Eventful October and a wedding

October seems busy. I don't usually have things planned out for the month in advance, and afraid that one of it will slip my mind.

3 Oct: Date with Timmy for the 1st time in many weeks

4 Oct: HPC in Sepang

7 Oct: Diabetes intro to new colleagues

8 Oct: Hep B & C intro to new colleagues, HBV Malaysia & Thailand presentation to Nick and Achileas

10 Oct: Granduncle's wedding dinner

13 Oct: Free movie redemption

24 Oct: Vee's engagement dinner

Okie, now I feel more organised although I've written the list down many times =)

So, during the long weekend of 4 days, I entertained myself by going for a wedding. Oh no, it sounds as though it was for entertainment purposes. Well, I don't have anything to do as well.

It was the 1st time I've been to a full wedding ceremony. Come to think of it, I've never seen the tea ceremony for a long time and have never seen the chi mui thingy. So, I was there through it all: the bachelor party, chi mui thingy and the dinner. Almost all of the chi mui thingy. I escaped after the bride was picked up and I didn't follow to the groom's place and to their new house.

I think that the whole chi mui idea is crap. I told Suet countless times that if I was made head chi mui, I would open the door and say to the groom, “Nah, take your bride la”. Suet said she would do so for my wedding and worse, she asked me to wait outside the gate for the groom’s arrival. Now, that would be too desperate :D I dunno, the idea of the games the chi mui play just make me shiver with geli-ness. Could actually feel the wave of electrifying geli-ness run down my arms.

Chi muis are capable of thinking things that I would have never thought of in my entire life. That day, we played these games/tricks on the entourage (in order of occurrence):
1. drinking a concoction of Milo and raw eggs
2. roll an egg up the pants of one leg and down the other
3. dance the Macarena
4. get the house key out of a block of ice
5. singing
6. poem recital

Never mind that the poem was written in English and the groom couldn’t read. He repeated after a photographer who read the poem to him line by line. How humiliating for a man on his wedding day.

Groom being made a fool of himself dancing the Macarena and having a 'brother' help him with the egg stuck at his crotch

How apt, Kenny Sia has a post on the chi mui thingy he attended. His was way worse: leg waxing, wasabi sandwiches, men kiss men and this:

Men trying to burst the balloons on their friends' butts using their crotches. Basically, it's a 'I-hump-your-ass' motion

Although I must admit that it is hilarious, I wouldn’t want to see my husband diperbodohkan like that. We are grown ups and surely we have smarter things to laugh at?

Now, am I plain boring or what?

So, my dear sistahs, you are spared the agony of thinking on the bachelor night what to play, to use a boiled egg or a raw one, whether to bring the egg from home or boil it at the bride’s home, when to freeze the ice, all that jazz..

I’m just gonna do it with style and dignity. To get married in class and elegance with no stupidity and no one be made a fool of themselves. Just get out the door, have the banquet, wham bam thank you very much :D And yeah, no humongous large can-can dresses, just a slim one. Gosh, I’m even thinking about the yum seng part. But it’s a toast right? Oh, we can have the toast in English: “Here’s to everlasting happiness” “CHEERS!!” Here’s to many children” “CHEERS!!” See, it works right? Once again, style and class bwahaha!

And this is certain: There will be NO singing whatsoever at my wedding. Anyone going on the stage to sing is gonna be shot dead. I tell you, it was singing non-stop that whole night. We had to shout to each other to be heard. It was that freakin annoying. Not only it was loud and stupid singing, but of course, it had to be in Hokkien. Na is wa wu jit pak ban. I shove that jit pak ban up his ass. Well, banquets in KL don't usually have singing anyway. This scene below will NEVER happen at my wedding.

I'll shove his gloves up his ass, then his mouth.

Oh, but I must say that the belly-dancing ah soh at the end was very tantalising. Twice, my jelly dropped when I turned to look at her performance. The 1st jelly ended up in the bowl of tong shui, the 2nd on the floor :D Damn, that ah soh was a 'hot' hoochi-mama!!

My precious Hardy Boys book

Someone wanted to buy some of my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books and I was packing them for handing over tomorrow. I checked the cover of one of them and saw this:

There is no way I'm ever gonna part with that :( I shot off an email to the buyer, claiming I couldn't find the book in my collection.

I usually check the books before selling them, so I couldn't have missed anything similar. Besides, I usually choose my own books. Dy must have gone somewhere and saw the book and bought it for me. Feeling utterly sad now, tears welling up in my eyes. I miss him so much. Why is it that until now, I cry each and every time I think of him? :'( :'(

Just keep crying and crying right now looking at that message :(

Another of my pics in The Star!

