Short Note: Have a Happy New Year to all my readers!!


I hardly make new year resolutions, one because I believe that you don’t need the New Year as a starting point to set a goal. Goals should be set whenever deemed necessarily and worked towards it within the given set amount of time or the shortest possible time that’s acceptable to you.

Two, because it’s like a curse. New Year’s resolutions never come true! Never achievable and least likely to be bothered by most who failed to pursue it. It’s true!!! A universal known fact.

I mean, why bother make a list anyway?

But then it doesn’t really matter, resolutions are still resolutions anyway, whether New Year’s or not. Besides, 2008 sounds like a good year. And I can bet a thousand bucks that on 08.08.2008, there will be at least 888 couples getting married in Asia alone.


So here goes. My New Year resolutions for the year 2008, (and I’m serious)


1. To lose 20 pounds (10 pounds by the end of march)
2. Get a decent hair cut, or at least a new do. A new dye maybe?
3. Generate more income, make my mommy proud and buy her lots of gifts so to celebrate her 60th year. Daddy’s too.
4. Travel around peninsular Malaysia at one go.
5. Make an extensive trip to the West for at least 2 months or more with nothing but bare necessities and a laptop.
6. Become a great cook. So to make my future husband happy (whoever he might be).
7. Adopt a healthier lifestyle, means proper food with all the wholesome vegetable and fruity goods instead of sugary stuff like doughnuts (OMG!) and cakes (double OMG!), sleep appropriately and head to the gym habitually.
8. And finally, fly to Las Vegas to see the love of my life - David Copperfield perform live on stage. Get married to him and have lots of babies.




All eight resolutions. :D

If the first seven fail, I’ll make sure the last one come true, even if I have to stow away on a ferry to the states and rape him many times over. I don’t care if he’s 51 or he’s engaged or he’s been accused of raping. I’d loved him since I was 5!!!




He can rape me anytime!!

Short Note:

A friend of mine is looking for a size 38 of this pair of Lewre shoe. Anyone who encounters them do drop me an email. She'll gladly buy you a drink and a blowjob for it. (Okay maybe not the latter one but you can dream) :)


Ever wonder how I look like 5 years ago?

When I was still a rascal, one of the boys, playful teenager.

Well, you don't get much fashion teachings coming from an almost all boys' class in college.

I mean, come on, I was studying software engineering back then. Who the hell (as a girl) study software anyway~~~ Geez... (Okay maybe a lot during the dot com boom but not enough girls to fill 20% of the class)

It's amazing how time and social life in the society, some exposure to working and night life in a city, couple of trips to foreign land can change a person.



This was me back in 2002.




Oh the ghastly hair dye, the specs, the make-up-less no trimming no priming face and fashion sense. It's horrible I know. And the culprit who threw ice on me was (still is) my pet brother laughing devilishly at the back. He's also the top student in class, after me.. Ke ke ke... No actually, I was always second because of him. -.-

These were my classmates...




We had good fun. Yup, the good old times where work stress and money were never problems to students like us.




And hair colouring is totally acceptable and COOL back then. Oh god, I can't look at myself now. *cover monitor screen*

But yes, it's coming to the end of 2007 and five years ago will soon become 6 years ago. That's half a dozen of years! OMG.. more than half a decade!

To the good old times...




Don't you miss youth?


Although I have not seen half of you since I left for England.

I was digging around the photos in my PC when I stumbled across some videos of me and Kenny travelling in Sapa, Vietnam back in September.

I took some of them out and edited into three separate videos. Enjoy~


This is us strolling down the road in Sapa.




Ha the H’mong girl helping me to adjust my belt of my H’mong dress.




Running wild with Ha all over the mountain of Sapa. -.- (damn tiring wei, the feisty girl is hyperactive)




I'm missing Vietnam.. :(

Today is Boxing Day!!




No not boxing~~

BOXing Day.




It’s a public holiday, right after Christmas on the 26th December.

I used to think Boxing Day is a day for every house to get rid of their empty Christmas boxes right after all the presents exchanging the day before. (Not before I actually thought it was a day of people boxing each other when I saw the public holiday date on an English calendar)

At least that’s what my English born and bred cousin told me. Ermmm….

Boxing Day was actually a day to help the poor, give gifts to the workers or people of lower social status. It’s a day of fox hunting in England until it was banned in November 2004.




Read here for the different folk tales of Boxing Day.

