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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Curious Diary of Mr. Jam

The Curious Diary of Mr. Jam is a blog that I follow on a daily basis ever since I first read Mr. Jam's articles in The Standard.  The stuff that he writes is really funny and so are the comments that follow.  I can understand why -- Great minds think alike.  hehee  And then I started posting comments on some of his posts -- can't help it, they're just so interesting sometimes you just want to be part of it.

Yesterday, Mr. Jam himself posted a comment on my blog...!!!  If you've noticed, no one really leave any comments in this blog, I just know so far, this blog has had more than 12000 visits and that's because I put a counter here.  Otherwise, I would think that only Adrian and a few of my closest friends read what I write.  Depressing?  Not really.  I think it's a very good way to improve my English and at the same time, practice typing.  Also, I don't only write in English, I sometimes write in Chinese and Japanese as well (that's very rare because Adrian would always ask what I have written -- that means translations needed... which I still find quite difficult to translate from Chinese/Japanese accurately) when I think that only Chinese/Japanese could express what I really wanted to say.

Right, back to Mr. Jam's comment.  It's really encouraging.  So I sent him an email to thank him and told him my surname (he asked, OK.).  And to my surprise, he found one of my photos taken at a charity ball organized by the International Ladies Club of Macau and with my consent, he posted it on his blog.  I'm really flattered.  Haha! 

Maybe I should start to wear make up to work?  Naa~~ then I'll have to wake up at least half an hour earlier... Not a good idea.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Another use of handouts...

On the streets of TST, just a 5-minute walk and you'll collect enough newspaper (in the morning)/flyers/name cards for your child's next "Make Your Own Recycled Paper" project.

Today, as we were making our way to our lunch, waiting for the little red man to turn green, right in front of us was a couple (a Caucasian man and a Chinese lady, although it's irrelevant to what we were about to witness, but being Chinese and having married to a gweilo, I felt like I could relate to... whatever).  The lady took a handout in the form of a name card a few steps before they stopped at the light.  It was quite sunny and the man has obviously sweat quite a bit while waiting.  Guess what happened next?  The lady wiped his sweat on the bold patch with the name card!!!  WOW!!  That's really creative!  I must admit I lack creativity when it comes to things like this... I thought only tissues/handkerchiefs/towels or even sleeves are used to do the job... or is it only me? 

But I guess wiping sweat for your better half is an act of love.  So who cares what you use?  Does it really matter if your better half gets a telephone number complete with name & company logo on his forehead?  I guess not in this case hehehe

Pity I was too shock to take a picture of it to show... ai!!

Monday, June 21, 2010

What comes first??

OK, what do you call it?  Strawberries with Whipped Cream?  Whipped Cream on Strawberries?  Whipped Cream Strawberries?  Strawberries Whipped Cream??  Which one is it???

Well, whatever it is called, we're doing it again!  Yes, it's Getting-Fat-Time again!  This time, we will have dessert first, yes, dessert first.  Then, dinner.  hehehe if we were hungry after that... So tell me, what comes first?  Health?  Good food (according to a friend, eating fantastic food could actually be almost like an orgasm -- that didn't really impress her fiance then, who's now her husband)?  or the smile on your loved ones' face?

This time, we've bought some better quality strawberries.  So it's a lot better than last time, although, it was already freaking good the last time.  Same old trick, I had to beat the cream to death, working all the calories that I'm due to consume away efficiently -- honestly, I've been beating it for 15 - 20 minutes, I can have the whole portion.  However, because I love my husband so much, and he loves me as much, I'll share it with him heehehe!




See how happy my baby is?  It means everything in the world to me ^___^  Not difficult to tell what comes first, right?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Remember Me

Nothing beats a good movie and with a couple of G&T's in the arms of your better half.  Yes, we watched Remember Me.  I must admit, it's because of Robert Pattinson, we decided that we should watch it.  And if you have watched Twilight, you should be able to understand why we made the decision.

It's started out with a homicide on a New York City Subway platform in 1991.  And then the story went on as quite an ordinary love story.  Towards the end of the movie, when I pretty much assumed that it was gonna be one of those lame romantic movies, the final twist impressed me, so much that it made the movie a million times better.  It made both Adrian and I cried.

I strongly recommend that you check it out.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

English Names

Traditional Chinese do not give their children English names.  So most of us grow up with Chinese names, normally made out of 1 to 2 Chinese characters.  The lack of an English name means that it is not easy for English speakers to remember us because it is difficult to pronounce our names and therefore, most of us, normally starting from high school (or as and when we feel we needed one), we get ourselves our own English names.  Although it's become a trend now for parents to give their children English names at birth, some still don't do it or they would prefer for the children to choose, whether or not to have an English name, or if they choose to have one, they can choose their own...