Woot woot woot!! The pic that I took in the KTM that day was published in The Star thumbnails!

I think this picture captured the men's expressions very well. Not trying to boast but I think that it's nice, isn't it? The young men staring into space with oblivion and the old man certainly looked fatigued with his arm on the pole and his face sums it all.

I checked The Star the next day after sending it but it wasn't there. Only today, Suet sms-ed me and told me so, else I wouldn't have known too! Shortly after, Peter asked if it was me. Reminds me of the time Roy at Toyota approached me and asked if the pic was mine too, and indeed it was. Somehow kinda touched by that, I never thought that he would know my full name. Well.. :)

So this is my 3rd pic being there but I didn't get the RM50 this time. Here's the one that got me RM50 and the other one with no RM50 =)

Btw, the caption in the pics, as with the other 2, are not mine. And it certainly wasn't in the LRT for I do not take the LRT to work.

London: Spending GBPs

Couple police hat, one for me and one for Timmy. This is one of the things that London is synonymous with, together with the bearskin hat guards, the double decker bus and the black cabs.

Bag from Primark and top from Zara. So cheap, at only £4.89 and £10 respectively! After conversion to RM, still freakin freakin cheap!

Come to think of it, should have bought more branded stuff there, dang!

Hair bands from Primark too. 24 pieces for £1 =)

Hand-painted candles, got them from Camden market.

I think for someone to paint them like that, they're amazing. I like the John Lennon one the most. There's another MU one but I'm lazy to ask my bro to take it out for photography purposes. Come to think of it, each costed about RM7, oh my gosh!

Hot choc drinks, 3 for £20. Not that nice actually.



Tea, many types of tea. These and the hot chocs were bought in Wimbledon just as the shop was about to close at 5pm. Stupid shops that close at 5 on Sundays.

Chocs, glorious chocs! The stack of chocs at the top left are Sainsbury home brands but they taste good! So there is nothing to buy fancy packaging, as what their wrapper says "No fancy packaging, just a good bar of chocolate".

How much those cost? £0.29!! That's like RM1.80 per bar!! And now I am thinking that I should have bought 50 bars instead, but I didn't know how they taste then.

Cherries, lovingly hand-carried and bought the day before departure from Borough market. Even Timmy cannot tahan, he took one from the bag and popped it right into his mouth when dropping me home =)

Don't play play, I am a Harrods member!

And I bought jam at Harrods! Branded jam, you know hahaha.

Terracotta warrior figures

Now, don't ask me why did I buy them, especially from London hahaha! Cos they were cheap la. The original price was £15 I think but they were on offer and I got them for about £5. Right after I paid for them, and I was still in the shop, I looked at the receipt if it mentions that I can return them within the next few days! And it was raining heavily that day, had to lugged 2 huge boxes home. And I tried to fit those boxes into my luggage, it won't fit so I had to check them in. At home, 1 of the Terracotta's legs patah already but I glued it back and still standing =P

I vow never to carry big stuff home anymore. 1 luggage bag, 1 hand-carried bag and 2 Terracotta figures all by myself. I will never act like a crazy shopper anymore :)

Other stuff bought but not photographed are:

1. MU t-shirts for bro and jerseys for May Ling’s dad

2. Hugo perfume for Timmy. Super cheap at 50% at Harrods! And I got an additional 10% of the discounted price for being a member =) (wanted to buy DKNY Delicious for myself but in the end, decided not to buy things just because they are cheap. I have repented)

3. James Bond book for bro and another book for myself at Sainsbury cos buying 2 books is value for money. Don't even remember what's the title cos I've finished it and given it to Timmy d.

With that, I declare the London series officially close. Haha, 1 trip inspired a whole lot of posts. I'm going back to reality but I hope to go there again next year! From there, I will head to Paris though =)

London: Commuting like a Londoner and where I stayed

The public transportation in London is superb; there is no need to drive. The Tube, trains and buses get you anywhere, on time! Everyday, I'd walk a few minutes to the bus stop, take a bus to the Earlsfield train station (it's a 15 min walk from home to the station if you are rajin), take the train on the Jubilee Line to Waterloo, then take the Tube to London Bridge station.

My trusty Tube map, a need to be carried everywhere as the Tube network is just extensive! Map torn and charn already.

These are the signs of the destination at each station. There are extremely popular and you can see them on T-shirts as well. And there, I saw names that I've only previously seen on the Monopoly board! There was Marylebone, Whitechapel, King Cross St.Pancras and of course, Oxford Street and Bond Street! We didn't go to Mayfair though.