Anyway, I love Boxing Day. It’s a day where England performs one of its most remarkable events in the entire year. All the major (and small) stores in the country launch their year’s biggest sales ever. And I mean it’s HUGE, ENORMOUS. The lowest discount would be 40% in the more cheapskate stores, right up to 90%!!!

Because it’s so big, usually it last for a whole week.


Folks, this… is Oxford Street.


Click here for full size.


I used to breathe the air of Oxford Street, on Boxing Day I would move in and out of shops and stores like a hamster squirreling around tree holes, from one end to the other endlessly till the sun sets, which I would then return home and come back the next day, for numerous days.

It is where you find the world largest single shop fashion store that stood 5-storeys high (and god knows how many levels under) Topshop, a 50,000sqft Europe’s largest music shop HMV, and also many other high street brand like Zara, Gap, Warehouse, H&M, Moonsoon, etc.

I once bought this pair of suede boots that cost £45 originally and it was on 90% discount. Meant I only paid for £5!!! (only RM35 okay!! Omg o.O) A blinking pair of perfectly new, might be out of season but still pretty nice looking, black suede boots!!! Which I wore like almost everyday after that.

I miss those days.

Happy Boxing Day Everyone!! :D

Now go punch your friend.

I couldn't resist it. I just have to post this up and wish everyone...






A very Happy Merry Merry Christmassssssss!!!!


Have a wonderful holiday season to everyone around the world!!!!

From yours truly.

Short Note:
Talking to myself

Nicole1: I’m celebrating a red Christmas this year
Nicole2: I’ve heard of white Christmas, but wth is a red Christmas?
Nicole1: A period one.


“Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock~”

Oh don’t you just love Lindsay Lohan doing that slutty dance move on Jingle Bell Rock in the Mean Girls.

If only Betty Boop in her skanky santarina outfit can make my day singing the song Santa Baby.




It’s a season to be sexy. And I’m stuck at home writing my thesis… Wee~~ -.-


Everywhere you go, it’s sprinkled with Christmas decoration. This is 1 Utama’s,




Sometimes I think it’s a good thing they commercialise Christmas, else we won’t be feeling any Christmas here in Malaysia.




Everywhere in PJ are filled with Christmas-y toys and Christmas-y trees and lights.


Mid valley


Mid Valley’s going orange this year.








And The Curve opt for white Christmas, my favourite. :D




With very cute reindeer and snowman.




Feels almost like winter.


How I wish I am in Luxemborg now.





Here’s an advertorial for the year end.

Gua Year End Poll

Anyway, this is not a normal advertorial because now is your chance to give your opinions, good and bad about this particular cool new site that has been launched not too long ago.

And I supposed for those of you who have been an avid blog reader must have heard of gua.com.my by now from numerous other bloggers on their blog sites.

There are a few things I like about this site. First is the food review section. Yum yum..


Latest entry on Sushi Groove


It’s great that the site feature some of the hottest and latest eating place in KL. Just looking at the food makes me drool.




I don’t know about you, but I luuurrrvvveee food. Just looking at the photos makes me happy. Of course it’s always wise to read reviews about a certain eating outlet before actually visiting one. The last thing you want is to pay for something you don’t particularly enjoy eating, it’s worse when the food you’re paying give you a ticket to the hospital.

As for the celebrity gossips, one thing that caught my attention is when they feature an interview about Lina Teoh (One of the few rare Miss Malaysia World who got into top 3 in Miss World competition in history. The first was Datuk Michelle Yeoh) who has always been my idol.




I like reading about her and her achievements now. Makes me wonder where I will be in 10 years time and thing we could do.

I might be jumping to conclusion simply because I found two things I really like about the site at first glance. But you have to admit, they got good stuff there. (the food especially ;p)

Now, it has always been a tradition to do a year end review, a self reflection of every company and get feedback so as to seek improvement in their service, outlook and site quality for their users, viewers and readers out there.

So yea, whether you’re bitchy about gua and want to bash the site because of something you unsatisfied about or you just want to be a sweet young thing and compliment nonchalantly. Go to their year end poll and provide your feedback, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. :)

Have a Merry Christmas y’all!

Quote of the day:

"If you don't get the best grades don't fret
I didn't do well in school and I'm a multi-millionaire".

-- Adam Sandler

Don't you just love Adam?


I awoke in the midst of dawn. Sat up on my bed and rubbed my eyes. It’s still dark outside. I heard dog barking in the distant, or was it just few doors across the corridor? I wasn’t sure; sleepiness has drowned my logical sense.

I leaned over to squint at the clock sitting next to my bed, 5:15am.

