A Poem Dedicated to Richard, Sally and Baby Elysee

taking a break from the huge Australia blog... My cousin Richard and his wife Sally just got a precious baby girl. She is so cute... Hope everyone is doing fine and we from malaysia wish all joy, happiness and health... So sorry on the belated post but here goes...


Congratulations on this blessed of days,
A Gift from God has come your way,
A little Angel has come into the world,
A most precious, beautiful Baby Girl,

An Angel to give you joy and hope,
Motivation to take on life's difficult slopes,
An Angel to test your temperament and wits,
An Angel whom you will love to bits,

Many sleepless nights you will endure,
But it will make you love her more,
Even in the darkest days,
An Angel’s smile would take them away,

Sally; A Great mother you will be,
I have no doubts, you will see,
You are benevolent and giving as the Sun,
Shining your love and care on everyone,

Richard today is the day you will be,
A Father to baby Elysse,
A place for baby to find comfort and happiness,
Baby’s refuge and rock through any sadness,

Baby Elysee do not worry,
All the family is in a flurry,
To prepare what is best for you,
Always be happy and never blue,

If there is any advice I dare to impart,
It is to be true to your heart,
Love each as much as you can,
And cherish each day with each other spent.

Alexander Tay 2006...

Hope you guys like it... and congaratulations again..

My Aussie Adventure Pt 1

Hello all again... just to update my avid readers (i think i have bout 5 of them now Boo Ya..) I just Got back from the land of the late Steve Irwin ;(, Kangaroos, Koalas and Wonbats aka AUSTRALIA. I went there during the Hari Raya holidays from the 24-Oct-2006 untill 4-Nov-2006. A grand total of 2 weeks. I spent the huge chunk of my time basically in Melbourne just travelling the city and the surrounding suburbs... i shall try to post by day basis cos its just too much to write.
but Before anything, I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to my Famliy there My Grand Father ; Ah Kong thanks for all the dinners and gifts you have given me. My Uncle Charles and Aunty Swee lan for all the wonderful day trips and dinners you have gave mum, kah peng and I during our stay thanks for spoiling us rotten. Uncle Kim and Aunty Lynn for giving us a place to stay, teaching us also how to use the public transport and also to be our official Map of Melbourne and feeding us... ( not an easy task mind you). To Cousins / Cousin-In-Laws Richard and Sally Kate thanks for the Italian Dinner at Lygon Street and best whishes for the new baby. To Francis and Christine (crossing fingers that i spelt the name right) thank you for the Black Glutinous rice "Thong Sui" (loved it) , hope christine's back gets better and your baby is so adorable. To Adele nice talking to you and thank you so much to let us invade the privacy of your room hopefully we didnt mess anything up. To Grace thanks for helping us on some of the tram routes and hope ur exams go well BTW how was the races... Ok now on with the blog..

Day 1 : 24/11/2006 - Arrival
we started our journey from Kajang at bout 4.30 am. we had to arrive at the airport by 5.15am to check in. After the check in, we proceeded to have some breakfast and wait for our areoplane. then is was a 7hr 30min flight to Melbourne. After touch down we were greeted by first Uncle Kim and Richard we then took a drive back to Uncle Charles and Aunty Swee Lan's House. It was nice to see grandpa after about 6 years absence. It was about 9.00pm Australian time and since we had not taken any dinner yet, they took us out for our first meal in melbourne (one oof the many that were come) i wont post pictures of dinner cos Mum's says my blog has too many pictures of food anyways... :P i will post more later ha ha ha

Day 2 Day 1 : 25/11/2006 - The Walk About
This was the first actual day in Melbourne it was a nice day the tempreature was about 25 - 30 degrees it was a perfect day to go walking. I wont elaborate too much cos it would take up too much Blog space...

My Uncle's House In East Kew (if i rememeber correctly)... Cool House (50++ inch plasma!! Drool... )this was my "Base Of Operations" while i was there... :P thanks again

Flinders Street Station One of Melbourne's landmarks... Beautiful Train station nice yellow colour...

This is St Paul's an Anglican Church wonderful church really breathtaking outside as well as inside... (just across Flinder's Street Station)

Kah Peng looking radiant at fedaration Square... this is a huge square where many outdoor activities are held such as art shows and small carnivals...

Mum and Uncle Kim looking wonderful at federation Square as well.... check out em' shades... :P

Melbourne's City Scape somehow for a city this big its rather clean no chewing gum littering the streets no garbage pile everywhere... hermm I wonder when KL will be like that...

The Yarra River it is the river which flows right through the city of Mellbourne looks very nice and clean not like the Klang river in KL...

