Meaning of a Name

Ever wondered what your name means? Being an inquisitive person as always, I decided to look it up on the net. As it turns out Sandie is derived from the name Sandra which originates from the name Alexandra. Alexandra in the ancient Greek language means "protector of mankind". Cool right? To think I'm the protector of mankind. Hahaha, maybe in the spreading the sunshine/humour aspect? :P

I took the liberty to find out the meaning for some of my friends' names and listed them below:
Reese - Ardent, fiery (Welsh); Enthusiatic (English)
Doreen - Gift (English); Moody (Celtic); Blonde (French)
Sally - Princess (Hebrew & Israel)
Adeline - Noble & kind (French) Pleasant, of nobility (German)
Stephen - Crowned once, wreath (Greek)
Scott - Wanderer (Scottish); Of Scottish origin (English)
Simon - It is heard (Israel); Obedient, little hyena (Hebrew)
Dolores - Lady of sorrows (Latin-America)
Kevin - Handsome, beautiful (Irish); Gentle (Celtic)
Ann - Gracious (Hebrew & Israel); Merciful (English); Priceless (Irish);

If you are curious about the meaning of your name you can check it out from this site called Meaning-of-Names.com

Do you think a person's name affects a person's character? I think it does to some extend. But more often than not I believe that a person's character is formed based on their upbringing and the environment they are exposed to throughout their lives. Friends also influence you in a lot of ways, maybe sometimes you don't even realise it yourself.

Despite all the differences in our names and our personalities, the most important point is that we live our lives to the fullest so we will not have any regrets later on. Treasure your family and your friends, spend your precious time wisely and most of all thrive to bring happiness to others more than hurt others. I always believe that it is better to make more friends than enemies. :)

Steamboat! The Story of Pey Shen's 2008 Birthday Gathering

Venue: Pey Shen's House
Style: Steamboat

The "ji muis" met for a special early celebration of Pey Shen's birthday. All except Ms. Ng Siew Kheng lor. Yet proven again that it is so difficult to get a date that everyone can agree on. It was nevertheless very fun because we haven't met up with the whole bunch of us for some time. I am hoping that we will have more of this kind of gatherings. Maybe next time we'll have barbeque. :P

Look at our "leng lui" birthday girl!


















We all met up earlier at Giant near Kinrara for ingredient shopping. We ended up buying a lot of stuff, including lala, prawns, all kinds of balls, veggies... etc. Dinner started approximately at 7pm. We had to split into two sessions because apparently we overbought the ingredients. So we ate first, then rest and chat for about an hour and then resumed.

It was a fun and fulfilling gathering. One which is a definitely must once in a while. It was so great to catch up with everyone! In case if you are wondering how come there's no photos of us eating. Well, you'll have to wait for the photos from Doreen's camera. I forgot why I didn't take any photos of people eating. Must be caused I'm too busy eating. *grin*

Check out the photos:




























Cheshire's special fried onions!














We managed to capture a nice sunset. Doesn't it look as though there's a castle in front? :P














I think we took too much time posing that by the time this photo was taken, the sunset was nearly gone. (Note the unusually bright light behind.)

Sweet Potato Doughnuts?

While I was bunking over at Cheshire's home the other day, we made sweet potato doughnuts. It was thoroughly fun to make together. I think it goes to say that whatever you do, as long as you it together with close friends it will turn out to be extremely fun. It tastes quite good too.

Check out these great looking homemade sweetie yummies.















We got a bit carried away with our creativity as well. :P

Siew Kheng's Birthday Photos

Check out the photos for Siew Kheng's birthday gathering here

I just managed to upload it. :)

Nyonya food

Care for some scrumptious nyonya cuisine? While back in Penang one time, we managed to try out a Nyonya specialty restaurant called Mama's. We ordered a bunch of our all time favourite dishes. We ordered spring rolls which had crunchy popiah skin and a nice blend of veggies as filling. Very appertising indeed! Then we also had the infamous Joo Hoo Char. This dish requires a lot of hard work to do. All the ingredients are cut into really slim strips and then fried. Among the ingredients used are turnip, dried squid, carrots, mushroom, pork. This is one of my favourites Nyonya dishes. It was rather okay but I must say not the best that I've tasted. You see, I have been spoiled my mom's yummy home-made Joo Hoo Char so rarely can I find any others that can match up to it. :P

Also on our menu was Kang Kung fried with Sambal Belachan. It was quite good, with appropriate blend of sambal just to enhance the natural juiciness of the vegetable. We also had Too Tor T'ng (Pig's Stomach soup) which I find was a bit too pepper-ish to my liking. Somehow the pepper killed the natural sweetness of the soup, it was all covered up by the taste of pepper. Too bad ain't it? Also because my mom can really make killer Too Thor T'ng!

