will i am's delayed diary

Covid-19 first made headlines in Malaysia when several infected Mainland Chinese tourists in Singapore crossed the border to Johor during the final week of January 2020. The general public was quite dumbstruck on how the tourists ( without a care in the world ) decided to travel around knowing that a few of their family members were down with the deadly infection. From then on, some Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur had already started taking precautions, especially those who take the LRT and MRT. Truth be told, during those initial stages, I only wore a surgical mask once. My travel times to and from the office were quite off-peak, so I was spared much crowding. Just took the precaution of not unnecessarily touching the train surfaces, and refrain from touching my face. Also had a bottle of hand sanitizer handy in my backpack. As the days went by, and things got more alarming, more and more people started taking precautions. Most wore surgical masks. The more discerning used N95 masks. '

Gratitude came all the way from Klang to treat us to a CNY lunch at Restoran Jing Man Lou in Seri Kembangan . It was a shocker to find that the whole restaurant was crawling with multi-coloured Styrofoam dragons. A few tables were occupied, but hardly full. The CNY menu was also limited which did not please our host.    The main point was to have lou sang , and of course have a pot of waxed meat rice. The food wasn't very impressive, but perhaps it was because we didn't order their signature set which is a 10-dish platter with one soup in the middle.    As though the meal wasn't enough, we went to Day Nine Kitchen for coffee and dessert.   SK's stomach is like a black hole, she could still order bagels immediately after a heavy lunch.   Back home, I put up customized Catholic CNY couplets that I requested from my secondary schoolmate. SK collected it from him during her recent trip to Kuantan. 

KH and I had been together for 13 years. So many things had happened in between that I would definitely have many "Oh yeah!" moments if I reread my old blog posts. Recently, KH was spring cleaning his external hard drive that he came across love notes and messages that I used to send to KH while he was working in Singapore. Completely forgot about those. To mark our 13 years together, KH arranged a nice dinner in the heart of KL. FOOK is a contemporary Asian fusion restaurant located along Jalan Sultan Ismail, right before the now defunct Wisma KFC. We were actually earlier than valet attendant. Left the car out front, and climbed the long flight of stairs up to the restaurant which squats atop a small wooded hill. The bar area is large, with the counter dominated by large red lanterns. The dining area is mainly composed of wood and glass themes, and lots of paintings. The waitress showed us to our table which was located in one of the semi-private niches overlooking Jalan

The second day of CNY fell on a Sunday, so we were at church for the second day in a row. From church, we immediately set out to Teluk Intan for a day trip. My body was creaming for coffee, so we made a short stop at one of the larger Shell stations along the North-South Highway for Costa. Truly an overpriced cup of coffee. Weak. The moment we exited the highway at Sungkai, we saw a huge commotion by the side of the road. Loads of people of were stopping to have lunch at Nasi Bambu Sungai Klah . Heck, why not give it a try. My brother loves Malay food anyway. The place is like a huge mess hall. Although it's open air, the interior was super stuffy. Twin queues start right at the entrance. There's small table stacked with large stainless steel trays in between both lines. Mum and bro took the left queue, while I took the right queue. The right queue was for the grilled section. Among the specialties there were kambing salai buluh perindu , ayam percik , ayam nusantara

The first day of the Lunar Chinese New Year is always a tiring day for me. We'll be at church bright and early to help out with all the preparations : Moving a few hundred kilograms of mandarin oranges into place at the side of the altar. Arranging extra chairs outside the church. And make preparations for the Rite of Commemoration of Ancestors after mass proper. Here's an excerpt from the Herald :  Since giving respect to the family’s ancestors is also vital to Chinese New Year, the Rite of Commemoration of ancestors began after the final blessing. First an introduction on it was given, detailing why departed relatives are remembered with great  respect — because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the family. Honouring the ancestors on the first day of Chinese New Year is a way of fulfilling filial piety. It is a tradition of the church to offer special prayers to our departed loved ones during Mass. The rite of commemoration of the ance

Weeks of CNY marketing culminates in a lavish reunion dinner. Always way too much food for three of us to finish. But then, that's done on purpose to symbolize abundance. Check  out the Year of the Rat's centerpiece! Tired of the lou sang style, so did something different this year. YouTube is really the place for all sorts of DIY guides.

As it got closer to CNY, flowers were going at bargain prices. The beautiful blooms were such a cheerful sight to behold. The prayer items were also pleasing to the eyes, for example the cute plate of fishes surrounding a longevity peach. Made with pressed rice flour and no doubt industrial coloring, its a modern twist to a traditional cake. Happiness at the morning market was replaced by annoyance at my AirBnB. Had to deal with a never-ending plumbing problem at the kitchen. Some idiotic guests shoved food stuff down the sink, causing problems for both the kitchen and washing machine drainage. Ugh! My mood during the evening picked up because SK treated mum and I to a Japanese dinner at Jyu-Raku , SS15. Ordering is never a difficult thing when dining with SK. She would just breeze through the menu and pick out all the good stuff. Easy-peasy.