Stomach’s growling. Erm… maybe I should have eaten dinner? But then I have one of the strangest eating habits, inconsistent almost. Sometimes a bag of peas can fill me up for a whole day, and then I found myself lying awake on my bed in the middle of the night feeling hungry.

I needed to get back to sleep. But then I stood up and walked out to the living room, into the kitchen, grabbed a yellow cup and poured myself some banana milk from the fridge; then walked back into the living room, pulled out a chair and sat down in front of the pc.

The pc’s loading itself while I finished the cup of milk in my hand. Ahh… banana flavoured milk, one of the best inventions. I heard HL is coming out with a strawberry flavoured one, but then I’m never a fan of strawberry by-products, they all have the similar cough syrup taste, or was it because of my childhood that my mom always fed me that awful strawberry thick creamy cough medicine which permanently puts me off strawberry flavoured products? Banana, on the other hand, tastes good with everything, especially with peanut butter and bread.

A mosque nearby started its praying session which made me realised I was still in Malaysia. That proved how long I have not been awake at this hour of the time, at least for a good few months.

I love the night. Quiet and peaceful, time seemed to stop during these hours. And inspiration would start flowing in and suddenly there’re a lot of things to think about, to write about.

I thought about the Europe trip that I want to take next year. And how ridiculously the visa is going to cost me, RM1400 for a visa (UK)? Geez… time to save up lots and lots of money. Wonder how much one needs to travel to Europe? 10k? 20k? The moroseness of having a weak currency sank in.

Someone asked me to commit to do cardio in the gym for at least an hour everyday. The thought alone sent chills down my spine. An hour? That’s mental. But then it’s either that or I remained fat for the rest of my life. Harsh, but I agree. Commit, or never. It’s like how we should see life, to either obligate the task to its full extend, or never to start at all.

And since I have decided to dedicate my life to travelling, might as well do one extensive one, one insane journey, something which I have always wanted to do while I’m still in my youth and can look back in years to come and reminisce my achievements.

I often said to myself, yes, money is important, but what’s the point of living a life if you have never experience and experiment with what and how far life can bring you. Many lived through their lives working and fulfilling dreams of others or self material needs that they looked pass a lot of big establishments in life: family, love, having a ‘life’ and contribution to those who are less fortunate.

But despite many that I can have and give, love seems to omit itself from my life. I wonder why is this a problem to me now? As it was never a problem before. Or has it always been a problem, and that I was too blunt to notice?

….


mmm.. sun’s rising… inspiration gone.

Time to head back to bed. Night, everyone.

The other day I was chatting with a friend who is a model and an actress and wondered how she keeps so fit all the time.

It’s finally time I sit down and tell myself, this sluggish lazy lifestyle has got to stop. Ever since I stopped travelling and decided to work for a while and to finish my study, my life revolves around my computer, my computer and my computer.

It’s not helping my bum and it’s not helping my shoulder, I can actually feel cellulite growing behind it. Dang~

So I decided to change my way of diet, as advised by my beautiful friend.

Hence I called up a friend and headed out to my nearby Giant Hypermarket for some groceries.

I like Giant. It’s nice and has everything that I want locally. Tesco is nice and has a wide variety of stuff I usually would like to buy that’s imported from the UK, like cheese, crackers, snacks, and lots of fresh fishes, but they pale in comparison when it comes to raw vegetables and other local products and they are mostly halal so it’s not possible for you to buy ham here.


Mexican Bun from Giant


Another thing I love about Giant is their staffs are always so friendly, and their vegetables are freaking cheap. I bought a bunch of “sawi” and it costs only 39 cents, get it from Tesco it’ll be at least RM1.20.

Support the local they say. Support the local I shall.


Pineapples~ Me like…


I can’t help but to stop at many of the wonderful fruity display there.




Many times I was so tempted to buy them. But no! “Focus Nicole, focus.”

And I went on to the can food section to look for inspiration for dinner tonight.




In the end I bought some raw ingredients instead of the can foods. Frozen peas are definitely better than canned peas.


That’s rice for my friend in the Styrofoam bungkus since I’m supposed to go carb-less.


After getting all that we needed, we proceeded to cashiers.


Eggs, we must always have eggs



Minced buffalo


And we went home happily.

The End. wtf

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But what about diner??

Ok la ok la, we finish dinner first k?

Mind you I haven’t cook in a loooonnnnggg time. So here it goes…

This is my favourite cooking ingredient, it’s as versatile as eggs. Maybe because I used to stay in England and everything there are about tomatoes, potatoes, eggs. Cheese, pasta and wieners come second.


