants creeping on top of us are grapes planted by my brother in-law. Hubby was in bright red hibiscus floral shirt; since he was the camera man was not in our picture.. too bad 




Below picture taken at my father’s house, we dropped by to pick up my dad before continuing our journey to Bidor. One of the girls’ favorite spot back to Kampar as they can sit on the swing morning, noon and evening.


At Bidor, we forgot to take pictures as we were busy helping ourselves with the delicious spread of rendang, dry curry chicken, ketupat, lemang, satay sauce and varieties of cookies… the girls loved them and Michelle end up suffering from mouth ulcer now, too heaty!! We enjoyed our raya celebration with sis’s family.