Greetings from Hong Kong

I am currently in HK attending a 2 weeks course here. So far it's been ok except for the weather which is currently raining everday. Hopefully it will be a bit better in a few days time. The food here are very expensive compared to malaysia. The streets are always crowded with people. There's not a single corner without a human being. Transportation wise so far so so good as the trains are quite efficient.

That's it for now from me. I will release the full details when i return home :)

More Home Cook Meals :-)

Actual product of WIfey's salmon steak

As part of the so called ubah gaya hidup (change our lifestyle), we took up the challenge by not going out of the house at all. Seriously, we did not even open the entrance door or set foot outside of our compound. The furthest we went is at the balcony overseing the swimming pool and it's surrounding. The result, i guess we managed to save some petrol because we did not require to move the car.As for food, wifey was in the gear again to cook.

For breakfast we just had baked beans with bread. Even Sofea shares the same meal as ours. And for lunch, wifey cooked for us chicken soup. Yum yum. I call it Chicken soup for the petrol hike. Maybe the chicken soup book author can work on this and probably even be a best seller. But don't forget my commission.

Chicken soup for the petrol hike! Next best seller

For dinner, a very special meal never been prepared before. Salmon steak. Wallaa!!!. Salmon my favourite. It was prepard very well with salads and a special internet black peper sauce. Hehe. Meaning the black pepper sauce recipe was from the internet.

Actual servings as depicted above and below

The taste, marvellous!!! Well done wifey for the delicious meal.
Note to self : i might get use with this. Guessed the price hike did made a different in lifestyle :)

Petrol prices up again! Now at RM2.70

My reaction can be translated to the picture of Sofea above

As at 5pm yesterday, i kept on visiting the online newspaper to see what's the new petrol price structure is all about, but to no avail, nothing was updated. In a few minutes time, i received an email from my colleague who is kinda related to politics. According to him, the prices of petrol will go up to 80cents per litre. At first i wanted to ignore it, but coming from him, i do have to say i kinda trust him. So quickly i messaged wifey to fill up her tank. Luckily enough, she managed to fill it up early before the que starts coming in.

I officially heard the news on Radio 24's news at 6.30pm that confirmed by 5th June 2008, the petrol will increase by 78 cents. Oh my god, that high??? So i rushed quickly to the Esso station at Keramat after informing a few of my contacts through sms'es. By the time i got there, the que was already starting to build up. Luckily i qued at the correct lane which eventually did not take that long to que. There were already 4 cars in front of me, but hey, what the heck. Might as well go for it. And at the same time i keep praying, please don't let the credit card machine fail now as i have only Rm10 in my wallet.

Fill it up before before you go go!!! This was only at 6.35pm.

The bad
After about 15 minutes of queing up, finally it's my turn. Inserted my Amex card, and finally it was okay. Pump it up to the max at the meter showed RM60.01. In other words, i would be pumping in 31.25 litres of petrol. I guessed that's the last one that i'm gonna get for this price. The next time i pump in at the same amount, i will only be getting 22.22 litres of petrol. That's less 10 litres for what i'm getting now. Technically, i will only be filling in 1/3 of my Waja tank compared to 1/2 as before. So that's the whole news. Usually i will pump in around RM80 for 2 week. With the new price, i will have to fill up RM 112 to get the same amout of petrol. That's RM 32 more. Times 2 is RM64. Times 12 is RM768. That's the additional expenses that i have to incure for the upcoming year. And that does not include long journey trips. This is just the daily commute from Wangsa Maju - Jalan Kent - BNM - Jalan Kent - Wangsa Maju + a few nearby destination. That night by the time we headed to home around 10pm, all petrol stations were still busy like no one's business. We even had trouble getting home as the road that was heading to home was filled up with cars. Finally we took the incoming lane to bypass the jam. There were no other choice. Either face the upcoming cars or stay stuck for the next hour. Petrol stations are the last place on earth you want to go yesterday if you are really in a hury.

A lot more cars were queing up behind the waja. It got even worse after this

The good
By the time i left the petrol station, the que was really starting to build up. Luckily i was done. Watched the news at 7 with papa. The good news is that the Government will going to give a cash rebate of RM625 for cars less that 2000cc. It will be paid when you renew your roadtax. And the waja's roadtax is due on August. Woohoo!!!. Luckily i was in the group. So technically RM625 /12 = Rm52 per month. Well i guess it's better than nothing. Luckily the Waja is 1600cc which qualifies for this and cheaper roadtax. Can't complain there. I guess the waja will be serving me for long. For those of you complaining about abolish roadtax, well how about this. Get yourself a car less than 1600cc. It's about less then RM10 per month.

Next course of action
In these tough time, i guess we will have to really cut down on our expenses. They said change our lifestyle. From car, change to motorcycle, from motorcycle to bicycle, from cab to lrt and from lrt to bus and finally from any of these transport to walking. But then you will have to spend more on mineral water :) I'm already cutting down the expenses to the max including not to use the air cond to and from the office. What else could i cut down on. Just something to ponder...

The effect
As of today as i was getting to work, the cars around me seems to go way slower than usual. Some of them even drove at 30km/h. What the heck??? I know they want to decrease the usage of petrol but, isn't it if you go slower the more petrol you consume since you will need to always step on the accelerator instead of letting the car cruise? I hope today i made it on time before the 9.00am "dead" line. Hope this is only temporarily. If not, i have to face the petrol hike and also the late attendance again.

Note: I hope D'tebing doesn't increase their price arising from the petrol hike.

"Harga petrol di Malaysia masih diantara yang terendah di rantau ini"

Wifey Rogers Roasters

Last Sunday, wifey was kind enough to prepare me with a home cook meal. The meal is Chicken Roasters. Similar but different as compared to the Kenny Rogers Roasters set. What i meant by similar but different is, the chicken is similar to the one found at Kenny Rogers, but different in terms of side dishes. What where you thinking eh?

Similar but different compared to Kenny Rogers Roasters

The taste was marvelous. To prove how good it was, just see the picture below. Can you guess what happened to it? Hehe. Some carnivor beast came into our house and finished it off. Even the CSI can't figure this one out. Bravo wifey!!!

What could have done this to a poor creature???

Sofea meets Bumblebee

Me like bumblebee

On Saturday, Sofea finally met her match. The Ultimate Bumblebee. Haha. Actually the bumblebee was purchased sometime in October 2007 and had always been on a display with my other Transformers collection. Since she's a litte grown up now, she's starting to explore more on what's there in the house. Thus she showed to me the bumblebee and i finally let her played with it.

Let's burn rubber!!!

She was quite amused with it since it could move about and play a few phrases and song encluding the transformers theme and Whip It by Devo. Hopefully she doesn't spoils it. It's my precious!!!! ( Smeagol kinda way)

Sofea's crocs rocks!!!

We went over to Great Eastern mall last weekend after having failed to visit the Jom Heboh carnival at Bukit Jalil due to myself. Hehehe. (not the type of dude who likes to hang out at crowded places). So as a consolation, we went over to GE Mall instead.

Just the usual window shopping + dinner. After receiving Sofea's birthday gift from Auntie Jie for nearly 4 month, we finally put the shoes on her. And it fits. Maybe not that fitting but after we tested at home, she seems to be able to walk properly. So we tested it out at GE Mall. At first we thought that maybe she couldn't walk very fast as it was still new, but we were wrong. She seems to be running and walking around at her usual pace.

psst, these are original crocs shoes. Thank you Auntie Jie
orang gila je yang beli kasut macam ni :-)

So i guess after this we will continue to use them before it doesn't fit her anymore.

Whoo!!! I can see you in 3D