Chinese New Year Dinner of the Wooden Horse

One Year Happier

Once more, a majority of us old friends (literary growing old) from USM 1975 got together to have dinner to commemorate the New Year of the Horse.

Bountiful Future

Higher means better luck and prosperity

Higher,please!

Much Better!

Looking for salmon?

This time around (12 January 2014), we had it in an untried restaurant in SEAPARK. It is called the Restoran Kari Kepala Ikan Tiga. This is the third restaurant from the chain currently operating in Kuchai  Lama and Puchong

Good fish!

Lets eat!

Wah! Really good fish!

Kooi Ming, what next?

Bernard, how is the property market?

Eat slowly

Those who attended include:

Ooi Say Chuan
Toh Chee Kiang
Tan Lee Kiang
Derek Teh
Catherine Yeang
Chan Yau Kok
Yeoh Gim Ooi
Bernard Yeo
Jenny Tan
Tan Kooi Meng
Heng

We had, as usual, a rousing time, bonding with one another.

Curry is good

Some more curry,Ooi?

  Food-wise, the restaurant got three orders totally wrong.

Firstly, they substituted the shark-fin soup (we requested so in support of the dwindling number of sharks in our oceans) with the uncalled for black herbal chicken and pig stomach soup when all we asked was to substitute the shark fin with scallops. However, the soup was pleasing to the palate. So, no real complaints here.

I just arrived from Teluk Intan

Secondly, the curry fish maw dish did not materialised at all. We got instead one with squids. The curry dish was okay but we ought to have the fish maw which I believe is more expensive that the commonplace rubbery sotong.

Unfinished business,lah!

Thirdly, they dished out a plate of cereal prawns to us which we had cancelled earlier on and it was to be replaced with salted chicken. We took it back and they had to cooked the chicken dish instead. Took some time though for them to serve.

The dessert of longan and sea-coconut was just too sweet.

So,what do you think?

After taking some candid photographs and a group photo, we went to have a teh-tarik session at the restaurant at the side of Giant Supermarket in nearby Paramount Garden.

We even discussed a possible trip for those interested to Perth as Air-Asia is giving 20% off the standard fare in the next two months.

After talking shop for an hour, we bade adieu and planned again to meet on 31 May 2014.

No more food,lah!

Venue?

If there are no alternative restaurant, we have decided to go back to Golden Dragon City Restaurant in Paramount Garden.

Derek and Cat

Great outing.

The Philomena Odyssey

A Good Movie

Philomena Lee's tryst  on a fairground was to lead her to an unwanted pregnancy and the boy-child was subsequently taken away against her will and transported over the Atlantic Ocean to live with foster parents.

Judi and the real Philomena Lee

That in crux, are the foreboding  events that would lead to a journey for two of the protagonists as they traveled to America to find the boy, now called Michael Hess who has a brilliant career with two past American Presidents.

Visiting Lincoln Memorial

Sadly, too soon, they found that he died of AIDS.

Despite that, the story turned full circle with Michael actually going back to Ireland to look for his lost mother.

The movie is fraught with many issues particularly controversies  with regard to the  iron clad principles adopted by the Abbey that Philomena was raised in and its need to keep secrets even though such beliefs are archaic.

Unending Pursuit

Based on a true story, it may be boring at times as it is dialogue-based  but I believe that Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan did a wonderful job as protagonists Philomena Lee and Martin Sixsmith.

Like Nebraska, we are having senior actors and actresses  bringing beautiful stories to the silver screen this time around as we approached the Academy Award event.

Will Philomena win?

2 Momentous Photos

Way,way Down!

One is the most disturbing photo of all time-that unknown man who jumped off the World Trade Centre in New York in 9/11.

The other is the spectacular sunset as seen from Mars.

Scene of Sunset from Mars

Enjoy!

Love for Teachers-Dream Away!

Falling in Love with Pretty Teachers

Yes, called it puppy love,kitty love, infatuation or crush--students at childhood and adolescence stages do fall in love with their teachers.

Why do they do so?

Some say it is natural to go through such a phase.

I guess it is the elusive love feelings that they have for their teachers;possibly that of a mother or an aunt. It is adoring and worshipful though shallow.

