Typical Kopi Tiam Dining Experience

Kopi tiam means coffee shop in English but it's not the coffee shops as you know it in Oz or NZ. These coffee shops sell noodles, wontons and drinks. They are mostly alfresco dining but there are air-conditioned places too. RM$5 is more than enough for a meal and drink.

Typical set up: Drinks Iced Milk Tea and Barley Drink RM$1.XX each. The noodles stall will also provide a glass of hot water with utensils dipped in it for cleaning purposes. A bowl of clear broth and a small dish of chilli sauce per person. We used to use the broth for cleaning the utensils. These days, the trend has caught on and hot water is now provided.

Today's breakfast was pien nuit (wonton) at a kopitiam in Lanang Road. It was RM$2.20. The pien nuit wasn't that nice - not enough meat, too much skin. Still, I finished it. The familiar taste of fat and fried onions was very comforting. Arggggh the good old days.

More FOTD (food of the day) posts to come each day. I'm going to turn into a big tub of lard by the time I go back to NZ.

Traffic Laws? Never Heard of Them! Part 1

People whine about Aucklanders' bad driving all the time. These people would not survive in Sibu. Traffic laws are disregarded blatantly. I won't be driving for the next 4 months for the sake of my blood pressure.

Why park in one spot if you can park in two? More is always better!!

What do you mean no parking?? But it's right by the shops!!

More bad driving shots to come! Lots more.

Dark Dark Period In My Life

The suitcase turned up two days later... but I tell ya, it was touch and go in terms of my sanity at times. I was alternating between "Oh well, they are only things. Don't worry about it." and "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!". But luckily I got a call last night at 9 saying they've found my suitcase and it just arrived. So we raced off to pick it up. Turned out the tag dropped off by the time it got to KL so they had no idea where it was meant to go. Yay, Sibu MAS employees for tracking it down for me. I'll give them Ah Here's firstborn as payment.


Anyway the two days were a dark dark period in my life which meant that I had no interest in taking photos of anything happening around me. So entries with pics will resume tomorrow.

First Day Back Home

Home Sweet Home!!

Greetings from Malaysia!

This is the view from where I'm sitting right now. You can see the laptop screen on the bottom left of the photo. The giant tv (I'm watching asian news) is in the middle. The remote on the right is the remote to the massage chair aka dad's prized possession, that I'm sitting on.... horhorhorhor jealous?

The trip was pretty uneventful except for 2 things:

1. On the the trip from Auckland to KL, they ran out of meal choices and I was given a vegan, lactose free meal.... Sarika would have loooooved it.... I turned my nose up at it and boy did i suffer an hour or so later...... staaaaarving..

2. The airport lost my suitcase............. at the time of press, they still haven't located it... I'm quietly freaking out because two of my favourite pairs of heels are in there...... if they manage to find the suitcase, I'm so hand carrying them home to NZ. Arrgggh fingers crossed...

Oh yeah this pregnant woman also swindled me out of my front aisle seat. I got to my seat and she was sitting 2 seats over from me (the window seat). She then asked me if I minded swapping as she would be going to the toilet lots. I figured, fair enough so I did. Except she then proceeded to sit next to me!?! I questioned her on this and she offhandedly say oh ya my male colleague is going to sit there in the aisle seat aka what was previously MY SEAT!!!!.... arrrgggh, bubble captions above my head read:

A) Lady, you big fat liar!!!

B) You are in no condition to flirt with your male colleague!!!!

PS I like front aisle seats because I can then race out of cattle class asap...

Lady of Leisure

Whoever said that they envy this kind of lifestyle deserve a kick in the head... at least for what I did today anyway... next week is going to be a different story - sitting in dad's state of the art massage chair, watching cable, eating hometown goodies and having someone (mum) at my beck and call. Jealous much?

Woke up at eight after going to bed at three (updating CV, such a chore! Thanks Dean!!). Then I ran a series of chores in the shortest amount of time. I think I'm ready to be on Amazing Race.
1. Hair Products Shop - hair products for my unruly mop.
2. Pharmacy - stuff for mum.
3. Supermarket - chocolates for the annoying relative/friend.
4. Home - pack and seal the box to take home, filled to the brim with chocolates and miscellaneous stuff, fashioned a rope/handle thing for easy carrying. Not as good as Dad's obviously.
5. Vacuum the whole house - even under the cushions of the sofa thank you very much.
6. Found the missing piece to my 1000 piece puzzle under the cushions.... yay! Shuddup, puzzles are cool...
7. Tidy the towels cupboard.
8. Tidy my room and shoes.
9. Dinner at Mel's. Listen to her go on and on about how she rocks at getting what she wants out of salespeople and how i don't.
10. Iron clothes.
11. Laundry.
12. Book hotel for my transit on Thursday night in KL.
13. Collapse in front of tv.

All before 8 pm too........

Tomorrow is a shorter list of to dos... starting with an 8 am cupcake baking session for the work mates. All riveting stuff, I know.

Last Day At Work

Finally the day has come! And I realised a few things:
1. I am going to miss the place and the people.
2. EVERYONE knows that I have a heels obsession, judging by the quantity of heels related gifts I got from people.

I am very humbled by the love and thoughtfulness that everyone showered on me today! Mental note to self: Need to resign more often.

Testing

Testing