E&O Hotel: English Afternoon Tea

Good evening! I am in a pleasant mood today~! :D Thanks to the contribution of a certain someone, my Mum and I had the opportunity to dine at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel, which was established since 1885. We went there to have the hotel's English Afternoon Tea. Sounds very elite, don't you think so? 

 

Even the ashes are decorated.... @___@

I have been hearing quite a lot of people going for high tea and afternoon tea. Initially I thought both of them were the same. On that contrary, it is not the case. In brief, high tea is held later in the evening (around 6pm) while afternoon tea is taken from two something to five in the evening. Besides the different time setting, the food served during high tea is heavier in contrast to the latter. Here is the link for a more elaborate explanation. 

As we enter into the 1885 restaurant, we were greeted by...

...lots and lots of pastries and cakes!!!

We were escorted to our seats, which was located near a glassed door, where a garden is just right outside.

 And how can you have afternoon tea without tea? I had chosen Creme Orange tea, which a blend of vanilla essence and orange flavour tea. It is very aromatic and sweet smelling. 

I was told that the English would often add milk and sugar to their tea when they attend to such events. Being the curious person that I am, I gave it a try...

Honestly, I can't tell the difference!

So what did we have for our English afternoon tea?

Scones, sandwiches, pastries and cakes! These sandwiches aren't your ordinary sandwiches. They were made with roasted beef, smoked salmon, dill and cucumber! Simply superb!

When I first saw the food, I whispered my mum, "Mum, this is IT?? FOR TWO???" Yes, I was complaining that the portion being served was too little. However, I regretted I said that AFTER I finished my share of scones and sandwiches. I was already FULL!~! We had to rest a while before we continued with the rest.

Overall, the food was IMPECCABLE! It was absolutely a great experience for my taste buds as I have never tasted anything like it before~! Therefore, today was a good day!

Lor Bak

On Wednesday morning, my Mum had a little demonstration on how to make a famous Penang dish - "Lor Bak". According to Wikipedia, Lor Bak is made by marinated minced pork, then roll in thin soybean sheets and then deep fried.

There are many variations on the types of meat used in the Lor Bak. Some people prefer to use pork sausages, others prefer to use minced pork. The way that was taught to my Mum was to use lean pork instead. Thus, it really depends on what your taste buds tell you. Anyway, I have already summarized the entire cooking process into three big pictures. Enjoy!

My First Experience Visiting a Brewery!

Carlsberg brewery in Shah Alam


Ahhh... finally! A chance to update my blog. Yes, it's been hectic these few days and the problem with the internet connection at home didn't help the situation either. Anyway, my first experience in a brewery!!!! The first impression was so awesome! Before going to this site visit, no doubt I was extremely excited. HOWEVER, I initially did not have very high expectations of the factory itself, as I expected the area to be dirty, messy and plenty of shirtless unattractive guys laboring at the site. Apparently, I need to get out more :P Imagine, entering into the brewery factory and you see this....

I'm sure some guys will go GAGA over this!

There is a BAR in the brewery! There are a lot of brands of alcohol such as obviously Carlsberg, Heineken, Tuborg, Skol, Royal Stout, Special Brew and a few names I just can't remember. They have a whole cabinet filled with bottles and bottles and bottles of alcohol. Actually I am not suppose to post pictures as there were issues previously where students from some college post up the pictures in FB and parents got upset because there were BP (bumiputras) in the pictures with the word 'Carlsberg'. The parents took it the wrong way and say that Carlsberg is promoting BP drink beer. It is a bit ridiculous to put it that far, really. My Malay friends who went on the trip did not even taste a drop of liqour. Anyway, so I apologized for unable to post more pictures. These are a few pictures that I feel is still all right.

Carlsberg's Merchandise

The site visit took almost 3 hours which was a bit too long as everyone was mentally tired and sweating with the high temperature in the brewery. Lucky for those alcoholic freaks, FREE BEER!!!! And for those who can't drink or don't drink, FREE FOOD!! Some people can really drink, they got one pint of beer after the other. The funny thing was that those who can't really drink beer, they drank a little (one pint or less) and their faces were all red but not drunk of course. On the other hand, those who drank much more than one pint, wanted more but they held back as this was a EDUCATIONAL visit.

We wouldn't want harm Monash's reputation now, do we?

As for me, I don't really know how to appreciate beer so I tried Shandy for the first time. Even though it contains only less than 1%, it is bitter according to my tastebuds. Oh well, maybe I should give it another try again.
Group photo!

That's all folks. I need to get back to my Psychology essay. BWAHHHH...!!!!

My One Day Trip to Melaka

Left the house at 7:30AM in the morning and only got back at 11:00PM.... Absolutely TIRING!!! Undoubtedly it was tiring but it was truly enjoyable as it is my very first experience of attending two Lord's Table Meeting at two different localities! This is actually my second trip to Melaka. The last time I went to Melaka was in 2006 and I was attending for a campus students blending. Here are some old pictures of the sisters and I. I looked so young!

And as for today... I am too lazy and too tired to give more details... So I'll let the pictures do the talking for now.

