The Rehearsal

August 13, 2009

Finally, all the parties that needed to be participated in the ceremony are all in Kuching. This is the day to put things together, to fix any error, to adjust any mistake. Before the rehearsal day, the couple to be married had been meeting with the pastor to go over the program, ritual..etc.

The pastor is a family mutual friend. Pastor Wong and his family has been a great friends and support to our family way before I was born. Grace is their god daughter. That's how close the relationship is. Due to W's religious background which is Catholic, if he wants a Catholic father to run the ceremony, N has to be converted and before they get married both have to go through a lengthy marriage counseling. N, hell no she is converting. She's not even going to church nowadays. However.... Pastor Wong is Anglican based. Long story short, just a bit much for our preference as for ceremony wise. But due to our respect, we let it slides.

Ok, N the bridezilla was whipping her tail these few days. We let her be, it's her big day, she was stressed about it. I was there to help but she's not doing a good job passing down the task to me. For example, I wasn't informed earlier that I would be running the rehearsal. She was directing all the time, so I let her lah. But suddenly she told me to run it. Should have let me run it from the beginning!

So the day started with......

Breakfast but I'm not going to show you here! I'm so sick of breakfast that just carbs and greasy.... Anyway, here's an ugly landmark of Kuching old town. Here in Kuching, when you ask for direction, people will tell you,...neh, near the so and so building lah. They like to tell you landmark, specially buildings instead of properly give you a direction of street name, way of turning etc.


An old street that so familiar to me. This is old kuching. Kuching is divided into two county. Old Kuching which is the South and new kuching, which is the North. The South is mainly dominated by Chinese businesses, the North is more Malay based but because of the new development, North Kuching city planning is a way better. But I love the southern charm :)


Padungan Street. Papa Wong used to hang out here a lot on weekend because there were a lot of machinery/spare parts stores here. Nowadays, lots of old shops had been converted into modern cafes.


We were here to get some local snacks as our guest want to bring home to her friends in West Malaysia.


A lot of familiar snacks from my childhood still around. Mostly dried nuts. But nowadays, kids in the city want Nacho, potato chips, french fries, milk shakes, etc.


This is fish satay. Growing up, I love this stinky snack. Everyday, Mama Wong gave me 20 cents. One stick of fish satay was 10 cents at that time. I bought two sticks sometime.


Pick up my nephew and niece in the afternoon. They are my cousin's kids. Eden is 6 and he has a big job, the ring bearer. Eiffel is 4 and she's one of the flower girls.


I love them! They are so well behalf. I'm good with kids. To me, kids are like dogs. As long as you show them who is the pack leader, you have the control.


Aren't they adorable?????


I don't have picture of rehearsal because I was busy directing. But these two kids did a great job. They totally understand their tasks. The whole afternoon, their mom wasn't with them. They didn't cry, they didn't whine, they didn't do anything that irritate me at all. Amazing! So after the rehearsal, as promised them, I took them to the beach to look for sea shells.


On the way home from the resort. Eden shown me his project.... first page is a copy from newspaper. The picture shown his mom there. She was a performing pianist and later moved back to Malaysia to open a music school.


Did I mentioned that Eden is a genius? Well, I called him a genius. His IQ is way beyond his age. He self taught other languages, he "research" on his projects. He knows to go to internet to look for information. He creates "projects", he is into alphabets. Not just learning A to Z but...


FONTS!!! TYPO!!!! What the hack is a kid learning this??? But he learn it himself. I'm just amazed.


Japanese???


Created sentences about "Motion".....

There were just a few of his project example. He has a lot of it. He also has a system of how he writes things down on paper. It has to be tidy, categorized.

One night, I went to his house to hang out and it was time for him to go to bed. So he asked me to read him a book. The book is not children book, I was stunned of his bed time story book. It was a book about music, not children fold songs but classical music. After I read a chapter(yes, chapter) I asked if he understand at all and asked him a few questions, no doubt he totally understand and gave me the answers.

