"Drenched" by Qu Wanting

I'm in love with this song's tune... and "Is it too late to ask for love?"



When minutes become hours
When days become years
And I don’t know where you are
Color seems so dull without you

Have we lost our minds?
What have we done?
But it all doesn’t seem to matter anymore

When you kissed me on that street, I kissed you back
You held me in your arms, I held you in mine
You picked me up to lay me down
When I look into your eyes
I can hear you cry for a little bit more of you and I
I’m drenched in your love
I’m no longer able to hold it back

Is it too late to ask for love?
Is it wrong to feel right?
When the world is winding down
Thoughts of you linger around

Have we lost our minds?
What have we done?
But it all doesn’t seem to matter anymore

When you kissed me on that street, I kissed you back
You held me in your arms, I held you in mine
You picked me up to lay me down
When I look into your eyes
I can hear you cry for a little bit more of you and I
I’m drenched in your love
I’m no longer able to hold it back

R.I.P. Ms Blue-Scaly

Semalam, sekembali ku dari rumah Kakak, ikan ku dijumpai terampung di dalam balang gelasnya... mati kelaparan untuk 2 hari...

Bersemadi lar ikan ku dikelilingi daun pegaga... diredupi pohon krismas...

Day 2 of Vietnam @ Halong Bay

We were told our bus pick-up is at 7.30am local time and breakfast will be ready by 6.30am. But unfortunately we had to wait 15-20minutes. It was small serving and we picked "Australian breakfast" as it comes with bacon and sausage.

After breakfast, we had to wait for 15minutes for our bus that goes around the whole Hanoi town to pick-up other people until the bus is full. Journey to Halong harbour is 3 hours. We stopped at a marble-sculpture-factory for toilet-break. This really helped me to 'fix' my aching-soaring buttock. Had naps along the rest of the trip because bus can only go maximum 50km/hour and the roads are rather bumping at some smaller towns we passes by. Along the journey from Hanoi to Halong Bay pier, I noticed lots of tombstone in the middle of the paddy-field or a village; which is an open-field.

At the harbour/jetty, we bumped into the two Filipino men we met at the airport-bus whom are going for 1-day trip to Halong Bay. Feeling hungry while waiting for our boat ride, luckily I still have some leftover bread from Malaysia. First impression of the jetty and bay wasn't so great. We first had to take a motor-driven boat to our Cruise-boat and on the Cruise-boat, we were welcomed with cold towel and it was so refreshing!

Our room is ok but the toilet has a lot of small cockroaches and the lights are very deem thus difficult to see much inside. The windows cannot open unfortunately. The aircond won't be able to function until evening due to the generator is being used to generate power for the Cruise-boat to move along the bay. After putting our 1-day-bag, we meet the rest of them at the dining area and had lunch while enjoying the bay-breeze while it sails.

After lunch, we visit Hang Đầu Gỗ (Wooden stakes cave). Good and we took lots of pictures here.

Kayaking followed after caving and it's Yen Lin's first time on a kayak. For the first 30minutes, we stay at the inner-side of the village and nearer to the cliffs as there are alot of big boats at the outer side of the village. When it's almost time, we tried to go out and was purposely knocked by one of the motor-driven boat that passes by. So scary as I can't swim in open-sea!!

We returned to the cruise-boat for those of us that want to change into swimwears. Nothing impressive of the beach at Đảo Ti Tốp (TiTop Island). We did a 30minutes stairs-climbing upwards to the peak for this small island but it felt like a longer-exhausting climb of 1hour! I need to stop many times along the way to catch-my-breath. The view can consider breath-taking especially with a panaromic camera shot taken and that's when I realised why it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. You got to be up here to "know why".

Sadly, we can't see sunset from our cruise as it's parked rather inner of a cove and it's view is blocked. We had red wine before dinner and I slowly sipped mine at the upper-deck while watching the sunset-orange-rays slowly dissapears into the horizon. The breeze was simply lovely too. Some smaller-rowed-boats returned to their village.

After dinner, I went back to our room for a shower so I can enjoy my complimentary foot massage. Gosh! Showering is a bad experience onboard this cruise! Water is so so hot that it can boil my skin! So, I end-up scooping water from the basin and bidet to wash myself. Lucky, it's not my wash-hair day. 10 minutes of foot massage was simply blissful to get rid of our soars from the climbing. After that, we had a boring experience trying to catch squid wifh a bamboo-stick and it comes along with a neon green-colour artificial miniature octopus as bait. We spend 1 hour and decided to leave it to get our beauty sleep.