This was in the train out to Canary Wharf. If you enlarge the image, you can see that they have Saliva Recovery Kits to match your spit against the National DNA bank! Don't spit spit!

I thought this was catchy. The coloured names are actually names of the stations.

The transport services are excellent. Tubes run at 2-3 minute intervals. If one of the networks is off, you can still get to your destination as a few lines run to 1 place. The train moves at every 10 minutes and once again, there are a few trains that you can take. Busses come at most every 10 minutes and since there are a few as well, then your wait is actually very short. So, despite taking the Tube, train and bus to work, I take 45 minutes only to reach the office. Here, I take 1 stupid train and it takes me an hour. The interval of the KTM here is the same as the off-peak bus service interval: 30 minutes! My coll was horrified to hear that.

Anyway.. here's where I stayed..

Fart.. fart.. fart.. the ability to fart 5x a day is a requirement to rent or purchase a lot here

The farting lane

Ah, the sign that greets me at the train station.

The Earlsfield train station

Let me post the pictures of the house 1st, then I'll tell you what happened in that house. The only part I don't like about London, the dampener.

The house. It's a town house; 2 houses share the same entrance. Think it's quite charn compared to the other houses on the lane. No gate some more.

My room. Having my own room means I don't have to be tidy. What is not shown here is all the purchases all over the floor on the left =)

The kitchen, where my host hung all her laundry before she left. The colour of that day was red, to match the fridge. And all those hanging are 'little pieces of clothing', urgh.

The view from the lounge..

.. and the lounge.

The bathroom upstairs where I take my shower. The shower is on the right, so very small that I kept knocking my elbow. The bath tub was full of dirt, not that I wanna soak inside there as well.

Toilet on the lower floor where I usually poop hahahaha!

So, this is a townhouse. The 1st door is shared, the 2nd door is ours.
Level 1: Kitchen, my room, lounge and the poop bathroom.
Level 2: Shower bathroom and my host + her bf's room.

So, I was home alone for most of my stay there cos my host went for a holiday in Greece with her bf. I thought it was good and I still think it is too for I'm lazy to make conversation with people yet it wouldn't be very nice to retreat to my room as soon as I come back.

On the 1st night I was alone, I freaked myself out.

I heard sounds.

Not of the ghostly kind but of someone trying to open the door. The jangling of the doorknob. James, my host's bf, told me that the neighbour works in a night club and stays at home during the day. So I thought that at 11.30pm, she couldn't be coming back already.

I tried to ignore it, it might be the house next door or something. But the jangling went on and on and on and on. I grabbed my phone. Now I think that's a pretty bloody stupid idea, was I going to call back to Malaysia if anything happens? Heck, I dun even know how to dial those international codes. Bloody dumb, I should have grabbed a knife instead.If anything happens, no one would know until the next day when I don't turn up at the office.

I stood at the top of the stairs, with my phone in hand like a noob.

Confirm, someone is bloody trying to come in!!

I had enough of waiting. I'm not gonna wait any longer at that bloody top of the stairs waiting for the door to swing open. I went down the spooky stairs and opened the door. You wanna come in? Come la

It was the neighbour. She said I had locked her out and she managed to come in from the back and was fiddling with the lock. I didn't know that the door cannot be opened if the-something is pushed up; I didn't even realise I had pushed it up. I think I must have done so in ensuring that the door was locked, since I was going to be home alone that night.

Gosh, I was scared shit, the part where I stood at the top of the stairs waiting for 'the time'. Houses in UK don't have gates like we do. There's just the lock that comes built in with the door. I dunno how safe is London. There is an impression that Western countries have more crime than we do. Feeling scared shit and lonely, I shot off an email to Tim: "just now i was so scared. i heard some sounds... and then i realised the sounds were coming from the main door outside.. really scared.. then i went down and listened... sounds like got ppl wanna try to open it... i finally decided to open the door" and after that, I decided to call him in the middle of the night from London. It was 6.30am in Malaysia, he would/should be up by then and even if he wasn't, I would wake him up.

If you are going to laugh, let me tell you that throughout my stay there, for another 9 days or so, I keep hearing sounds of ppl walking on the wooden floors. I'm not afraid that it would be ghosts, more paranoid that someone was in the house. To the extent that I check every room when I come home and I stack a chair against the door when I sleep. Silly as it may seem but I don't bother if it can make me sleep at ease. Til Timmy started to think there might be ghosts but of course, he didn't tell me so.

Oh yeah, I took a knife from the kitchen and kept it by my bedside. Better to be silly than sorry.

Possible explanation of what happened: It might be the neighbour walking and the walls are kinda thin, so I hear the creaking. But they are loud and clear, I tell you.

Hated coming home at that time.