Perut Membesar

With all the makan-makan events during raya holiday, one would definitely look at his/her own tummy at the end of the day and thought, "Gosh... it's getting bigger".

And what follows would be series of rather useless or unnecessary solutions:
1. Kena kurang makan lah (still, raya-ing from house to house and gulped in tons of lemang, rendang or even lontong).
2. Nak gi gym lah (still, takde masa, ada kawan jemput gi raya kat rumah).
3. Jaga diet lah, kurangkan yang berlemak (as if u can resist those wonderful greasy and fattening cookings).

For your info, I lost 2 kg over the month of Ramadhan. Kalo Josh kata diet masa bulan puasa, dietlah maksudnya. But then, my wife was the other way round. She gulped in tons of food. In the end she gained weight and her waist increased double to her previous measurement. See, i can't beat the size of my wife's belly.

But the thing is, I'm sooooooooo happy she'd gained weight. And I'm sooooooooooooo happy to see her getting bigger :-D

She's 7 months pregnant. Yah, I did something to her. hahahahaha. Our baby is normal and growing healthily albeit the worries and sleepless nights in the beginning. Reaching and beyond 40s, our age is no longer young. The chances of having abnormalities is high. But God is graceful, our baby is gaining weight according to the normal curve. Frequent checkups confirming that the baby is healthy.

I'll be officially a daddy by the end of the year, if everything goes smoothly. We want to give thanks to our fellow Christian brothers and sisters for their constant supports and prayers. Most of all, We give all the thanks and praises to our God.

I'm a happy man. Grinning with radiant smile.

Raya Breakaway

Last week's raya holiday had gave my wife and I a chance to have a much needed breakaway to a cool and quiet place in Malaysia: The Fraser's Hill. To avoid the noisy crowd, we'd chosen this exclusive place: The Ye Olde Smokehouse.



The weather was beautiful. The air was fresh and cool. The colonial structures of the smokehouse had elevated our mood to relax. Upon arrival, we were served with the best scone and afternoon tea we'd ever had.


Many visitors (not in-house guests) travelled to this place just to enjoy their famous afternoon tea and home-made freshly baked scone.

Not only that the exterior (and the garden) was beautiful, their in-door decor was also captivating. The old English style decor had made the place cosy and relaxing.

Lots of sofa for the guests to relax, either to just sip some coffee or just to enjoy reading books at your leasure.


We stayed in a suite. The Room was huge, furnished with canopy bed, two single sofas, a fire place, a basket of fresh fruits, and a writing table. Of course, the attached bathroom was equipped with hot water supply and a bath tub.


The view from our room's window was spectacular!


Though it was a short two days one night stay, this trip was good enough to energize us. The quiet and peaceful moment we'd had was worth all the money spent.

I'll definitely be back here again whenever I need to be energized.

Sekinchan Trip

Making use of the last Raya holiday, my wife and I had decided to bring my mother-in-law to Sekinchan to meet up with her younger sister. MIL is recovering well after her operation on her left hip. Since knowing that a few of our friends were also interested to join us, we called them up and went there with three cars.


Actually, there's a long story behind the meeting up of my MIL and her younger sister. They were adopted by two different families and were brought up separately. After years of searching, they managed to get united last year. Since then, we tried our best to keep in touch and let them meet up as frequent as possible.

Though visiting the relatives was our main objective, a trip to Sekinchan won't be complete without trying their fresh, cheap and delicious seafood (that's the exact reason our friends got interested to join us). Here're some highlights of the food:
Steam hot-and-sour fish with charcoal. The unique feature of this dish was the heating method. Unlike many restaurants using dry fuel now a day, they used charcoal. That had added aroma to the dish!!

The spicy mantis prawn with petal. YUMMY!!!! The prawn was lightly battered, fried to golden brown and stir fried again with thai sause and petal. VERY APPETIZING!

This one was the children's favourite: Mantis prawn with salted egg yolk. The prawn was very crispy and the aroma of the salted egg was just inviting! The children (of my friends) had their great time.


Sekinchan is uniquely known for it's dual-core activities: Paddy planting and fisheries. The sight of the green paddy field was awesome. In about three months, the field will turn to golden brown, ready for harvest. Perhaps I should come here again.


We thought of going to the wharf to purchase some freshly caught seafood, but was told that the fishermen were having their raya holiday too. Most of the fishermen are Chinese but they celebrate the festive season together with their muslim counterparts.


The trip was fun and the food was so nice and cheap there!!

Footnote: I was down with sinus in the afternoon of the trip, thanks to some incense and joss tick burning... spoilt my mood. Aiyooo.....

Expensive Supplement

My sinus problem got worse two months ago and the ENT specialist said i might have to go through an operation to remove some tissue. That simple procedure would cost me a fortune, RM8,000 to be exact.

Since many friends and relative keep on advising me to take Cordyceps sinensis (which I try not to because of it's shocking price), I thought I might as well spent some money on this instead of spending it on an operation.

Its name in Chinese 'dong chong xia cao' (冬虫夏草) means "winter worm, summer grass". For the western world, they're known as Caterpillar Fungus.

Basically, it's the root of a kind of shrub, where the caterpillar burrow inside the root and feeds on it. The Cordyceps or the fungus attacked on the caterpillar and mummified the caterpillar within the root.

The 'dong chong xia cao' are rather small in size, ranging from 1 to 2 cm normally. But behold, that little box my wife bought costed us RM800! aiyoooooo..... very the expensive one.

My wife would boil them with some ginseng and serve them as a cup of drink, very expensive cup of drink! Ever since i started taking this supplement, the frequency of the occurrence of my sinus problem seems to drop. A good sign.

For those that are no familiar with the Cordyceps sinensis, you can read more here.

Hypertension!!

Eversince I was given a new position two months ago, my daily routine changed tremendously.

meeting, meeting, meeting,
discussions, discussions, discussions,
monitoring, monitoring, monitorin,
supervising, supervising, supervising,
meeting, meeting, meeting,

erm.. still meeting, meeting, meeting.

Oh God, grant me wisdom and strength.

One Boomed, Another One To Go

These two Mak Buyungs used to do 'Mesyuarat Pintu' right at my office door. These photos were taken two weeks ago.


Puan Tod-tod boomed last week and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Without her around for a month, the office gonna be a bit quiet.

While Puan Lala on the right, is currently on leave, waiting to boom anytime.

One boomed, another one to go. Then the cycle continue. On the other hand, I thought mine would boom at the end of the year but the puasa month had forced me to go on diet. Dah kempis pun perut, tak jadilah boom.

Foot note: Aisey..... kempis laaa wallet nak beli hadiah untuk baby.