He is a smart ass. Her mom didn't do anything to teach him. He just has it in him. Oh yeah, he plays Sudoku.

Eiffel is the creative one. She is just like me, she has great sketching skill. Her sketching is way too good compare to kids her age. But her mom couldn't stand her graffiti at their house walls. she would just draw on the walls whenever she feels like it. I have to say, those graffiti was pretty impressive! Beside artistic, she has... perfect ears! Just like me.

The rehearsal went well. We have one more day to prepare and then it's the big day.

The Arrival of E & F

August 12, 2009


Day started with breakfast, of course. Today, I eat anything but Koo Loo Mee! I can't take another bite of koo loo mee. We went to this place, not sure of the name but they have some great selection of local pastries. One of my favorite is the pandan flavored steamed pastry. You can see it at the further corner of the plate. The white pastry is made of rice flour and the content usually is savory, daikon, dried shrimps, bean sprouts. We called it Chai Kuih, Chai means vege, kuih is pastry/cake. Most of our local pastry/cake recipe are steamed method instead of bake. The one with rice, peanuts is pitcher plant filled with seasoned rice, peanuts, dried shrimps and steamed. It's ok...


More kuih-muih.


The yellow kuih is made from Tapioca, we called Kayu Ubi. Kayu Ubi is really easy to plant, in the old time it was poor people food. Again, the best kayu ubi kuih is Mama Wong's. She didn't make it too sweet, just enough sweetness.


All of the kuih-muih, this is my #1 love for kuih. We bought this at a mall. But the only person that makes the best is Mama Wong. This is yam cake. Mama Wong's yam cake has big chuck of yams, lots of dried shrimps, with kick of fried pork meat piece like bacon. I remember all the flavor... I haven't eat the yam cake she made for many many years.


My #2 love for kuih. This is just simply poached rice flour ball with palm sugar inside and coated with fresh shredded coconut meat. Real easy to make but the mixed texture, flavors just make it a fun dessert, it's so chewy! The bite with palm sugar bursts into your mouth... hm.. hm.. hm..


Durian is the king of fruit in South East Asia but my king of fruit is rambutan. When I was young, when we got rambutans from friends who owned rambutan plantation, I would spent hours of hours in the kitchen, cleaned the fruits, separated the fresh from seeds then stored them at the fridge. Eating chilled rambutan fresh on hot day is the best! I would ate so much of them that I got stomach ache. Sometime we got too many rambutans and can't finish them. We would preserved them but putting clean rambutan in a big pottery container and poured salt in it. Wait for a week or so.... oh my god, the fermented fruits produced alcohol. I would ate a lot of it. Papa Wong would made fun of me like a documentary we saw, some monkeys ate fermented fruits and they acted funny.


When you go to Asia countries like Singapore and Malaysia, you'll see many hawker stores selling chicken rice. It's the "meal" for a lot of office workers, or just local. It's convenience, a package of flavored rice with chicken, you can choice roasted or steamed chicken, and the part you like, usually no one in Asia like white meat. They all like drrrrrum stick, that's Mama Wong style of saying drum stick. A good chicken rice must have good garlie chili paste to go with it. Without the chili paste... it ain't chicken rice!


See that chili paste?


Remember when the house were first remodeled? It was so simple, clean, minimized concept, edgy,.... now... it looks like la kiah house. La Kiah is term for native Dayak. N put way too many accessories in the house, it creates too much cluster. In stead of accent theme, it becomes over done. I don't blame her, she's not the interior designer, she can be decorator but not designer. That's what most decorators in the market do.... just look into home decor magazine, you see what I mean.

Of course today, we did a lot... I can't really remembered every tasks. But for sure we were all anxiously waiting for the moment.....


Before the sun went down.... E and FF arrived at Kuching International Airport!!!! They flied non stop from LA, Taipei, KL, Kuching. E looked tired. He's getting old! Or the marriage life gets him. HAHA


FF met her MIL.


