will i am's delayed diary

I have a love affair with Teochew Kuih / Png Kueh / 潮州饭桃. This steamed cake is actually rice flour dough over glutinous rice. Practically rice on rice. Sticky rice? Haha. And its shaped like a peach, a very traditional and stylized rendition. I love it savoury where the glutinous is stir-fried with shallots and dried shrimp. If you don't finish it within a day ( unlikely! ), the next day you can pan fry it for a different kind or enjoyment. Anyway, its hard to get good ones in KL. By luck, mum came across a stall in the OUG morning market that sold Teochew Kuih from Tanjung Sepat. In addition to the usual pink ones, they also had some blue ones which had a filling mixed with mung beans ( tau sar ). Those were great too. Now I know where to get my Teochew Kuih fix!

Brought mum to Pavilion to view the giant kolam at center court. Lim Kok Wing students made three huge patterns ( elephant, peacock, and the traditional circular design ) and the effect was more dramatic thanks to floor stickers. Mum and I were lucky enough to catch a short dance performance accompanied by popular Bollywood songs. Noticed several changes in Pavilion. Will have a Dean and Deluca soon, and also a Kakigori. Snowflake is still there, popular as ever, but they had a recent face lift. For some reason, I think that's the only outlet where I ever notice Malay customers. Our shopping luck was poor that day as we left empty-handed. Ventured to Bandar Puteri Puchong for dinner with SK. She recommended that we try V-Nam Cafe at a quiet row of shops near Columbia Asia Hospital. We had the classic gỏi cuốn , pork stewed in coconut water ( recommended, we loved the gravy ), crispy fried chicken ( sedap sehingga menjilat jari ). and pho bo . At night, the place is kinda d

More than a month ago, we made plans to visit Sasaran Sky Mirror , one of the latest commercialized day-trip attractions. The challenge about visiting Sasaran Sky Mirror is that you can only visit it 4 days before and after the 1st or 15th day of the lunar calendar. During the other times, it's submerged, in the middle of the sea. In oceanographic terms, I think its called a shoal. During those days when the tide is low, you can walk on the shoal, and if the weather is good, the flat terrain appears to act like a giant mirror. We made our booking through Sasaran Sky Mirror Services, one of the homegrown tour operators in Jeram. Best to communicate with them in Mandarin. On the eve of the trip, the tour operator told us to arrive earlier, 7:30 AM to be exact. Originally, we were slated for 8:00 AM. And so, KH picked us up at 6:30 AM. Just an hour away. Pretty close. The meeting point was actually a Taoist temple in Kampung Sungai Buloh, but it doesn't show in any map. When

A client of mine in Brunei was very pissed with a bug in their mission-critical system. The problem was related to bad code on a poorly-maintained database that was shared by many others. My CEO got so pissed with the overall architecture that he convinced the client to let him carve it out. Once we got the green light, I was at the forefront of the internal resistance to the change. Since the owners of the problem were reluctant to do it, we had to drive it. I kept documenting all that was needed to be done, and circulated the proposed design for discussion. Most of the time, I was greeted with silence. I pushed on anyway. In the end, we got the owners to endorse the solution and implement it. We pushed it all the way to the UAT cycle where our client took their sweet time to test. They had already missed two so-called unmovable dates to sign-off, so when the third date came, it was firm. On the day I arrived in Brunei, even the items that could have been done weeks before were no

Mum was back at the dentist for her follow up appointment. He declared that her gums would take another two weeks to heal following the tooth extraction from her last visit. He just did the usual scaling and polishing. We would probably visit Datuk Dr. Wong (rare to see a dentist with a Datukship) again in the coming weeks because mum wants to get some dentures in. My sister arranged a birthday breakfast with me at Bacon and Balls at Happy Garden. According to BIL, the kids had been there weeks in a row! Food reviews on Foursquare were pretty mixed with many complaining that they were overpriced and lousy. Luckily for me, my breakfast experience was pretty good. Big Monster knew exactly what he wanted-- Pork Lasagna. After tasting it, I wasn't surprised why. His brother's requirements were pretty simple too. Just get him scrambled eggs and lots of streaky bacon. On top of that, we got the Flamingo Egg, a yummy baked egg with red sauce. Also Avacado Toast and Smoked Salmo

What to do after you turn 37....? Go for a medical check up. Been postponing my regular health check for a while now, so I took leave on a Wednesday to visit Life Care Diagnostics with mum. Thankfully the drive to Bangsar South only took 35 minutes. With the road works completed on Lebuhraya Bukit Jalil - Puchong, traffic out of my neighbourhood is now longer drives one crazy. We were greeted by their staff as we walked in, and they confirmed my appointment. But I found it funny that a walk-in customer actually got registered faster than mum and I. At the counter, they took down our details. While waiting for them to punch in everything, I overheard something very interesting from customer beside me: Staff: Mr XXX, what would you like to do today? Perhaps a head MRI? Mr. XXX: Head MRI? Didn't I just do that last year. Can you please check my record? Staff: Ohhhh yeah. Hmmm, what else... How about a heart scan? It's very good! Mr. XXX: OK la. Goodness. People

In an attempt to copy the success of the Marian Exhibition at Air Salak , my parish set up their own version at the church roof top. Compared to the Church of St. Mary, we had more floor space, but I think they did a better job. Wanted to let mum try the Mee Kolok at 7th Mile Kitchen, but by the time we arrived, they had already closed. Just hopped over to Restoran New Yew Sang to find something to eat. KH met us there and passed me some lovely chai kueh  from Chemor. When we left the kopitiam , I thought I left my car keys on the table. Ran up and down to find them, Turns out that the keys were in my shirt pocket. On the eve of my birthday, I was reminded that I was getting old! As one ages, birthdays seem to lose their significance. For instance, my 37th birthday was quite a low key affair. SK told me to decide on the venue, and make the reservation myself. Even the guest list was up to me. KH had an early flight to Tokyo the next morning, so spared him from attending the Su