No TV in the room and AC was a little weird. At night, felt 2 times some creature crawling on my exposed foot so decided to get into the covers. Gggrrrr... Very hard bed and didn't had a good rest after all.

Day 1 of Vietnam @ Hanoi

Yen Lin and I landed Noi Bai International Airport on time @ 8.30am local time.

First impression is good because AirAsia's flight don't require us to take the stairs out from the plane. Had the luxury of the "connector". After exiting the custom, we looked for tourist counter which surprisingly many that have the "free map" signboards but in actual there isn't any! English is a BIG issue here in Hanoi. 

We couldn't figure out where to take the bus to "old-quarter" that cost VND10,000 per person so we end up taking the airport-bus that cost us VND40,000 per person. This also, we had difficulties trying to get back the VND100,000 from the bus-driver who kept ignoring us. Initially, he scammed  us by telling us the bus is leaving and get us to board it quickly but in actual he wanted it fully-occupied before departing. The journey took us about 1hour.

We stopped for something to eat once we get down the bus. We decided to get some light food at the "kaki-lima"(5-foot walk-way) where we see other people also eating. No harm blending in the crowd despite it's very obvious Yen Lin and me are tourists as I was lugging my luggage along the street. We ordered a plate of 'bahn-ram-it'(from Hue) to share. Turns out to be crackers, some sticky-kueh texture and dried shrimps-floss. Taste interesting for we are hungry. Funny, everyone here eat on low tables & stools.

The bus agent said we just need to walk 5-10minutes to reach our hotel from the stop the bus let us down. Unfotunately, it took us more than 40minutes and me with my luggage; I almost give-up!! Yen Lin was very patience with my slowness and she complimented that the people that we asked for direction were helpful and did not mis-directed us.

An Hung Hotel is ok. We were welcomed with smiles, cold towels and cold drinks.

After putting the luggage, we head out to get our lunch that we almost forgotten due to our exhaustion of walking in search of our hotel. We tried the food-street near the hotel. BBQ-pork-noodle is yummy!! Unfortunately, we were so exhausted that we forgotten our camera too. The fried-beancurd noodle is rather plain. We ordered sugarcane drink and it tasted different. It has a natural-limey taste to it. We stopped to buy my favourite green-tea drink that I saw earlier while walking on the street in search of the hotel and Yen Lin got herself a big bottle of mineral water.

We returned to hotel. Showered and took 1.5hours of nap. By 4pm, we get ready to go out for our shops-hopping before the night market that starts at 7.30pm. We saw "beca"(trishaw) so was tempted and it was a good choice of transport as the trishaw-man bring us to almost every single street. And one will noticed that each street sells different specialty items. For example, one street sells all coffee. Another street sells all bamboo and another street sells all latterns and so on.

We even went around the Hoan Kiem Lake. Think the trishaw-man wanted to rest for a while so he asked us to go inside a temple by the lake and we spend some time taking pictures and wondering what's his intention. We returned to our trishaw-ride and after more than 1hour, we were concerned about the charges and somehow, the trishaw-man just don't stop; just continue street after street. Think; this is a very common scam by "trishaw-men" to take more hours than agreed. We decided to request the trishaw to stop us near a food-street and paid for our 1.5hours ride; VND200,000.

Ordered a bowl of phở gà (chicken noodle soup) for VND35,000. But the stall man is not too friendly and don't speak English. We walked back to the lake on foot as the Cho Dem Dong Xuan night market is not ready yet.

Tried to buy ice cream at the lake but no english speaking seller so at the end, we cannot enjoy ice cream or even an ice-drink like the rest of the passerby.

Night market was nothing interesting! But, we picked a cup of Chè (sweet beverage/dessert soup) that have jackfruit, black-glutinious rice, sago, coconut-milk and jellies. Simply-sweety-refreshingly-cool!! :P

Still feeling hungry so had a beef-kebab for VND25,000 with Yen Lin sharing it half with me. Very thirsty so bought 2 glasses of sugarcane for us each. Once we got back to hotel, I still felt very thirsty so I finished the green-tea drink that I like. Enjoyed 3 korean dramas before I fall asleep...

Love Juice for Mee's & Dee's Day

How the idea of "love juice" came up?

It all started with a colleague; Pee asking about "beetroot" during lunch break last week. We actually go in circles-of-guessing what she was refering to. Finally, I google up and showed her the picture. She helped to purchase 1 kilogram of beetroot from her neigbourhood-market. Another colleague; Mei Ying wanted it so I decided to share the portion with her as it was rather alot. She paid for it all as I was helping her with the labour of "peeling, cleaning and extracting". Hehehe...