Then we went for dinner. Three MILs. I tricked E to buy dinner. I said..... you must buy first dinner, like makan selamat... actually ah... because the night before W paid, then another night before, I paid. So we just want other people to pay. HAHA plus... is his MIL mah, he better paid for the dinner. We just tupang makan.


Sea cucumber soup. E kept saying is shark fin soup... no way, ok. N and I haven't drink shark fin soup for decades! I know what shark fin looks like.


Stray cats and dogs still everywhere in the city.


This is Wong family's favorite. In old day, we had mani chai planted in our garden. It was easy to plant and grow really fast. We probably ate at mani chai at least once a week.


Honestly, I'm not impress at all. The fried fish nuggets had mango in it. The taste.... msg. Yuck! Way too much salt and msg, you hardly taste the real taste.


Roasted pig feet. I didn't eat a piece. I'm such a health nut. I don't get excited about thing like this. But N.... she was like... hmm.. the fat is so silky, .....


A couple hours later, at our patio, .... continued drinking session from the night before and before and before.....


Alan and Alvin came from Sarikei! They were big helpers for the ceremony. I first met Alan when he was.... 18 months old. He was such a cried baby but he grown up to be a fine young man. Alvin was a talented baby, he was on the piano at very young age! But he's not as active which is not good. Kind of slow. HAHA. Anyway, they are good kids. Never disobey us... if they ever say anything back to me when I asked them to do something.... I would say...I wiped your asses many many time... that will shut them off.

E and FF were tired so they didn't stay up late with us. Most of the night FF went to bed very early, unlike the Wongs and Yaps. We were such party animals.

Meeting with Damai Team

August 11, 2009

We tried to wake up early every day this week since.... we just don't have much time to waste. But can you imagine drinking every night and waking up early every morning for a week felt like for me?


Breakfast that packed with bad carbs, lards, msg.


However, I do like these. Kuih-muih(traditional steamed/fried pastries made of local ingredients, not always sweet, but savory too) with Kopi-O Kau Kau Kosong(the way local orders a black strong coffee) is the best.


This was Chicken Curry with mee. Mee is the term we used for Noodle. Well, this was good but way too heavy for me as breakfast.


We went to Kenyalang Park to buy a few items for wedding decoration needs. Kenyalang Park is the very first mall that I remembered as kid. When Mama Wong said "Let's go to Kenyalang" I would jumped up and down because it was fun to go there back in the old time, the seventies. There was a cinema back then, book stores, craft stores, fashion stores, restaurants. Now, it's all run down but still have some small businesses around. Oh, check out my eye bags.


We, the female team went to the famous, one of the kind "Orchid Garden" in Kuching. This business has been around as long as I am. It's the oldest Orchid Plantation in Sarawak. The owner also the only supplier that imports flowers from West Malaysia and sell it to florists in Kuching. They have limited selection. So we have to go there a few days early to book our flowers. Those flowers we booked were for Bride Maids. For Ann's flower bouquet, it will be something very special. You'll see it soon :)


Rushed to Damai Beach Resort to meet with the team that put together the wedding. I was a bit worry about how well this team can pull together a big party. The wedding list has about 350-400 persons, with rooms that we pre booked, honeymoon suites have to be decorated. You see I put suiteS because as a gift from Ann and Winston, they are giving Eddie and his new wife(not so new anymore lah) a decorated honeymoon suite. Lots of decoration that the team have to set up per Ann's design....But I crossed my fingers, I hope all things go well that day.


Hahaha, look at Winston's eye bags... big and black.


checked out the site. We specially request the Damai team, do not put all party animals stay at those rooms up at the hill. We want to be closed to the bar, the pool and the beach :)! The sky was gloomy, not because it's overcast but it was the haze from burning forests at Indonesia, and fucking Malaysia too.