I remembered in my primary school and even in lower secondary school, there were students who fell in love with their lady teachers. They practically worship their hairstyle, their dressing, their foot-wear and the way they talk and gesticulate.

When a favourite lady  teacher get transferred, you can immediately feel the all-round sadness of those boys who are ever dreamy;often romanticizing a relationship with these teachers.

But these lovey-dovey  feelings will always go away as the students grow up and out of these crushes.

For some of my friends at Jasin English School in the early 60s, there will always be that lovable, classy Amy Tan, than whimsical Cik Saadiah and the majestic, tall and coiffered Cik Halimaton.

For them, these ladies were stars! Out from the world of fairy tales!

Totally irreplaceable!

Journey 2-Mysterious Island Ever More

The Magic of Jules Verne

This movie will only appeal to the young and the very young at heart in all of us.

The Cast

An addendum to the original Vernian story, it imaginatively provides the twists and turns to explain Atlantis, Captain Nemo and a host of Liliputian animals and the inversely genetically large insects and birds.

Pygmy Elephant Literally

This is one movie, you do not need to think. Forget about logic!

Switch off and enjoy the magic at the movies especially the animation and special effects.

On the Island

Also enjoy Dwayne singing Wonderful World. Pretty good, too

Lost City of Atlantis

Providing the eye candy is the vivacious Vanessa Hudgens.

The Electric Eel

The other members of the cast include Micale Caine, Kristin Davis,  Luis Guzman and Josh Hutcherson.

Captivating Middle American beauty

August:Osage County--Redneck Country

If there's one thing you would come away with after watching this movie,it will be the issue of the weaknesses and depravity of human beings and how, in one way or another, out of their miseries or their avarice and greed, they will stoop as low as possible, to find solace irrespective whether it is right of wrong.

In a rural town in Oklahoma, Beverly Weston, a has-been poet and constant drunkard is interviewing a Native American to take care of his drug addict wife with a mouth cancer. After this, he secretly leaves and the wife,Violet has to called on her daughters to provide her emotional support. Her husband's death brought further melancholia into the family and unknown family secrets started spilling out which pitted one member of the family against another.

Though this movie had obtained international acclaim particularly for Meryl Street and Julia Roberts, both of whom were nominated for Academy awards, I felt though there is just  too much dialogue and unnecessary overacting.

This is mostly a movie where the women including even the maid shine and the men from Sam Shepherd, Ewan MacGregor to Chris Cooper were  reduced to background characters.

Dull mainly but if you have the patience, do see to its final conclusion to see the  strength of character as manifested by both Meryl and Julia.

Malaysia-Are we in a Catch-22?

Looks like you are damned if you do; you are damned if you don't.

Either way, you have to bite the bullet bitterly.

In response to Fitch's rating downgrade on the economy, the government first rolled back its petrol subsidy by 20 sen per liter; followed quickly by a total withdrawal of sugar subsidy just after the May general elections. TNB was then allowed a 15% tariff increase and the minimum wage for Malaysians was also implemented at the beginning of  January. Bad timing!

All these hurried moves were evidently to appease foreign rating agencies and to provide the much desired fillip for companies who are seeking competitive funding from abroad.

Little did policy and decision makers realised it was opening Pandora's box too obtusely for runaway inflation to rear its ugly head. The prices of goods and services started to move up; riding on the tsunami-like inflation waves caused mainly by the price of fuel at the pump.

Prices of both cooked food and produce at the market rocketed. Coffee-shops increased the price of drinks while stall-holders ramped up their food prices by a shocking 50 sen per bowl of your favourite noodle soup or plate of economy rice!.

To stem further price increases, a moratorium was put into place not to increase highway toll rates for a year;with the government compensating concessionaires by giving them RM 400 million to boot!

Interestingly,this sudden move invited Credit Suisse to sound out a caution warning-this move may cause a further down-rating which may lead  foreign investors to sell off bonds en masse as well as take money out from Bursar KL stock market; particularly when interest rates are expected to go up in the next half of the year.

As they say what goes around will come around.  Spend like a lord, now pay your dues!

You have to pay for your excesses and we are now paying the piper!

Poor Malaysians--getting poorer,aren't we?