Geraaammmnyyeeerrrr

Ni nak citer 'kegeraman' Josh sepanjang bula Ramadhan ni. Josh tak kisah jem stroberi ke, jem nenas ke jem bluberi ke, Josh ok je sapu semua. Tapi ni haa... jem trafik, tak lalu telan.

Kononnyer bulan Ramadhan ni boleh balik awal sebab office hour dianjak supaya boleh balik kul 4.30pm. Tapi Josh kena habiskan kerja dulu baru boleh balik. Biasanya kul 5.30pm atau 6.00pm bulan puasa (biasa-biasa balik kul 6.30pm or sometimes 7.00pm.) Tapi sampai tetap jugak gelap. Dah kul 8.00pm. Pasal apa? Pasal jem yang takleh makan ni ler!

Muka geram.

Keadaan menjadi semakin teruk kalo hujan. Jem takleh makan yang berair.

Ish, nak masuk tol jem. keluar tol pun jem. Traffic light jem, roundabout jem. Masuk simpang pun jem. Camner ni? geram.

Muka geram lagi.

Lagi-lagi muka geram. (hehehe)

Nasib baik laaa ada abg-abg polis yang tolong kawal trafik. Kalo tak, lagi ler tunjuk muka geram. Kekadang kesian jugak ngan abg-abg polis ni. Dah ler puasa, kena 'exercise' berjam-jam kat situ, pastu kalo hujan lagi ler. Nasib baik ler abg polis ni berisi, ada bekalan tenaga yang extra.

Soalannyer, naper bulan Ramadhan je yang jem teruk camni? kenapa? kenapa? why? why?

Eee... geraaaam.

Home Alone Again

My wife is away till coming Tuesday. I got the whole house to myself. hehe.

Since I'm alone, I cooked a simple dinner just now. The menu: Minced meat with mushroom, vegie, and steam rice.



I got to share this brilliant idea of my wife with my blog readers. If we need to cook for less then four, never ever use the rice cooker. Steam the rice instead. As for me, I put 3 table spoons of rice grain into a bowl, add approximately 1 cup of water and steam them for 15 minutes.

Tadaa... the rice is ready! By steaming the rice in the bowl, not even one grain of rice is wasted.

Hm.... I'll be having steamed hairy crab from Yangcheng Lake of China, freshly flown in this coming Wednesday. Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh.....

Note: In case u don't know what's hairy crab, please read this article. Some restaurant in Malaysia are offering hairy crabs during autumn season, and each crab my priced to as much as RM100 per crab.

Mid Autumn Celebration at Church

Our church celebrates mid autumn festival every year. As Chinese and Christian, we uphold our culture while stand firm on our faith. Approximately 200 church members attended last night's celebration. More then 30 types of dishes were prepared by the church member. Me and Mrs Wan prepared Mushroom sauce bean curd and Thai style bean curd. I did not take any photos of the food as I had no intention to put them in this blog. (Nanti ada orang mencarut lagi... hehehe).

Beside the usual pot bless (we prefer pot bless instead of pot luck) dinner, we had a new program this year. We had lantern procession whereby we lit up our lanterns and walk around the housing area at Sungai Chua, with total distant of approximately 2.5 kilometers. Permit was applied two weeks before hand. We'd even asked for the help from local RELAs to control the traffic and to look into the safety of our church members.





The best thing was, we got the full support from the local authority and the Sungai Chua residents waved at us as we pass by their house. I was deeply encouraged by many elders (some of them in the sixties) who'd joined the walk. Some bring along their little grand children.






I was amazed by two po-po (nenek) we'd completed the walk wide grin, while I was struggling to catch my breath! Hmm... I was not satisfied with the photos that I'd taken. Photographing moving people under such dim (or dark?) light was a great challenge! Perhaps I should consult Dr. Shah and Dr. Hamdi.