Seems like the Damai team was set to go so we drove to a fish village next to Damai Resort, Buntang for .... food, not even dinner time yet, we just wanted to eat some fresh seafood.

Why the hell there was pink water???????????


It was a chemical reaction of salted sea water with used laundry water. So polluted. This water eventually will mixed with the sea water during high tide. Sad....


A view out to the sea. Can't really see the horizon line. Too hazy.


From left to right: The Best Man, The Groom, The Bride, The Bridemaid of Honor


These crabs were steamed with Guinness Stout, awesome taste and great fresh texture.


The size comparison. It's so big!


This was the best shrimps dish I had during my entire trip in South East Asia. It was so fresh. Steamed perfectly with rice wine and seasoned with ginger and salt. The sweetness of it brought tears to my eyes.... that good. yes.

Ah~! Another day. You know what we did at night. Repeat or I should say, continue on what we left off the night before, more drinking. Can't wait for tomorrow, yeah!

Family Dinners & Wedding Preparation

August 9-10, 2009

W and I arrived Kuching at the same day. W has been working in the Oil Town this past year, aka Miri. It left a week till his big day so he has to be back for all the preparation of the wedding.


Mama Wong and Ming. I know Ming before she was born. Mama Wong was Ming's nanny, even till now, Mama Wong is her guardian while she stay with us in Kuching.


Ming was a good baby when we babysit-ted her. I remembered she was only 1 year old, her mom dropped her off around 7am at our house and she would climbed the stairs slowly to second floor of my house where all bedrooms were. She then knocked on my bedroom door, "Doreen Jie Jie, wake up, it's morning already" with her cute, sweetest voice. She is now 18. I'm 36. Time flies.


W & N. Look at W, he had been out for too many nights of bachelor party.


Deer meat with ginger and spring onion. The meat was very tender, juicy and lean.


Steamed sea bass. This is called Teowchew Style and it's the best way to eat fish. My favorite way because you can really taste the freshness of the fish, the meat is soft and texture is smooth.


No meal is complete without fresh cut chili.

And we had lots of other dishes. I paid for the dinner because it's the first family meal at home and I want to feed my family.


Here we go. The last week before the wedding on weekend. Lots of things to do but first we need to get carbs packed breakfast before we start the day. We went to Kuching famous Laksa place at Golden Arch. It's hard to find parking there.


Koo Loo Mee. It literally means "dry-stir-noodle". This is the staple of Kuching people and it's our pride.


When I was young, I always wish Mama Wong had to run errands in town and can't cook lunch for us to bring to school, then she would give us RM$1.00 to buy lunch. I would buy Koo Loo Mee and a soda for just RM$1.00. I remembered eating the noodle slowly to enjoy every bits of it. Then drank the soda because I was too thirsty from msg used in the noodle! The taste is actually pretty basic but it's the noodle itself that makes the different here. It's very "Q".


Ladies and Gentlemen, this is all Sarawakians' pride. It's usually seafood soup base in coconut milk with lots of spices. It's spicy and served with belacan sambal. We eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner or just anytime you would like to. Yes, it's heavy for breakfast I must say. And paired with a strong Kuching Coffee...yes, it's send you to toilet right after.


There is a place in Kuching where they sell wedding preparation items for Chinese style only. As you can see here, red, gold is the must color for wedding. You wonder why baskets, luggage are sold here right? Well, in the old time, the bride would be carry to the groom house and with her gifts from her family that packed in basket. The luggage, well now it's modern day some bride uses luggage instead of basket.


The couple choosing Ang Pau for the event. Ang Pau is red envelope in Hokkian dialect. They have to give out Ang Pau to kids on that day and to their friends and family who helped with the event.


There are a lot of symbolism in Chinese wedding. Like this here, all those beans mean having lots of off spring.


I joke you not(I heard a lot of Malaysians said like this.... ), some people really decorate their room like this.


This is "spit bucket" symbolizes having lots of off spring again.