Melbourne's Arts Centre (i think... I Googled it to be sure) Its bottom is made from copper... its Melbourne's own Eifel Tower

National Gallery of Victoria... Its a Art gallery didn't actually go in just took some pics... Next time perhaps... :)

This is GPO basically it is a converted old post office which is now a posh shopping mall... its like starhill but much nicer... building wise... :P

Kah Peng And Mum at Royal Arcade (the oldest Shopping mall in Melbourne) I think.. :P Very nice shops inside.. and the building is really rustic..

This is the entrance of China Town... it is at Little Bourke St just off Bourke Street... looks like Petaling Street minus the VCD/DVD Pirates and fake Designer goods... It is just rows of chinese Grocers and food shops selling everything from "Yam Cha" ("Dim Sum" is called that down here) to Chicken rice...

Kah Peng again at the Chinese Museum in China town really interesting place where you get to see the history of the Chinese people down under... Brief explanation is they came for gold the gold rush in Victoria and stayed after that... Many interesting Relics inside a must visit..

Mum and "Ah Kong" Grandpa at Indochine one of Melbourne's Fine restraunts.. It is a Vietnamese restraunt serving really lovely cuisine... Check out my "Ah Kong" looks like a Mafia Boss i can just imagine him saying "I will make you a offer you can't refuse"...

"Ah Kong" and Aunty Swee Lan at Indochine as well...

Day 3 : 26/11/2006 - The Walk About
We took a drive along the coast of Port Philip Bay It is very very picturest with wonderful look out points and wonderful coastal scenery here a map of where we went :-

We drove along the red Arrows.. a heck of a long drive and alot of things to see not many pics tho cos i didnt really fancy taking pics from the car
The BIG Breakfast to get us started on our long trip... OMG its so Huge it has bacon, Spinach, Mushrooms, Sausages and toast at the bottom... Very tasty... :P
At Springvile this is where most of the Vietnamese stay in Melbourne. The markets here are very similiar to the markets in Malaysia (layout and presentation)

Some of the Fresh Fruits beings sold at the market...

Fresh Fish like at home just the fish here are much better and fresher... the foodstuff sold in Australis is so much healthier and look so much better than the one in malaysia... wonders why? Even the roadsides look better...

We stopped off at Frankston (i am not sure) to have a look at a art's market there. Its like a Huge "pasar pagi". They were selling all kinds of stuff from key chains to Flowers... Pretty "bunga kertas" plant...

we also stopped at a beachside town and streched out our legs it is called Dromana i think very nice scenery

A Group photo at Dromana Coast... actually it was quite cold there...

Nice scenery form the coast... how come even the sea looks better than ours... i think i should stop comparing....

Quanint little beach houses expensive tho... :P cer cute and colourful...

On the ferry from Sorento...

How the Ferry actually looks like...

At the end of the day we got back late in the evening here is a pic with the doggie... DIVA!! cute dog...

TBC it is a four part big blog so please be patient with me... :P

New and Improved Engrish labels

its been ages since i blogged... i think i forgot how to dammit... here we GO..

about a week ago i was at my normal grocery shop and i spotted this innocent looking pack of candy... it was mango in flavour but what struck me is was its labels... remeber the water being honest post... :P

Ok on with it it said this :
















let me say it out " May the breeze bring you the tenderness and warmth from me. Yet you are here at the bottom of my heat"

Whooaaa this candy kicks major ass according to the lable... It can give me warmth and tenderness from it... its kicks so much ass that is freaky... i dont even say that to my girlfrend not is it too cheesy but just down right weird to get warmth and tenderness from a candy...


when candy starts to say this i think of M & M's (check out the red one's posing... kids these days...) making illicit proposition to women like "i can give you tenderness and warmth from my glucose infused heart" or my personal favourite quoted from M n M's themselves of from 50 cent (the rapper not currency) "I melt in your mouth not in your hand" (if you get my drift he he he... :P)



then comes the second line "Yet you are here at the bottom of my heat".. ok what the *toot* does this mean... *nuff said*

I tought that was all untill i saw the bottom of it... it said :
















"Orange New Food" what the hey do they mean? there is a new food type called orange?
maybe this..

Penang Food Crazy

I love Penang... I love Penang... I love Penang... I love Penang...

last weekend my GF, 2 friends and i decided we would take a road trip to Penang Island for a ROAD TRIP... so we gathered our stuff and headed out to penang aiming for a gastronomical adventure...

we departed at around 7 am from Kajang heading out to our first stop at a town called Bidor... it is just a short frive from the highway making it a popular stop with people travelling north... this town is famous for guava (a type of fruit) which is like Malaysian verson of an apple (maybe not)... we didnt stop there for the guava thou we were there for out breakfast... they have a shop in town which is famous for their braised duck drumstick noodle... we reached there at around 9.45am and proceeded to order our food i also ordered another type of noodle and a few peices of yam stuffed with barbequed pork...