The curry fish head was alright. The curry is really nice but I don't really like the fish. But really this has more to do with my own preference. Generally I prefer fish with a smoother texture for the meat (eg. Pa Tin fish, which is really hard to get in Penang).

Then there was the Inchi Kebin (sorry, I'm not too sure how to spell it :P), some special seasoned fried chicken that traditionally comes with a few pieces of prawn keropok on top. This was really yummy!

On to the grand finale to the dinner, we had Bee Ko Moi (black glutinous rice dessert). Apparently this dessert is really popular, so much so that we had too pre-order before coming. Otherwise, it is pretty hard to get it because it usually runs out of stock quite fast. It was unusual in a sense that they put a lot of glutinous rice in it, so it looks really thick. And the best part? You can help yourself to the coconut milk, as much as you like. Which I normally take AS MUCH as I can! I think I would have enjoyed it a lot better if I wasn't so picky with texture. To me, it was a bit rough because they were too many glutinous rice. Wouldn't it be great if they grind all the glutinous rice into a paste instead? Ha ha ha!

Feast your eyes on these photos below:

BLEACH

My current craze is watching the Bleach anime series. I am so psyched to have discovered this amazing anime. It has a really cool perspective on Soul Reapers (or Grim Reapers). In this anime, they are known as Shinigami and each of them possess their own Zanpakutou (literally means Soul-cutting sword) which they use to send good spirits (Pluses) and dispel bad spirits (Hollows).

The story follows a high-school boy names Ichigo Kurosaki who was unwillingly turned into a substitute Shinigami, how he manages to juggle between protecting his identity from his friends and at the same time protecting the people he cares from Hollows and other baddies. It is so interesting to see how his character grows to adapt to the changes. Also, you'll get to find out more about his friends and rivals alike. Among my favourite characters are Ichigo, Rukia, Kon, Nel, Inoue, Ishida, Chad, Byakuya, Toushirou, Renji and many more. I enjoy watching Kon and Nel, they are both so entertaining and adorable!! Nel is so annoyingly cute!!! I'm not gonna tell you any spoilers so if I have managed to perk your interest, check Bleach out on any of those video communities. You can find those with the original Japanese voices and also the English dubbed version.

*Image courtesy from www.madman.com.au

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. @ The Curve

What a fantastic experience I had at Bubba Gump's. I especially adore the signage at the table. You turn the sign to "Stop Forrest Stop" if you want your order or to get the waiter's assistance and leave it at "Run Forrest Run" otherwise. I am very satistied with the service there, the waiters are all very polite and very prompt.















Along with me for this delicious treat were Chee Chau and Doreen. Since we were expecting the portions to be big (we're expecting american sized dishes like TGIF's), we ordered a few things to shared out.

First we took the sampler, this consists of a few things: seafood balls, spicy chicken strips, boiled shrimps, fried shrimps and nachos with spinach dip. The spinach dip is simply delicious. I find the spicy chicken strips a bit too spicy for my liking and some of the boiled shrimps were not really fresh. The rest were alright. This is definitely a good choice for the starter because you get to try a variety of things.















Next, we ordered the Bourbon Street Baramundi. Presentation wise it looks really scrumptious and delightful. It's a combination of fish and cajun shrimps with mashed potato and bourbon street sauce. The fish was alright but I really loved the cajun shrimps. The sweetness of the shrimp is really emphasized in this and the spices complement it so well. I recommend trying these cajun shrimps. I think they have it as a separate dish as well.















Next in line was the I'm Stuffed Shrimps! This was my absolute favourite. Served on a platter of jasmine rice with a dash of lemon juice, was the shrimps with stuffed crab meat. Yummy!














After these 3 dishes we were already full. Doreen couldn't take in any more. Chee Chau and I managed to squeeze in the dessert. Chocolate Cookie Sundae or their fancier name called "That Chocolate Thing". Simply mouth watering! It has a huge cookie, the size of the pan they served in tops with whipped cream ice-cream and drizzles of chocolatey sauce. YUM!















Yay, what a satisfying experience. Gotta try if you have the chance. Look, we've got Forrest's ping pong bat menu.














And Chee Chau's got the most refreshing drink, the Mango Sparkler.

FHM 100 Most Wanted Female

We had the opportunity to join this party because Pacmee was one of the sponsors. We were grooving a the VIP section. We in this case was Reese, Doreen, Ow and me. Didn't really like the beer they were serving, Carlsberg. I think I prefer Heinekken or Tuborg. :) They were also serving some finger food, some pretzie thingy with smoked salmon, rissotto rice scoops, sandwiches and pizza.

