will i am's delayed diary

Took some time, but KH finally managed to arrange KV to meet his 'sir' from college days. The reunion was held at Jack & Steve Grill , a midpoint for all involved. 'Sir' did remember KV and they hit it off pretty quickly. Always fun reminiscing about the old days. Names and events long forgotten. KH and I let them do their thing while we focused more on the food. Funny to note that Jack & Steve Grill now has a special wild boar menu. I was quite impressed with the wild boar ribs aglio-olio. Halfway through dinner, KH complained of a headache. But it was quite bad that he eventually asked for painkillers. I remember that he has an allergy, but BOTH of us couldn't remember what he could take. So we took a gamble. I ran over to the nearby pharmacy and got him something. He took one tablet, and we paid the bill. Our next stop was Mykori for some dessert. Before I managed to order, KH started showing signs of allergy. I noticed some inflammation around his eye l

A second crab dinner was arranged with my ex-form six classmate, Kit. He recommended a restaurant near his house called Fung Lai . I had never ventured to that part of Puchong. Deep-in and looked to be surrounded by a light industrial area. We had sweet and sour crab with deep-fried mantou , Hunan-style calamri, and steamed tiger grouper. The fish and calamari was much better than the crab.  Dinner was followed by drinks. When we asked him what options were available, he actually wanted to bring us to his favourite kopitiam . Whenever he is in KL, he eats at that place seven days a week. I would go nuts. On the same row was a flashy cafe with lots of lights outside. Us: Can we go to Seven Cafe instead? Kit: I've never tried it. Us: Try it TODAY. Straight guys. Outside the cafe were several pirate Mickey Mouse statues. The interior was a mash up of different themes. The owner incorporated a lot of retro metal grills, and other old school items with decorative items. Wouldn't be

KH introduced me to his new friend KV over dinner. The dinner place was called Ah Tan Kitchen over in Connaught. KV works in the food and beverage industry as a supplier, an interestingly he does tattooing on the side. While we were having the butter chicken, soggy abacus seeds, and fried pork, he described his journey into inking the human skin. From the sound of it, there really is no accredited place to learn. His beginners class was months of sketching on paper. During the next stage, they practiced with synthetic skin. According to him, many advanced courses were con jobs. Guess in this kind of trade, its important to apprentice with masters. But anyway, being an amateur tattoo artist is no way to make a living, hence the day job.  Then we went to Beans and Yogurt on the other side of the main road. The "Beans" refers to coffee beans, not soya beans. I ordered a long black to make up for the lousy white coffee I had during dinner. And we shared a slice of chempedak cak

KH invited me to join a mid-autumn festival gathering organized by his sharing group. In case you're wondering, the sharing group is a group of gay guys who have monthly gatherings to discuss on different topics. Every month, a sharer will choose a topic to talk about, and they will have a discussion about it. It was my first time joining them for any activity. The party was hosted at a part of Sentul that both of us had never ventured to. The host operates art classes out of his house, so its a patchwork many artistic works ( male nudes in the master bedroom ). When I first arrived, I was greeted by many new faces. Most of them sat cross-legged on the living room floor with a long line of low tables arranged across the middle. I got myself a drink, found myself a seat, and smiled awkwardly while making some introductions and small talk. After waiting a short while for the late comers, the emcee made a speech, and we had a small ice-breaker. As it was a potluck, everyone brought a

KH asked me to meet him at Teddy Cafe at Zenith Corporate Park. Bloody had to make two u-turns on LDP because I kept missing the junction and there was only one access road to the place. He was there because of his mum's dental appointment. Cooled down with a cute bear-y affogato. I melted its face off with a shot of espresso. Loitered there as long as we could before heading off to our next appointment. Once in a while, SimonLover invites a bunch of friends over to his condo for a dinner. When we arrive, he always looks stressed while preparing the food. He would be fretting in the kitchen in his short shorts.  Surely we offer a helping hand, but he usually shoo-es us out of the kitchen. He would rather we wait in the living room and watch Netflix ( have to get the parental lock code from him.... whatttttt.... ).  That night, we had our usual guests-- Khatijah, ForIHaveSinned, JJ, Bunny, KH, and KH's  anak  Mic. Traditionally, the main dish was BKT. He had one pot with lean m