Since, Dad warned me about it's "messy-ness", I had to ensure everything is planned properly and the most important thing will be the plastic-glove that Dad bought when Mom also requested it for future use. This important because I do not wanna ruin my Rm100+ french-manicure either!

So happened it's Mother's Day today and in actual, Mom and I both have low-blood-pressure so the juice ideally should be for Dad and Bro! So, I thought... why not call it "Love Juice" from my heart with love. To Daniel: You will have your "love share" when you come back.


 

Mei Ying wanted pure "beetroot" juice so still got "love" inside but I can't imagine the taste.

For the rest of us at home, I added Apple, Carrot and "Jambu-Air" to the Beetroot.

Peeling of the Beetroot turns out not so bad after all but it kept flying-out from my plastic-glove grip and cause a mess when it rolled to the floor where I didn't put newspaper. And well, it's messy and the colour... purple... and when you put it in the juice-extractor, it's like your blood-gushing out during a "heart-surgery"!!

For the 3rd one that I did for myself, there is no juice coming out and that's when Dad came back from church. My hero! Why? Because Dad asked me why I didn't use his "Green-toy" and I told him, "Oh.. I didn't know it can do the same function." And it's such good machine! It can actually juice-out 1 beer-mug of "love juice" from all the pulps from the other Juice-Extractor! And it's 10x easier to clean and dispose the "pulp".

Cheers! Happy Mee & Dee's Day!

Am I lucky?

Yeah, I was superb-excited at the point of time... it last for like about 30minutes to an hour.

But, about lucky... hhmmm... It was kind of determination to get some thing done that's all.

It all begins when I was flipping thru the magazine I bought from Borders and came across Capital FM. Since it's advertised saying this radio station is "all women"; which woman is not captivated to tune-in? So, that's what exactly I did. Of course, Napoleon Hill the Musical happened to be the discussed topic on the same evening I first tuned-in and their invited guest was on air. Now, I can't remember who exactly was it and of course, the same evening, they had the free tickets for grab; just have to be the 8th-caller thru.


Early following morning, I gave a call to Sister to check if Captial FM is under Astro. Was so delighted to hear when she said, 'no'. Yiippeee..

Once arrived office, I googgled-up the musical as I was trying to also find out their tickets for sale online and was in a skype conversation with Jaime asking if she is interested. She told me she isn't so I didn't pursue to find out about the ticket or the seating layout after.

But, the very same evening as I was driving home, the DJ; Xandria were saying that there is free tickets to give out worth Rm128 each and she was so quick to read out the phone number to call, I only managed to hear the first 4 numbers! So, yeah... failed the first evening. I told myself, "Gonna try it tomorrow!"

Following day, I was working late till 7pm... once I got into my car, the radio was already tuned-to Capital FM. Then, the DJ Xandria started talking about the free tickets again and after one song, she read out the phone number and this time I got it! Once, the quee-to-call was announced on air, I immediately hit "call" and guess what? I was the FIRST caller thru... kekeke... She asked me to call again to try. So, I did but no one seems to pick up and I tried for another time. Then, after about 15 minutes, the lucky caller already was on air. So, I knew... that's the reason why no one picked up my call earlier.

Somehow, the voices in my head kept urging me to call again today! So, I reached home before 7pm and quickly setup the hi-five to tune to Capital FM and being kiasu, I standby two handphones of mine on the coffee-table and waited while having my dinner.

Once I heard the quee-to-call, I counted till 8 than I pressed "call" on my mobile. Stunned for a second when Xandria congratulated me being the 8th caller. So, her next sentence was, "After this, sound excited and will re-record again that you called in, ok?" and I was like, "ohh..ok..." and I was like crazy for moments and trying to sound really (5x) excited. And I was also nervous that I'll be put on air so I think I like "eat up some of my letters"... *gkrabba-nya*

Xandria's voice was really soft when she talked during the recording and I actually struggled trying to answers all her questions. After the recording done, she asked me to hold-on for DJ Liang so that he can take all my particulars. When Liang came online, I was chit-chatting with him about his date with Alicia on-air at 6pm earlier and he was really a nice-chap to speak to.

After I hanged up the phone, I came back into the living hall and asked Mom if she heard me on the radio and she said, "No, didn't notice... don't think so anyone speak, just music." and I was like, "Good... Maybe, I can get to hear my own voice on radio after a few minutes." and I waited in front of the hi-five patiently. And so I did, I heard myself on the radio together with my Mom and Bro. My Mom commented with chuckles and grins, "Don't sounds like you" and deep inside me, I think my Mom was also as excited as me at that very moment.