Our family is not traditional at all. We didn't get any tacky stuffs to symbolize anything but just some red cloth. The cloth will be hang at the door way.


A few of this


A few of that


Let's move to the check out line. The second basket was gift we got for Eddie.


Next on our to do list was: Getting bottled waters, soda, juices for guests at our houses on the wedding morning. So we went to this whole sale supermarket. I saw this big bag of MSG. I hate MSG. Whenever I order food at restaurant I will tell them no MSG and insists NO MSG because I'm super allergy to it and can cause me serious reaction and I can die.... Yes, I say that sometime just to screw with them. haha


Met up with Mama Wong for lunch. Check out her new tattoo. Didn't see it? It's right there... there above her eyes.


We took Tau Keh W to Bee Hin Goldsmith for a new pair of pearl earrings. I was too busy catching up with Uncle and Auntie Liu. I didnt' take any pictures. Aiya! Then we hang out at Carpenter Street. I saw this. Talk about safety.... this is complete violated electric code if it's in USA but it's Malaysia, anything can, no problem. Aside that, I think it's a cool picture.


It's dinner time! Two mothers so concentrated on their food. That is W's mother.


oh mine, this restaurant sucks ass. We ordered a few dishes and they came out one by one instead of all together. I hate eating like that.


Look at this sorry ass soup....


Shrimps were over cooked and sauce was way too gluey.


Only dish that night that I gave a thumb up was steamed fish. Very fresh but I gave a thumb down for serving the fish last!!! We already fulled and the fish was served. WTF.


W was politely serving fish to everyone. That's E over there, W's brother.


Is it cool how the cook(I won't call chef) split the fish in half so it's easy for customers to eat the whole fish without flipping the side. In Kuching, you order fish in whole, there is no fish fillet.


At night, we had meeting for the wedding committee. W was being a good host and served beverage to his/our guests.


He had the first sip while other listening carefully to N.


One bottle done.


Second bottle half done. T started to get a bit silly while N still seriously discussing about her big day.


I had some instant tanned too. That's what I called healthy glow!


The ceremony handout still in it's first draft. Need pastor to do his final review.


The time schedule for the big day. I was the time keeper.


We have a very spacious property. Mama Wong did a good purchase and Ann managed the remodeling last year while I did the conceptual design. Aside of poor workmanship, I really like the house. Big sliding doors, lots of natural light and air. So if you happen to visit Kuching, feel free to stay here. We love to have guests.


W enjoyed his tuak (Iban rice wine) with fancy crystal glass.


Third bottle done. W confused and not sure what's his task was....


Women went to the room for further discussion.


Mama Wong's handy work. She made all the flower girl dresses and N's wedding gown and night gown. She is truly talented and skilled. At age 71, she still have good hands.

We went to bed late. Tired but had lots of fun. More preparation work for next day.

Mama Wong's Jewelry

It's a family tradition to pass on jewelry from mother to daughter or son. Especially for soon to be wedded daughter, the mother usually will prepared special jewelry for her. Since we were all home for a big event, Mama Wong spent sometime "analyzing" her humble jewelry collection and equally divided between us. Every single piece of her jewelry has a story behind it. It's not something she went shopping and bought it.

Even though all these jewelry have been wore for a long time and the design is outdate but I have to say she did a good job "modernizing" some of her jewelry to give us. I'm so impress with her gift. Also the reason she decided to give them all to us because she wanted us to receive the gift on a happy event instead after her death. She is very thoughtful.


Inside this jewelry gift box is a jade pendant. Mama Wong had wore this pendant since she got it from her dad when she was nine year old. The story was grandpa asked Mama Wong to pick a number for lucky draw and she picked number 9 because that year she turned 9. Grandpa won the lucky draw with that number and bought Mama Wong a jade pendant as a gift for the good luck she brought him. It is now a gift to pass on to Eddie's wife. Mama Wong said it will later pass to their daughter or daughter in law. So Eddie, ... time to make baby.