Mum signed up for a pipe cleaning service to support a friend. The purpose of the treatment is to clean household piping using a purpose-built water pulsator and a mixture of natural acids . At the end of the treatment, years of built-up residue in the pipes would be washed out, improving the quality of the water, and the pressure of the water flow. The process is pretty troublesome, as they need to disconnect the water main, then perform the cleaning process at several points of the house, e.g. kitchen, bathrooms, and main inlet. All require some piping work to connect the special water pump to the piping. The cleaning solution is pumped in, then flushed out from the faucets. Depending on the location, the effluent can range from yellowish to brownish in colour, The odour differs too. Luckily my house was spared from the monthly Selangor water pollution problem, so we didn't have to reschedule. The kid that mum used to babysit in Kuantan was leaving for the UK to further his studi

Mum, KH, and I ventured to KL's Golden Triangle to have a dim sum breakfast at Xin Cusine , Concorde Hotel. Heard good things about it, so decided to give it a try. Not very common in Malaysia for a hotel to serve pork in its restaurant. Parking is a bit weird at Concorde Hotel with a separate multi-level car park located behind the hotel. Basically guests have to traverse the 'back alley' and 'service routes' to get to the hotel proper. Xin Cuisine is looks like a very traditional banquet hall, complete with golden dragons crawling up the columns. Very much like Melia Hotel. Not much of a crowd, but could guess that many of the tables were occupied by regulars. They serve cart style dim sum, a dying practice. My favourite items were the wu kok , cheen tui , and HK CCF! Then we were off to Pavilion for a short jalan-jalan session. Tokyo Street was all decked out for Tanabata. Ate lunch there too-- ramen at Santouka . Sigh, the ramen was such a far cry from the bran

GrabKH surprised me with a bunch of delicious yong tau foo , wu kok , and egg tarts from Seremban. He's trying hard to fatten me up, but I think it's backfiring on him. Haha. Out of the blue, Alan asked KH and I out for dinner. Been years and years since I sat down at a table with him ( even longer since I met his boyfriend ). We ate at Fu Wah , Puchong Jaya. Wasn't a long session, just a short catch-up.  Not knowing where to go next, we just went to Souffle Dessert Cafe that was located opposite the road from our dinner place. For some reason, we ordered a platter of cholate waffles and soft serve ice cream. When I saw it, it immediately reminded me of poo. Haha. Coincidentally, my ex-colleague was there with her family. She said that the owner of the place is young, handsome chap, but I don't think I ever had the pleasure of seeing him. 

After months of growing mushrooms and bean sprouts at home, we finally decided to venture out to the shopping mall. Woke up bright and early to make a trip to The Gardens Mall. The Hari Raya Haji decorations centered around Malay crafts like wau , tudung saji , songket , and other woven items. Lunch we ate at Ichiriki , and it was a lunch 'gathering' of sorts becauce we were joined by JJ and Bunny. They sat at an adjacent table which was close enough. Introduced SK to Ichiriki's motsunabe and she take a liking to it. Once we were done eating, JJ passed me my first birthday present ( + Christmas present ) of the year-- a trio of shorts from Bottoms Lab. Actually, he bought them for himself, but even the smallest size didn't suit him. I feel proud that XS fit me. :P.   Did more shopping after lunch, and naturally we stopped for coffee and cake when we got tired. Rested our legs at Tokyo Secret , a spacious, and quiet cafe famous for their expensive baked cheese tarts. 

During the Aidilfitri weekend, mum and I took up Gratitude's invitation to gallivant at Kota Kemuning. KH also joined. Truly our first soc-food outing since the relaxation of the MCO rules. Met up for breakfast at Pun Chun ,  Bidor's most famous export. When I was little, we would usually stop at their flagship store to have the famous herbal duck soup. Our usual stop en route to Teluk Intan. But as the years went by, we stopped going. Think we got sick of it, and found that the quality had dropped. After going cold turkey for so many years, we were pleasantly surprised.The herbal duck soup was flavourful, without being too salty. Plenty of duck meat, and there was no rancid oil taste. Also loved the large and springy  wantans . A breakfast outing to Kota Kemuning would not be complete without a visit to Brew N Bread . They had the temperature and registration SOP in place, but I don't think there was any social distancing for the seating. Full house! Coffee was great but t