In Malaysia, the English names are quite normal, Kelvin, Kevin, Stephanie, Cindy, Tracy, Danny, Jonathan, Joey, Vincent, Irene, Helen, Elaine, Catherine/Cathy/Katherine, Eric... If you shout out one of these names in a supermarket, you'd probably have a least half a dozen of ppl answering...

And then I got to Macau, now HK... I can't help but notice some of the very unique English names the younger ppl have here:


Basically, there are quite a few catagories...

There are the ambitious ones like Million(!), Handsome(!)...
Then stationary/instrument... Staple, Paper, Piano (there must be a flute somewhere, or a trumpet...), Yoyo (a very common girls' name in HK/Macau)...

Then food... Orange, Spaghetti (OMG), Honey (uh-hm, this is my cousin brother's English name)...
Weather... Windy, Rain, Sky...
Adjective...  Mainly, Aware, Fancy (could be a noun as well...@_@)

Characteristic...  Sinner (one of my x-colleague, Sin is his surname...), Ego (what can I say?), Freeman, Fairy, Baby, Honey (yes, it's my cousin brother)
Body parts... Fanny, Pinky...

Then there are some that I don't know how to catagorize...  Weko, Midco, Fifi, Ginny (drinkable or simply Italian?), Shirty (who turns out to be a fantastic wife, mother and friend), Mask (yup, MASK, not Mark)... hmm...

Some sound really funny and I'm sure you've come across quite a lot if you've been here long enough or met enough ppl.  But hey, there's no way to figure out what the younger (Gosh I feel soooooooo freaking old already!!) generation has in mind...

Saturday, June 12, 2010

What's for dinner?

Getting home from work everyday feels good but when it comes to time to figure out what to have for dinner, it's not so much fun.  And one of Adrian's favourite question on the phone during the day is "what are we doing for dinner tonight?"  Sometimes he would have ideas and even prep the dinner himself.  But it's just like lunch at work... you know what I mean.

It's Saturday today.  I have minced beef in the fridge and that's it... hmm... I looked it up. And it looks like the Minced beef sauce on mash is the easiest choice.  And, it turned out to be great.  Chinese style mash... coz you have some oyster sauce in it.  Yum yum.  Well at least Adrian thinks that it's bursting with flavours hahaha!!

Mission accomplished.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

My crocheting project - Bloom & Blossom

I started work approx. 4 weeks ago.  The office is in a building at the beginning of Canton Road, right next to Harbour City.  Everyday when I go home, I have to walk pass all these super brands before I could get off the street (it's not like they're not there in the morning, they're just not opened yet, so I could hardly notice their existence).  On the first day, I spotted this white crocheted handbag in one of the shops, gosh, it was soooooo beautiful!!  Ya, of course, it costs just about HK$15K, of course it's beautiful!  Err... well maybe not all the expensive ones are beautiful (especially the ones that are covered with logos and monograms...) but trust me, this one is.

And so, I thought, well, it's crocheted, with a bit of leather handles & trimming and all... I can live without the leather trimming and handles and...  I just like how it's crocheted.  There I was standing outside the facade of a super brand, making the decision to crochet myself a nice looking bag.  hehee

I decided that it shouldn't be white (it's gonna be summer and ppl are gonna get sweaty and the bag is gonna end up greyish or something... or when I have curry, it will get spotty).  So I went down to the wet market in Jordan, there's this stall that sells some simple yarns.  I picked the pink one (would have picked another colour if they had anything nicer than pink...), paid HK$18 (should be more than enough for even a tank top).  Went back to the apartment and started crocheting away...

One week later, it's 60% done, with a lot of trial and error -- that's what you have to do when you don't have a pattern to follow... Adrian and I went down to Sham Shui Po hunting for the handles, zipper and the yarn for the trimming.  It took us all afternoon, exhausted but we got what we wanted.

With just a bit of trimming to go and a zipper to attach, I went off the Shanghai for a workshop.  Left it home with Adrian.  Mind you, Adrian was surprised that I didn't bring it with me and finish it off in Shanghai.  C'mon, I'm there with my new colleagues, I don't want them to think that I'm a weird, anti-social new colleague that came from Malaysia -- a place that does not need this thing called sweater, hence no one needs to know how to knit or crochet...???

Anyway, I returned to HK exhausted, but I just couldn't resist the thought of using a handbag that I've crocheted for the first time!  Well, I did have something like a bag crocheted when I was a kid but it was nothing serious like this one.  This one, I am going to use it, in HK, on Canton Road, in my office, with many many many colleagues in the sportswear retail industry (some might have some hi-fashion background!!), maybe 2/3 times a week!!  So this is bloody serious!

I completed the project last Saturday (total cost of material: HK$98), this is how it looks now... I've been using it since Monday (well Tuesday didn't count coz I was on a sickie)...


Bloom & Blossom








This is one side, if you compare with the picture below, it's got slightly different buds...








This is the other side, can you tell the difference between the two sides?






My colleagues has given me a special title, The Knitting Lady (織女)... hmm...