I got the diamond ring which to me, it's the most important gift from Papa Wong to her. The gold pendant was a gift from Ah Ma(my grandmother from father side) to Mama Wong when she married to the Wong family. The gold bracelet is actually my jewelry. I only wore it during Chinese New Year. Till I turn 12, it was too small to fit on my wrist. Another piece of jewelry that is not shown in here is a jade pendant in leaf shape which was given from Ah Ma. All these are under my possession.


For Ann, she got a few more pieces. Mostly jewelry that Mama Wong had been wore for a long time. She added a new pair of jade earring to match the jade bracelet. Thank god she used a nice, velvet gift box instead of the plastic gift box.

For Eddie, she asked Uncle Liu to custom make a super Ah Beng ring with a big alphabet E. So Ah Beng that I didn't take a picture of it.

What did Mama Wong wears now after she gave away all these jewelry? No worry, she has a few more pieces that we bought for her as gifts for her birthdays during all these years. Mostly pearl earring, pearl pendant and pearl ring with small diamonds which are so much elegant on her. She told me all those I should keep after she pass away.

The Most Priceless Gift

I arrived home safely and went to lunch with Mama Wong, Ming and Ann. Then hung out in Mama Wong's bedroom for afternoon nap. Mama took out three red boxes under her bed. It's the familiar gift boxes from Bee Hee Goldsmith.


Mama Wong gave this to me to keep. This is a very important gift from Papa Wong. Back in the 70's, family life was not easy for a medium income family with 6 people. I remembered it was our parents' wedding anniversary. Something like that, I was too young to remember clearly. Papa Wong called up Uncle Liu who lived at least 10 miles away from us. Uncle Liu is our family friend who owns Bee Hee Goldsmith. It was night time and Uncle Liu without hesitation drove all the way by himself with a box fulled of all kind of rings with rocks-diamond. Mama Wong was surprised, overwhelmed with those jewelry. Papa Wong only gave her an small diamond ring for wedding ring prior to this. I don't know where Papa Wong got the money. I don't know the price of diamond at that age. Mama Wong spent sometime and carefully made her pick. The ring has very unique design. I'm not sure if it was made by Uncle Liu. I think it cost rm$800 and absolutely Uncle Liu gave a big discount to Papa Wong. The size of the diamond is over 1 carat. It's not a big amount for now but back in the 70's, it was huge! Over these past 30 something years, Mama Wong only wore this ring on special occasions.


She gave it to me. I'm honored and touched. I think she knows no man will give me a diamond ring and I will not buy a diamond ring for myself, at least I have a diamond ring from someone, someone that loves me. I will keep this till the day I die and pass it on to someone else in the family.

Home Sweet Home 2009

Yes, I was back to San Francisco two weeks ago but had been busy trying to adjust back to the working mode. So far so good, workload is really light for me as my project is done and right now I'm just act as support for teams that need any kind of help, nothing particular, whatever they want me to do I'll do it as long as I have an account to charge my 40 hours per week schedule.

Economy seems to pick up these past months. My company has a few big projects finally kick start as I heard and a few on hold projects are back on track. They have started to hire new specialty staffs to work on those projects as old staffs were laid off. I checked stock market every morning and recently just checked on my retirement accounts. There are good signs of recovery. Money that I lost last year is back in my account :) Phew~!!!! Never touch your long term investment account. Mama Wong sold her stock when it dropped without consulting with me. Gosh, I was so mad to find out she sold it and after long discussion to her about stock market... her came out with the conclusion: it's not a good investment for her because when stock drops, her blood pressure ups.

This trip home is so wonderful. Beside all the fun and new experience in other countries, and most important to me is the reconnection of friends from all over and family with new little one that I met for first time.

So here it is, I present to you ~ Home Sweet Home 2009 ~


Last minute packing. I had to work the next day and my flight was next day mid night.