Once again, I was at Bandar Rimbayu for a party with SK's ex-colleagues. The potluck luncheon was to celebrate Chap Goh Mei, marking the end of CNY, and to fete the February babies. The host prepared some delicious dishes like kam heong prawns, vinegar pork trotters ( with black beans ), steamed pomfret, and a luxurious dish of abalone and scallops in brown sauce. SK brought a dish rice wine chicken, while another guest came with osmanthus-goji konnyaku jelly. For dessert, we had birthday cake with kopi o .  Come evening, KH brought mum and I to Dong Zhen Temple in Jenjarom. It was his second visit in the span of the week. He had just visited with his mum. Before admiring the lights at the Buddhist temple, we had dinner at Ban Siew Keng, a Taoist temple along the main road. The plaza in front of the temple was transformed into a Taiwanese night market complete with food stalls and carnival games. At the side were permanent structures that housed various food vendors. We chose to e

The celebration of Renri , or literally People's Day, dates back to the Han Dynasty. The 7th day of the Lunar New Year, marks the creation of mankind, literally everyone's birthday. Before lou sang became generic affair, it was customary to lou sang on Renri . This year, I joined a bunch of sisters whom I never met before. Every month, they have a sharing session, discussing about various topics affecting the gay community. Primarily a Chinese-speaking group. Surprised that KH actually can fit in. They organized a dinner at Restoran Sek Yuen , one of KL's oldest Cantonese restaurants ( since 1948 ). The restaurant along Jalan Pudu now occupies three shop lots, and on that night, they seemed to be operating at full capacity. Our party occupied three tables on the second, and boy was it cramped ( the good 'ol pre-Covide-19 days ). KH introduced me to all the fabulous guests. I only knew three of them, the rest were all fresh faces. I had to be on my best behaviour. :P.

KH single-handedly planned a Christmas party, which I think was his first. I was very surprised. He event set a theme~ White! The venue was at The Narra , and everyone had to bring a gift. Guests came in three phases. The first were mum, SK, JJ and his hubby, Ban. Next came Mei and MiniMei ( her daughter Jaq ) who drove in from Batu Pahat. Last of the lot was Cikgu J and King, who were in very much of a hurry because they had a train back to Ipoh to catch ! Although things didn't run like clockwork, we still managed to have a decent dinner, complete the gift exchange, blow out a birthday cake ( December babies ), have a quiz with giveaways ( Nu Skin Korea facial masks! ) and camwhore ( raided the stage for props )! I would say that that KH's party was a success. P.S.: Ban was lucky enough to get MiniMei's first canvas painting titled "Nemo and Jellyfish". P.P.S.: MiniMei loved the Japanese style hair accessories that mum got for her.

On Sunday morning, we attended mass at St. Thomas Church, while Gratitude went to have a leisurely breakfast at Kuantan Kopitiam ( the sign is so faded that you will never guess its name ). He picked us up after mass ended, and we went back to Kuantan Kopitiam! At that late hour, the place was quite chaotic and crowded. Thanked our lucky stars that we bumped into Kit there. He had just finished eating, so we took the table he vacated. SK swears by the curry noodles there. For his second round, Gratitude wanted kaya butter toast, but they had surprisingly run out of bread. Stock was so low, that some people didn't even get their curry noodles, causing temperatures to rise. Once we had finished eating, we went to Chen Hing to buy dried seafood products. A short distance from the shop in Jalan Besar is Kuantan's latest attraction~ Laman Teruntum . Its a waterfront of sorts along Sungai Kuantan, with Mercu Teruntum observation tower as its focal point. The tower isn't op

Out of the blue, I received news from ex-Sixers ( Form 6 classmates ) that my alma mater was organising a reunion dinner for old students. My old physics teacher was on the organizing committee, and he spread the word to those who were still in Kuantan. After some deliberation, we decided to attend. Would be good to see how my upper secondary school looks today. The night before the dinner, we received word that there's a theme. Whatttttt?! On my way home from work, I made a stop at Bukit Bintang hoping to find something that fits "Gold and Glitter". H&M was right outside the MRT station, so that was my first stop. Luck was on my side because I immediately spotted a black T with ornate golden decals across the neck. Was in and out of there in less than half an hour. Back home, had a quick dinner before starting my last minute packing. The road trip to Kuantan was joined by SK, Gratitude, and my mum. We started before 7 AM ( just a short stop for a meh breakfast