MORNING

The Meeting Hall in Melaka

Prayer and Bread-Breaking

*Translation: The Greatest Mystery of All - Christ and the Church
by the Church in Melaka

Love Feast

The English Group saints from the Church in SJ came to visit!

AFTERNOON
Melaka's old BOMBA tiny truck...

Another historic site in Melaka...
No idea exactly because I skipped this part... what did I do during this time, you ask? lalalala....

Kota St. John
"St. John's Fort was built by the Dutch during the 18th century is situated on St. John's Hill and was a former site of a chapel dedicated to St. John, the Baptist. According to history, the Archinese attacked Melaka in 1629 and destroyed the chapel. The fort was then used by the Archinese as their base when they attacked the Portuguse who were holding out in the Francisan Monastery on Bukit China and completely destroyed the Monastery. It is interesting to note that the cannon embrasures face inland and not towards the sea as the locals at that time were attacking Melaka from the hinterland." - Sejarah Malaysia.

Let's fire some cannon balls!

Kimberly, Mei Di, Ivonny

Taking a break at Brother Dinesh's humble abode

EVENING
Lord's Table Meeting in Jasin

Dinner with the saints living in Jasin

That's all folks. Thank you for tuning into Channel K.M.

This is Kimberly, Good night.

YAWN!

Note to Self: Must learn photography after I graduate! MUST!

Anatomy Lab

We had our first anatomy lab yesterday, so I was pretty excited. No, we don't get to see dead bodies yet, I don't think we get to see that in course either. I was kind of excited to see and touch real bones. It was pretty cool, though we have to learn all the terms describing the location and position, we had fun with it.

That's Hui Wearn - a new friend I made :P

Hmm... are we paying attention to the lecturer?

Fortune Cookie... Anyone?

I have seen them in movies, heard about them but it was only recently that I have gotten the chance to actually taste them. Yes, this Chinese New Year was quite different from the ones that I had. Fortune cookies were originally from California, not China. A bit shocking, however, it was invented by a Chinese/Japanese immigrant. I had my first fortune cookie on the Eve of the Year of the Boar (the Westerners called it the Year of the Golden Pig! Hehehe... ) and it says "You will be fortunate in the opportunities presented to you." At that particular time, I was checking in a five star hotel with excellent room service and a fantastic room... yeap... it was true, I was very fortunate. :-) Besides, the note in the fortune cookies, the cookies themselves actually taste pretty darn good! Crispy yet tasty~! Oh well, wishing all of you a very Happy Chinese New Year and Good Fortunes for all~!

My Worst Nightmare - Frog Dissection

I do not know if I told you all before but I have a phobia about toads and frogs. They are ugly little cretins where you will find them hiding in your shoes at times. It's worse when you had to feel them moving in your shoes when you placed your foot in your shoe... Yuck!!! The worst experience that I had to encounter is to dissect a toad or frog or whatever yesterday during biology lab!

Before the lab, as I was walking to my university, I was listening to 'Hakuna Matata' from the Disney movie The Lion King. As the lyrics goes,
"Hakuna Matata/what a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata/Ain't no passing craze
It means no worries/for the rest of your days/
It's our problem free philosophy/Hakuna Matata.."
Hoping that it will keep my mind off 'that thing' for a while. At that time, I really needed to be calm. However... It didn't last long.

Man... The experience was just utterly horrible!!! Worst than horrible!! When the lab assistant brought a bucket of toads to our table, most of us went "EWWWW!!!!" "EEEYAAA!!!" "EEEEEEE!!" Then he placed each toad on the plates that were prepared for each table. The toad was really big! It was bigger than my hand!

The first thing that we had to do was to pin the toad on the plate so that it will be easier to dissect it later. As if the situation wasn't bad enough, my lab partner was afraid to touch it! Reluctantly, I touch the toad to pin it down. As I was doing that, big drops of tears flowed down my cheeks. Not because I felt sorry for the dead toad, but I had to TOUCH the creature! When my lad partner saw me started to cry, she said "OKOKOK, I'll do it too!" She NEARLY cried as well. Together, we dissected the toad layer by layer, took out the organs (it stinks by the way), made some observations and took some pictures as we need to draw the structure of the organs in our lab report later. At the beginning of the dissection, it was just unbearable. As we progressed along, we gotten quite stable, emotionally. Thank God it is all OVER! Phew~!

Weird me = weird teeth

So here goes… I have not been to the dentist ever since the unfortunate incident I had when I was in standard one. I do have a phobia towards dentists and the way they do things ever since. However, one of my teeth hurts a lot yesterday and reluctantly I had to go to consult a dentist. He took an x-ray (a very minor one) deep in my mouth because I felt pain near the part where you grow your wisdom tooth. Apparently my wisdom tooth grows horizontally instead of vertically like the rest of my teeth! HORIZONTALLY!!!! I never thought that was even possible to happen. And in the dentistry world, they called this case as ‘sleeping beauty’ as the tooth is sleeping in a ‘beautiful’ position. Yeah…. Very unoriginal… Therefore, it is very unfortunate that I MUST remove my wisdom tooth because it will cause inflammation as time goes by, which in other words, it will become very painful. So, my surgery will be held next Monday. Since this is my first surgery, I hope it goes well, keeping my fingers crossed!