Mid Autumn Festival (Mooncake Festival)

It's Mid Autumn Festival tomorrow. More explanation about Mid Autumn Festival can be found in Wikipedia. Since my wife is outstation till next Tuesday, I'll join our church's celebration tonight. There'll be a pot-bless gathering this evening, expecting 200 people to turn up. A brief lantern procession will take place there after. Just for the fun.

Hm... I got lots and lots of mooncake this year. Thanks to Mr. Wan and family's mixed nuts moocakes and greentea-lime mooncakes, Danial for the Shanghai Yam and single yolk lotus mooncakes, Mr. & Mrs. Wong for the yogurt mooncakes. Ah Leng for the Cheese mooncakes, and many others... These are some of the mooncakes I received.

My favourite packaging from Baker's cottage's No-sugar lotus mooncake.


This is Ah Leng's Cheese mooncake.

And this is Baker's Cottage's Toffee Chocolate Walnut mooncake. Yummy!

And will be playing lantern with my church members tonight. hehehe

Happy Mid Autumn Festival to all my Chinese friends.

Pengalaman Lucu Di Bulan Puasa

Sempena Bulan Ramadhan ni Josh nak citer sikit pengalaman-pengalaman lucu Josh semasa bulan puasa. Sikit intro dulu. Dulu masa belajar Josh gi renang setiap hari, kekadang seawal kul 4 petang. Maka kulit Josh gelap (tan) sebab jemur matahari. Pastu Josh mula simpan misai janggut pada tahun 2000. Dengan kulit yang gelap dan bermisai, ramai ingat Josh ni Melayu... Ni citer-citer lucu semasa Josh amik PhD dulu.....

Cerita 1
Bila sampai bulan puasa memang susah cari makan, semua kedai tutup. Nasib baik kafe kat kampus berniaga. Josh pun pergi la situ...Tengok-tengok rata-rata Chinese je yang makan kat situ. Josh pun gi ler ambik makanan. Masa nak bayar kat kaunter adalah sorang kakak ni asyik jeling-jeling je.....
"Bukan tapau ke dik?" akak tu tanya.
"Tak, makan sini je." Josh jawab.
Lagi ler akak tu jeling-jeling muka Josh yang selamba je..,"Empat ringgit setengah."... Josh bayar dan duduk meja sebelah dua jejaka Chinese.. (dah siap jeling-jeling dah dia orang)

"诶？现在不是puasa吗?" (Eh, bukan ke puasa sekarang)
"是咯，他可以在公共场所吃东西吗?" (Ya lor, boleh ke dia makan di tempat awam?"
"不知道，可能现在这里没有马来同胞吧." (Ntah ler, mungkin sekarang ni takde Melayu kat sini kot."

Josh pandang diaorang, terus dia orang diam. Josh senyum sambil makan ......

Cerita 2
Dah bosan hari-hari makan kat kafe tu. So Josh pun ke luar kampus. Gi kedai mamak. Masuk je kedai mamak tu ada ler sekor mamat ni (pekerja) pandang-pandang. Rupa macam Bangla. Bangla kot, ke Pakistan? ntah..

"Ye boss, mau bungkus apa?" Mamat tu tanya.
"Tak mau bungkus, makan sini. Mee goreng ayam satu." Josh balas.
"Tak boleh! Tak boleh!" cepat-cepat mamat tu geleng kepala sambil lambai-lambai tangan.
"Pesal tak boleh?" tanya Josh.. dalam hati dah mula nak gelak. Dah agak dah perkara ni akan berlaku.
"Bulan puasa boss, tak boleh makan sini. Tapau boleh." Jawab mamat tu sambil goyang-goyang kepala dia.
"hahahahah..... saya bukan muslim lah.." gelak Josh.
"Ye ke?" sambil garu-garu kepala mamat tu. Pastu bisik-bisik ngan kawan sebelah dia, mungkin tanya pendapat kawan dia nak serve makanan kat Josh ke tak.