Preparation


I cooked three simple dishes, this being one of my favourite dishes when I was in UK. I must warn you though; I have a very weird diet. And it mostly consists of tomatoes and eggs. I just lurrrve tomatoes and eggs.


And tomatoes and eggs it is


Healthy home cooked boiled vege.


Never buy Kimbal Oyster sauce. It sucks.


And finally, the minched buffalo.




With tomatoes. :D


My friend said it tasted like pasta. Erm….



The End.


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What??!! No photo of me cooking? What? Don’t believe I cook?

What? No? Where got people so free take so many photos la while cooking.

Dang~~~

Fine fine, here…




I look horrible I know, shut up. I just got back from gym before my groceries.

Today is a good day for me. I woke up early, went down to gym only to find the condo is celebrating it’s first year anniversary and they’re going to throw a party tonight. Ah.. I love celebrations.

I called up a friend to go grocery shopping with me, decide to cook and eat in for a change today. Something I have not done in a lonnng time. I also realized my stamina is down the pits because after 15 minutes on the treadmill, I was out of breath (well not really, but probably didn’t really push myself that hard).

Anyway, this is getting out of topic, will talk about my journey to healthy home cook food in the next entry. Now, let’s get back to the title.

Karaoke. Ah… the friend and family bonding Asian cultural event. No where else apart from the Eastern Asia have I seen businesses built solely on the concept of many cubicle rooms in a tight area for the purpose of letting groups of young and the old singing to a box.

Ask any Caucasion, they probably think Karaoke means sitting on a stool on stage in a bar singing to a crowd of ignorant dull audience who are busy drinking beers.

But not to Asian culture. No.

Karaoke is like, part of our live. Part of growing up, of weekly entertainment, of social networking, a place where you celebrate your birthday, your after company dinner event, your farewell party. It’s everything that we are. We Asians love singing! To ourselves.

Because we are shy, we don’t like singing to a sea of strangers, we like to torture our friends with our croaks, we like to be intimately cramped up in a dark and small confined area. Or maybe that was just me?

Now, for all Malaysian, Asians, even Japanese who have not been to Tokyo before and the rest of the world. This is Karaoke in Tokyo, Japan.




Wait wait.. I know you’re going to say it looks exactly the same as it is in Malaysia. But it’s not! Oh… it’s so not!

The experience of karaoke in Tokyo is simply breath-taking. Not because the girls are so damn hot and cute, and the guys too, not because of the wide variety of song selections from Spanish song by Shakira,




to Chinese song by Andy Lau,




And you'd think they only have Japanese songs, Korean the most.


Even got Japanese katagana pronunciation~


Not because of the super systematic count of the minutes and seconds record




Not because of the calories counter shown at the bottom of the screen once each song is finished to show how much weight you have lost by singing,




And not because of the extensive wide selection of delicious so-good-can-die dessert menu to keep your endorphins pumping while you sing,




Also the calories stats to show you how many songs you need to sing to counter the dessert guilt


That’s 182 songs for a sundae.



Blinking lychees cost RM6 for 6?!


Nope, not even the awesomest karaoke remote - which no longer requires you to sit so close to the screen to choose your songs but to pick the songs like how you operate a palm pc from where you are from the remote, marks the uniqueness of karaoke session in Tokyo.




And there are MORE THAN ONE so you don’t need to fight with your friend over the remote!!




Nay, not even this fancy top of the line gadget define the distinctiveness of the karaoke here

The one thing that sets your experience karaoke-ing anywhere else in Asia apart, the ultimate thrill of going for karaoke in Tokyo is…




the fact that you are paying RM14 (480 yen from 7pm – 6am on a weekend) for an HALF HOUR SESSION PER PERSON TO SING KARAOKE IN TOKYO!!!!!!!

That means if you and your friend visit this place on a weekend evening and decide to sing for three hours (which is the minimum time frame for most of us),

480 yen * 2 person * 6 half hours = ……

YOU ARE PAYING 5760 YEN FOR A KARAOKE SESSION. THAT’S A FREAKING RM170 (USD 50) EXLUDING TAX AND DRINKS AND DESSERTS AND SNACKS!!!!!

HOLY ZEUS HERCULES!!!!

WHO THE F*CK IN THEIR RIGHT MIND GO SING K IN TOKYO JAPAN!!!!!


I went back for another 3 hours session two days later.