My First Car Accident.... nothing serious but it scared the hell out of me..

I had just finished my foundation course the day before yesterday. I would never expect to run into a car accident today. So here's my story...

My mum and I went to buy lunch for my dad, it is a normal routine for us to do that everyday. Today's traffic was pretty heavy, most probably because it was during lunch hour so I'm guessing everybody is out buying lunch. Well, my mum was a bit sleepy but she wanted to stay awake just to make sure everything is ok. Though I had assured her that I'll be careful, she still insisted on staying awake. So we just made conversations on our way home.

As I was about to make a left turning into a junction, I forgot to look at the side mirror when I put on the left signal. As I turned, I bumped into a motorcyclist who was riding really closely beside my car. I immediately stop! I was terrified. Thankfully, he didn't fall down from his motorcycle and he was safe and sound. So was my mum. Well... since it was my first accident, I was pretty scared about the whole situation. My mum helped me apologized to the guy as I was too frightened to speak at all... I thank God that the guy did not scold or raised his voice. He even confessed that he did not see my signal. I'm just glad that I did not hurt any parts of his body. I was wondering how am I ever gonna face his family if I had hurt him... It was just scary.. to be honest, I just burst into tears... yes.. I'm such a weakling... Everything just happen so fast and my mind was echoing "Oh My GOD!!!!" I'm just grateful that the motorcyclist was nice about it.

Back then, before I started driving, I always said to myself that I will not get into any car accidents at all. Sigh.. and it had to happen. Mum said that this kind of thing is unavoidable, if it's gonna happen, it will happen. Luckily, everyone was all right. And now, I'm just wanna sit at home and stay out of the road. Sigh....

My 'date' on Saturday!

I went out with my darling soo today! Our husband sin couldn't join us as she was busy with her personal stuff. Anyway, we went to Gurney to shop. And then, we walked passed a nail polish stall. Soo wanted to buy some nail polish. As we were browsing, the lady asked us whether we want our nails polish. Since we never had our nails done before, so we thought "why not?" However it was very expensive for ten fingers/per person. In the end, since both of us wanted to save a bit of money, we only got one of our hands done. Soo did her right hand while my nails were polished on the left hand. It was really fun choosing the colour and stickers. Well, this was a really good experience to me. It turns out quite nice actually, though we had to be careful when we washed our hands. Still it was pretty good :P

After we had our lunch, soo went to have her right ear pierced! Hahaha... She was really undecided, still in the end she went for it :P After piercing, the surrounding part of the ear was totally RED!! Though you can't really noticed it as she had a long silky black hair covering her ear. :) Later, we spent the rest of the day, browsing at earrings, necklaces and other accessories. To our own shock, we spent all the money we brought. NOT A SINGLE DIME WAS LEFT!!!! THAT's my FIRST RECORD OF USING UP ALL MY MONEY!!! If my mum knew, she would break my bones!!!!!!!!!!!

All in all, it was a good day! I spent the day with my sweet darling, bought some girl stuff and had a wonderful time! The only downside is that the haze was terrible here! You can hardly see the view!! It was really really bad!

Blood Donation

It is a well known fact that blood is essential to every living organism. Blood is circultating everywhere in our body to transport required nutrients to our organs and released all the wastes that have been produced. Sometimes, when we accidentally cut ourselves, bright redish blood will slowy ooze out. To us, it just a little loss of blood. However, to some people in other parts of the world, one drop of blood is crutial.

I had my first experience of donating blood in a donation fund. I actually wanted to donate, it's because of my curiousity of what blood group am I in. Besides I thought to myself, it would be a great experience to see how the process goes.

In the very beginning, we, 'DONORS' or so the nurses and the people in charge called it, had to fill in our information and info about whether we had sex with single or multiple partners OR having sex with the SAME sex! Please, we are not that desperate! And MALE donors, well most of them, DO NOT read the form properly, they just fill in quickly. They end up answering the part STRICTLY for female donors which is about pregnancy and all that stuff! :)

Later, we had to take our forms and line up to find out what is our blood group. The nurse in charge, used some sort of needle and poked one of our fingers for it to bleed.It feels like big red ants had bitten your finger. Then they used something like a micropippete and sucked out some of our blood, and placed each drop of blood into three sections with indicators. This is to show what blood group are you in. After that, they will test your blood pressure.

Finally, you are asked to lie down on a bed, and they will inject your blood out with the most biggest and thickest needle I have ever seen! It hurts a bit but it doesn't last. I was given a sponge to squeeze my blood out. They took 300mL~! THAT IS LIKE HALF A BIG BOTTLE OF COKE!!! I'm amazed!

Sure, it's a good deed to help others who are in need. However It was a whole new experience for me! Through this donation, I can see that a lot of guys are afraid of blood... :P