There were a lot of known local entertainers around the VIP area, among others were Adam C, Serena C, Rudy, well basically Astro , 8TV and Hitz FM entertainers. Serena C was the mc and I was so shocked at her "fierceness". Ha ha ha! Then again I never did liked her before. :

  

After we hanged around a bit, we went for really late dinner. We didn't manage to get any earlier on. So we decided we'd try out the new place called Leo's at SS2. I wanted the Claypot Teriyaki Chicken thingy but it was all out so I tried the Thai Seafood Fried Rice. It was alright, nothing really special but also not entirely tasteless.

Oh, look at the beautifully drawn flower on top of my Cafe Latte. :)

Gathering for Siew Kheng's B-Day

Busy busy busy! Many apologies for not posting anything for while. :)

Let me start off with Siew Kheng's birthday dinner gathering. It's a bit delayed thought I lost the photos but apparently because I not. *Whew* Nowadays, seems pretty rare to have a gathering with all 5 of us (me and my 4 close buddies from uni). Normally, one person will be unable to make it. This time around, Cheshire and bo-boy couldn't make it. So it was just me, Doreen, Pey Shen and hubby, Siew Kheng and hubby.

We decided to go for Kajang Satay at Damansara Uptown. Here are some photos of us spending some quality time together. We gotta do this more often. Especially our dear Do-do will be leaving next year. *sigh* Doreen, why do you have to go so far away??

I must say that the satay is still as tasty as ever and mmmm the peanut sauce. Yum yum yum! Take a look at these scrumptious looking beauties.

Check out the photos below. :)

WALL-E

Wall-E is so so CUTE! Wall-E stands for "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class", a faithful robot programmed to clean up planet earth and has a really cute personality. It even has a collection of his favourite things in it's bunker/home. You gotta catch it if you have the chance. It's so adorably cute and funny. You'll notice that for the entire show, the main characters Wall-E and Eve don't talk much. Only the humans and some of the robots have proper dialogue. I really like the paranoid cleaner robot which is obssessed at cleaning up all traces of dirt or in it's case classified as "foreign contaminant". Watch out for it if you are watching the movie! It's name is M-O. So cute! Ha ha ha!









Also, the storyline is really good and serves as a good reminder of what will happen if we abandon taking care of mother earth and rely too much on technology. It also provides a good laugh to everyone with it's witty and funny dialogues. In case you are still clueless about Wall-E, take a look at the trailer here.

Before the movie, a bunch of us met up for dinner at McDonald's. Reese, Ann and Alex Tay were there. The last I saw Alex was like really really long ago, probably half a year ago. It is always great to catch up with friends. Later on, we were joined by Siew Kheng and hubby.

Here's sharing some photos from McD.

Sleepy Zzzzzz...

I'm the type of person who feels it's such a waste to sleep early because there's still yet so many things to do and sleeping kinds of takes up so much time. But early in the mornings, I will find it very hard to wake up because it just feels too comfortable and my soft fluffy pillows, comfortable and bed just makes me feel like staying in my bed. Plus I always blame it on "gravity"! It really is gravity's fault, you know? :P

Weird right? Hahahaaha... that's just me. That's just contradicting huh? One side of me wants to sleep less, and the other just wants to sleep as much as I can.

Nowadays, it so hot and humid at night. Sweating in your sleep is not exactly fun. Eckkk... so eeky!

Hello August!

Goodbye July! Hello August! Time really flies by so fast. The next thing you'll know it'd already be 2009!

As usual, I'm always missing my hometown in Penang. *sigh* I miss my parents, my brothers, our fat Chihuahua and of course the food! Mom and dad looks like they have aged a bit and that really scares me. It really does. Makes me feel scared that I will regret not spending more time with them. It's like I have this permanent home-sick feeling. And I miss bickering and having fun with my two brothers. Nothing beats watching a movie or series at home in the living room with everyone. And not forgetting our oh-so-adorable Max the dog. He is so cute, naughty and entertaining! Doesn't he look WAY too proportionate for a Chihuahua?!














I love the food in Penang. Maybe it's because I'm already so used to the taste and the styles of the food there. There's so much variety and everytime I go back I feel like there's so many things to eat. So many things to eat, so little time! Among my favourites in Penang are the Hokkien Mee (known as Prawn Mee in KL), Fried Koay Kak, Fried Koay Teow, Cendol, Char Hor Fun, Char Yee Mee, Hokkien Char, Yong Tao Foo (it's slightly different in Penang, there offer a lot of piggie spare parts!), Jawa Mee, and many many more. Here's one of my favourites, the famous Penang Road Cendol. So yummylicious!!















Everytime I go back to Penang I wish that I could stay longer. Hopefully I can catch a trip back to Penang end of this month. :)