From top to bottom : Yam Filled with Barbeque Pork, Braised Drumstick with Noodles, Kolo Mee (noodles tossed in black soy sauce)

Breakfast was nothing to shout about but all were tasty and ok eating... we are our breakfast and bought some biscuits and headed off.

After another 3hrs of mind numbing driving we reached the Penang Bridge... a very welcoming sight indeed...

first thing we did we checked in to our hotel room at the Paradise Sandy Beach Resort after a toilet break and a short rest we headed out of our hotel... target Char Koay Teow... so after awhile of getting lost and looking at maps we found our targeted location "Lorong Selamat" this alley way is famous for the delectable Char Koay Teow... so we ordered up a storm... all had Poh Pia (chinese roll), Char Koay Teow (Flat Rice Noodle Fried with prawns, cockles, chili paste, soy, topped off with bean sprouts and chives.) , Oh Chien (fried oysters in corn starch batter with eggs) and ais kacang ( shaved ice with kidney beans, peanuts, sago pearls, grass jelly, and loads more goodies topped off with home made ice cream and sweet syrup) i.e the ais kacang here is already 3rd generation shop... all things were superb the Char Koay Teow was the best i have tasted and the big prawns serverd with it were succullent and tender... wonderful lunch to begin with...

after a really filling lunch... we headed out to explore abit... we took a spin and went to one of penang's landmark Bukit Bendera we bought our tickets and went up the hill via tram / cable car... it had a nice view of whole of penang and a few interesting stuff but nothing really capitivating... the nice cool environment was nice but nothing much other than that we spent a really long time to get back down as there was a large crowd of kiasu malaysians pushing and shoving their way through... NOT a highlight of the trip...

so when we got down it was already aroung 8pm we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up... after a much needed bath and quick nap we headed out to have our dinner at around 10pm... he headed to the all famous Gurney Drive... this is the Mecca for all hawkers in Penang... u can sample all the famous food, it may be less delicious but at least you have the all the variety under one roof... unfortunately for us it was raining that night so that put a slght dampen on things... but when we reached there we still braved the rain to make our orders we ordered Rojak Buah(mixed fruits in sweet prawn sauce), Juu Huu Eng Chai (Cuttle Fish with water Convolvulus), Sotong Bakar (Dried Cuttlefish Grilled), Oh Chien (as above), Char Koay Teow (as above) and Asam Laksa (long rice noodle in a tangy,spicy fish based broth) all the food was nice... but those who havent seen Gurney Drive in a long time its very nicely done up not with flowing water and proper electricity no more generators... its somewhat lost it touch but i guess its still of those must visit palces in Penang...

So after another filling meal we all went back to the hote at 12.30am and took our rest... Next morning all slept in untill about 11am... we proceeded to check out and hit the town to find another meal... before that we headed to the toy museum located just below the hotel it was an interesting place with many toys from all the movies and many more cartoons and of course starwars.. a good experience its like experienceing part of your childhood again... :p

so this time we headed out to find another Oh Chien Place which came highly recommended... after half hour of driving in circles we finally reached our destination.. it was a small cofee shop selling Oh Chien, Lobak(chinese fried sausages and other things), Wan Tan Mee (tossed noodles in dark soy with dumplings served on the side)... the food was great espicially the Oh Chien the oysters were big and juicy the starch was still crisp and the eggs finely fried... heavenly... the cakes from the next door bakery were very nice too...

after this filling lunch we decided to walk it off so we headed out to Kek Lok Si Temple... Its one of the biggest Temples i have seen before... Its crowning glory is a 120ft bronze Statue of Kuan Yin (bigget in the world so it claims) It is an impressive temple complex with many prayer halls and also shrines... we had to take a lift to the top pavillion where the statue was... at the top we were greeted with a nicely manucured garden complex with fish ponds and and bonsai's lining its perimeter it was a peaceful an tranquil place... after walking around and taking more pictures we headed back down to sample another penang delicacy Asam Laksa(as above) this has got to be the best Asam Laksa in town its fragrance can be smelt from ver far off... well it was amazing spicy and tangy very fragrant as well from all the fresh spices added very very satisfying...

after another meal we headed to the ferry terminal and took the ferry back to REALITY then it was another long drive back to my home... all in all a great trip very satisfying and happy but i think i put on loads of weight well back to my diet i guess... :P