I packed as many hot pants as I can. Forget about jeans when travel to South East Asia during the hottest month of the year.


Yeah~! Lots of Bikinis. Not all is mine but at least 3 pairs are :)

My luggage weighted about 22kg. My hand carry luggage was about 11kg. Good that Eva Airline ticketing staff was kind to allow me carry the 11kg on plane. Nowadays, airlines are very strict with how much weight and size of you carry on luggage.


SFO-Taipei. This is a special design Hello Kitty Nursery Room at the airport terminal. There is also a special Hello Kitty waiting lounge and gift shop that sells limited edition Hello Kitty junks. I have a transit about 4 hours at the airport. Walked around doing nothing as it was 4am in the morning. My flight was 9am from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur. It was bored as hell but good that there's free wireless internet connection. Most Asia airports provide free internet connection.


Arrived Malaysia!!!!


Street food is down dirty and cheap. You have to get use of eating at the road side where cars and motorcycles pass by.


Once again, I missed the chance to get up to the building. In order to get in you have to get the free passes that give away every morning and you have to be in line for that as early as 7am.


New construction sites keep popping up here and there in Kuala Lumpur. Some are really well design.


BUT..... look at this shit. The mosaic tile is 1"x1", just look at how thick is silicone caulking between the wall to the counter top. Look closely to the tile grout. This is unacceptable if it's my project. I would have the contractor redo it. But, usually for my project, during the installation I will check the workmanship while in progress to avoid this kind of crappy installation.


They used caulking everywhere to fill the off dimension. If you not sure what I mean, look at the left side of mirror where a big gap of white line between the mirror and the mirror frame/fin. The mirror was cut too small to fit the frame.

Not that I want to be such a bitch. I do understand the lack of skill in a lot of the labors from out of Malaysia. But it's a contractor's job to over looking their work and if they lack of skill, train them. In a lot of case, some contractors didn't even know how to do things correctly.


Say Fook and Yew Mun. I haven't see Say Fook since 1998. Over 10 years time apart without much contact but finally I met him. Same old Ah Fook, the connection that we have still strong and remain tight. Yew Mun still look as young as when I met him in 1992 to interview as his roommate. Time went by fast. We just met up for lunch and it is not enough to catch up but we had a good time.


We had lunch at this famous Indian restaurant in Bangsar.


Yew Mun was such a popular guy back in MIA. He has long silky hair and always wore this super beat up short. Girls in the college were admired that I was his roommate.


Say Fook back then was not our roommate but he was Yew Mun's classmate. He spent a lot of time at our rented house. Say Fook is a joker. Whenever Say Fook around, there's laughter. Say Fook, Yew Mun and myself, we like to speak in Malay.


Delicious Indian food. This place is always packed. You have to line up to get a seat in the restaurant.


At night, I met up with another group of friends. I knew them from junior high. Dad transferred his job from Kuching to Limbang. The entire family moved there in 1986 and left from Limbang to Sarikei in 1988. They were my classmates of three years while in Limbang. Kim and I kept good contact for this long. Then we all met again in Kuala Lumpur after high school to further study. when I moved to USA it was harder at the beginning to keep in touch with them. But Kim and I still wrote letters to each other till later email replace letter and then instant messaging replace email. Now thanks to Facebook, we all reconnect there.


This guy, I haven't see him for over 20 years!


Another group photo before we called the night off. Now most of them are parents.


Booze buffet... too funny.


A very high end shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur that just opened. It's called Pavilion. A lot of new malls in America started to use these kind of food court concept. They called it dining terrance instead of food court which sound cheap.


This mall has all the world famous fashion vendors. I do not afford to buy things in there.


Look at the traffic, it's always like this. Cars moved inch by inch. One of the reason I decided to left Kuala Lumpur back then was this. I felt my life was wasted on traffic jam.


Then I flied back to Kuching after 3 days 4 nights in Kuala Lumpur.