Dad missed the part of me on the radio because he was in a shower but when he came out, he said, "Aiyah, no big deal... I was on radio before... interviewed by the DJs... etc..." OK, I got it... so what if my Dad is not excited for me? Be it.

First person I called, Jaime Teh! That was before I knew Capital FM gave a fixed date Matinee Show that cost only RM88 per ticket. Jaime said no one to babysit Izzy at night and hubby will be working for the weekend. So, when I was told is the 3pm Matinee Show, I called her again to check if she wanna go with me, she said she will check with babysitter. Minutes later, she smsed saying she is not keen on the musical.

Second person I called, Yen Lin. She loved to go but she had to work on Sunday...

Third person I called, Fazly. Despite I know he is not a fan of the musical but I always enjoy his company eventhough he can't sit still in the last musical we went together and even wanted to leave early. But, I still sms him and asked he wanna go along. Thumb down, he has his salsa class to attend on the same day and time.

What happened to my excitement of wining free tickets on a radio station and wanting to actually go for a Musical?? An excitement turned to stress... sigh... Don't think I can sleep much tonight knowing that I still do not know who to call to go with me... sigh... It isn't lucky! It's stressful!

D'Outcome of Savon de Marseille

********************************************

Couldn't wait to leave office today to come back to my Savon de Marseille. Hehehe...

Once I opened the carton box, the rossie scent welcomed me!
Need to wait for 45 days then only can bring "them" into the shower.

Sharing my moments of joy, love and excitement with all of you via the photos here...

I made 3 different patterns... 

"elly-griffy" (the animal kingdom)

"twinkle" (the stars)

"valentine" (bordered by heart-shape)

DIY Handmade Marseille Soap

Received a call from Yen Lin on Thursday asking if I'm interested to join her for a DIY Handmade Soap class and I was delighted but the price of the class; RM75 kept me wonder why it's such an expensive class to attend. Anyway, she told me it will be making Marseille soap and I was like, "Huh? What is that?" After confirming my attendance on Friday evening, I was looking forward to the Sunday class at Cheras.

The journey to the location was a lengthy one as I was not able to find the time to google the place so I've decided that we take the public train. As usual... we are never satisfied with the punctuality of our Malaysia train system. Not going to elaborate on it as it's just plain boring and disappointing.

We were a little late for our class, by approximately 10 minutes and we blame it on the public train! Anyway, lucky, we are not the last student to arrive and the teacher gladly waited for us. :D

Since the class was organised by a Mandarin speaking teacher and I was the only one speaking English and only understanding the Mandarin language basics, I definitely had some hard times trying to figure out all the "jargon" names of each ingredients being used. Yen Lin was definitely very patient to translate for me *phew*.

For the beginning of the class, I was so engrossed in learning how to make soap and "mentally" translating Mandarin in order to understand the steps, thus I have forgotten about taking pictures until the mixtures were all in a silver bowl.

Opps, our mixture is too dark! Too much honey added.

For our class, we made Savon de Marseille with Rose Honey. I personally do not fancy "rose" as the choosen scent for a soap but Yen Lin loves it alot. :) I'm more interested to learn how to make handmade soap to shower and improve my rashes-skin.

Whisking the mixture

Teacher adding honey to our mixture

A picture with our Teacher

The utensils are left to "dry" as the leftover-soap mixture will harden. No washing required!

We used recycled 1L carton box to put our soap mixture

We have to wait for 24 hours in order to see the result; which is tomorrow. Meantime, we are supposed to wrap up the carton box with a clothe and keep it warm and store it somewhere dry. And if successfully form in a block of soap tomorrow, we can cut or shape it to our prefered shape. Just have to wait for the result tomorrow...

The teacher is really interesting and she answered all our questioins with a smile despite she was losing her voice but I definitely learned a good lesson today in how to make soap! I asked her if she organise English-speaking lessons and she said she didn't as she don't speak good English but she travels to Australia often. And she even said I can be her translator if she one day organise English-speaking class. Hehehe... looking forward to that!

While we miggling around and asking more questions, I also bought a bar of soap that the Teacher has made. I picked my all-time favourite; Goat Milk soap. But her version comes with egg. According to her, the egg will help to beneficial our skin. Cost me RM15 which I think it's a good buy. I also love the pressed-pattern of the "love-tree" (my own description as you can see, it's a tree with branches and love-shaped leaves).

Along our way back in the train, Yen Lin told me the background of the soap and that's why its called, "Savon de Marseille". It's originated from France and it has to have 72% of olive oil as it's ingredient.

I shall be home early for my "soap-opening" ceremony. Kekekeke...