"Ok ok." Jawab mamat tu selepas bincang dengan kawan dia tu.
Josh pun duduk la tunggu makanan tu sampai.
Mamat tu dengan kawan-kawan dia tetap nak jeling-jeling kat Josh, seolah-olah tak caya apa yang Josh cakap. Pelanggan-pelanggan lain(mostly chinese) pun pandang-pandang.
Makanan sampai, Josh pun apa lagi, makan lerrrrrr.

Hm...tu ler sebabnyer Josh kadang-kadang malas nak gi lunch dalam bulan puasa. Nasib baik ler kekadang wife larling buat bekal.

Selfish People

I went out to collect some items from the printing shop just now and had an unpleasant encounter with this irresponsible and selfish guy.

Here's the scenario: The printing shop was at Seksyen 2 of Shah Alam, with a Pasar Ramadhan nearby. The place was a bit crowded as the stalls were already set and people started to swarm in to the area. As I approached the junction to the shop, I saw this blue Kelisa making a drastic three-point turn about twenty meters away from me. Obviously he'd over shot and would like to turn around, so I slowed down. As I was turning in to the junction, there he was, driving in high speed and chipped in. I hit the break and avoided the would-be collision. To my irritation, he parked his car right at the entrance blocking cars from entering. I honked. He came out from the car, had a look at the narrow space and gave me that 'i didn't block the road, the space is big enough for your car to get through' look. That's not a parking lot you selfish man! I maneuvered my car slowly and had successfully passed through. The cars behind me honked. Realizing that he was blocking the traffic, he showed the unhappy look, got into the car and drive further up and parked his car just another 10 meters away. (Brainless people never learn from mistake).

There're plenty of parking space yet this abang wanted to park his car illegally and cause inconvenience and difficulties to the other road users.

He got off the car and off he went to the Pasar Ramadhan. He's not kurang ajar, just plain 'tak boleh diajar'. Selfish people like this will only think of his own convenience. Disgusting.

Buka Puasa at Shah's Village Hotel

I was invited by the bears (Abg Yazeed and Dr. Shah) to a buka puasa at Shah's Village Hotel last night. Hairie and Arel were invited too. It's also in conjunction with Dr. Shah's birthday on 9th of Sept.




The Gazebo Restaurant of Shah's Village Hotel serve an array of kampung style dishes. Ayam masak merah, ikan bakar, lala rebus, ulam and various type of sambals to name a few. The dishes were quite ok but the sup-ekor was the best soup I'd ever had!

These were the kuih we had.

And this was my first round.

The get together was fun. I hadn't been seeing Hairie for awhile and I actually think he'd shed some weight. The dinner was filled with laughter, and it's normal when you have Beruang Madu around.

I enjoyed the night. And Happy Birthday to you Shah. Many happy returns for your birthday.

Pasar Ramadhan

'Pasar Ramadhan', a powerful term that would activate my salivary gland and make me drool. hehehe...

I went together with my wife, Mr. & Mrs. Wan and Jesse to a Pasar Ramadhan near my place recently. The array of food was an eye opener for Jesse, and was a powerful magnet for me.



Hm.. sup utara pun ada... bestnyerr.

I just the 'meriah' environment and the colour of the event. Even the drinks were so strikingly colourful.

Among the food I like:
1. Ikan bakar

2. Ayam goreng berempah

3. Ayam percik (sooooo yummy!!!)

4. BBQ honey chicken (dah naik harga... dulu RM1.20, last year RM1.80, this year RM 2.50. Terkejut.

5. Kuih pelita, kuih tako and all the kuih sewaktu dengannyer.

6. Laksam... hm...... sedaaap sangat.

7. Roti jala... and the thick curry gravy.

8. Kuih cara berlauk.
9. Apam balik.

10. ALL TYPE OF RENDANG (My super-duper favourite!!)

We bought some, bring them home and had our 'buka tak puasa' in the garden.

Ooooooo.... so salivating...


Note: 'Shopping' at Pasar Ramadhan is my annual activity, and will last for the whole month of Ramadhan. To avoid getting overweight, I skipped my lunch. hahaha