I Peed Peas

Me and Appley went to Fou de Fafa for lunch yesterday and we both agreed it was the most miserable lunch we've had in a long while.

Appley ordered the brown rice salad and it turned out to feel like she was eating rice seasoned with curry powder from Maggie instant noodles. I had the couscous salad with some fancy Mediterranean Vacation name which was an equal disappointment. It came with a thin layer of veg on top, and 3 years' supply of chick peas underneath, sprinkled with a measly amount of couscous.

It was the looooongest lunch I ever had. And I couldn't finish my peas! The only saving grace was the banana yoghurt drink I ordered but then again I think anything taste good with banana.

We'll give the oil-soaked smelling place another try, but not anytime soon.


Green and thin.


Attack of the peas.


Chickpea overload.


Getting tired, even by just looking at it.

Caramel in Penang?

Last night I dreamt of setting up Caramel at my grandfather's shop house in Penang. Very vivid with details of where I'd have planters and how the partition glass doors would open up the living room to passersby. And how we can still live upstairs. CK would now have a full and complete kitchen. I've also thought of how to separate the kitchen from the toilet for public use.

Then I dreamt of how my obnoxious cousin came to reclaim her share of the shop house and we had to go to court over this.

I woke up at six and couldn't get back to sleep.

I think I'll ask my grandpa to give me a 100-year lease on that shop house.


If Singapore can do it, I can do it.

Penang: Wanna Come Cannot Come

Penangites are quite blunt. I went for a body massage the other day and there was another customer who was having a foot massage when I checked in. The male foot masseur asked the customer if he wanted a body massage after the foot massage. The customer replied, in Hokkien: "No lah, better not. Pressed (massaged) already at night cannot sleep because wanna out (cum) cannot out."

He was talking about when having a body massage, certain sensitive body parts will inevitably be aroused but there won't be any release because the massage parlour is a proper joint without the "happy ending".

That I assumed... maybe other people don't get aroused like that, maybe I'm just super excited about being kneaded. Anyways after my oil massage I was given a thorough rub with very very hot towels to remove the oil, followed by very generous amount of talcum powder all over to make me dry. Lola said this process seemed uncannily like tenderizing a piece of meat and flouring it before cooking.

Shih Chung Branch School: "I Don’t Wanna Friend You Anymore!"

The class was devided into three clans: Lee Kok Hoe Clan, Chan Lay Peng Clan and Ah Eng Clan. Most girls were under the Chan Clan. Some boys were under the Lee Clan, some under Eng Clan and some were clanless.

On some days the clan system has no function at all in our daily activities but most of the time it served one purpose: to hit someone from a different clan with ruler as soon as any part of his/her body crossed the invisible boundaries created by the table's edges. This happened when Lee Kok Hoe was not friend with Chan Lay Peng or Ah Eng was not friend with Lee Kok Hoe and so on...

It started with one ruler, but of course it's never enough. So it went on to become two, three, four rulers stacked together to give a fatal blow to the unsuspecting elbows or pinkies. I think the record was 10 rulers bound together by rubber band. And they were of different materials such as wood, steel and plastic. Plastic has good bounce but would sometimes crack; steel would accidentally cut so wood was the best assault device of choice.

Things: Don’t Forget to Bring Along Your Sensibility And Cardigan When Flying Budget Airline

Apart from farter anonymous, marathonian crying babies and elbow crushing F&B carts, having someone else's loose-fitting sleeves constantly invading what's left of your personal space in a budget flight would definitely be on the top of the most annoyed experience list of the cheapskate (but anal) flyer.

Thank goodness for the cardigan!

Shih Chung Branch School: Grand Old Dame

Some beautiful shots by Arwen O'Connor, taken in May 2008.

Shih Chung Branch School: Knock Knock

Loh Eng Keat was one of my BFFs but the thing I remember about him was his house. It's one of those typical two storey shop house where there's a five-foot-way (walk-way) in front of the entrance. Directly above the five-foot-way would be one of the bedrooms on the 2nd storey.

As the floor on the 2nd floor was made of wood, they drilled a tiny peephole on the floor and covered it with PVC mat. They can pretend nobody's home if loan sharks came knocking (example only, it's not like Eng Keat gambled all his school pocket money at Genting during Primary Three and had to outsource his finances) or pesky classmates kept bugging them.