it's a brand new day

leave back all your worries and troubles of yesterday,

make yourself a silent promise to make today a better day.

now my dear friend, a brand new day lays ahead of you,

face it with pride, because it is a gift and is totally new.

may all your goals and ambitions for the day be set,

i wish you have an amazing day and a night without regrets.

good morning peeps. have a grand day!

love the earth no matter what

i will normally keep some recycle shopping bags in the car. so i brought tesco's bags when we wanna shop at jusco yesterday. for mom, jusco's one are meant for wet market only now since it doesn't look good no more. ok, fine.

at first mom was worried as if the staff don't want to accept different bags other than theirs... walaweiii!!! so i told mom that when we wanna save the environment, it doesn't matter whether we have to use the shop's bags only~ the most important thingy is that we didn't use ANY plastic bags! :)

and in our case, it shouldn't be a problem for jusco even though we use different recycle bags. we bought things from them anyway, right?

so how about you people: do you have problems using different recycle bags at different shops?

anyhow i haven't try this locally though, as i find people here are quite weird. and i didn't see shops here encouraged their customers not to use plastic bags. i saw the local the store supermarket has started to sell their own recycle shopping bags. but i still see plastics being used widely. like i said earlier, people find it weird seeing me using my own bags.

i truly hope that the local authority will start to do something. this is serious. we could see people in other states have already used to 'save the plastic' campaign. i know in penang, consumers will be charged if they didn't bring their own bags and still use the shop's plastics on every monday, while in selangor is every saturday. i merely don't understand why they never wanna practice this campaign here... duh!

pizza hut, kualé

yehaaa!!! yup, don't blink your eyes... ahaks! pizza hut is finally here in kualé. they first opened its door on friday, 4 june 2010, a day before the last school holidays. and believe it or not, we first went there last night even though we pass the road like every time we go out around kualé.

the location is very simple. its located along the main road of jalan taiping stretch, right opposite an indian temple. so i guess those who haven't come back to kualé for quite some time must be surprised on their upcoming home visit hehee... nevertheless i had to drive in to jalan dato' sagor, then i took a turning back to jalan taiping at the clifford school junction. this being that the main road has been painted with double line instead.

as we approached the restaurant, we obviously thought that it was full especially when we saw quite a number of people standing at the entrance, both indoor and outdoor. unfortunately those people were waiting for their take-out orders. so we had to wait like them too, after we ordered ours.

i certainly do not like the idea at all seeing the cashier counter placed right in front of the main door! walaweiii!!!... i wonder who was the brain idea behind the designing of that poor pizza hut. why, they must be afraid that kualé people would ran away from paying huh?!! *blerk*

from what i observed, it was actually kinda risky and not safe at all~ people could see the cashier opened the cash register openly... counting the money and all. blimey! they thought that they are clever, but you are not ler! ;P

i can't comment more towards the interior of the restaurant as we didn't go inside.

well, anyhow there's nothing to be proud of yet:

• we got our order at 43 minutes, when we were promised that it will be ready in approximately 25 minutes! when i tweet, i checked the receipt that the cashier logged our order at 20:57 . not just that, i saw that megat was given a bottle of pepsi only instead. he has to ask for an another! i hope that this won't be happened again on our next visit. you all should check your customer's order before you released them.


• while waiting outside and snapping pics, i heard a man told his friend that the service was rather slow hmm... that statement didn't surprised me at all ler...


• our pizzas were burned! :(

tea and coffee 'protect hearts'

Tea and coffee 'protect against heart disease'

Drinking several cups of tea or coffee a day appears to protect against heart disease, a 13-year-long study from the Netherlands has found.

It adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting health benefits from the most popular hot drinks.

Those who drank more than six cups of tea a day cut their risk of heart disease by a third, the study of 40,000 people found.

Consuming between two to four coffees a day was also linked to a reduced risk.

While the protective effect ceased with more than four cups of coffee a day, even those who drank this much were no more likely to die of any cause, including stroke and cancer, than those who abstained.

The Dutch tend to drink coffee with a small amount of milk and black tea without. There have been conflicting reports as to whether milk substantially affects the polyphenols - believed to be the most beneficial substance in tea.

Coffee has properties which could in theory simultaneously increase and reduce risk - potentially raising cholesterol while battling the inflammatory damage associated with heart disease.

But the study in the Journal of the American Heart Association finds those who drank between two and four cups a day lowered the risk of the disease by 20%.

excerpts from bbc news


to a coffee lover/addict like me, this is basically a good news story. and as what prof yvonne van der schouw, the lead researcher said: these drinks appear to offer benefits for the heart without raising the risk of dying from anything else.

while ellen mason, senior cardiac nurse at the british heart foundation, said that this study adds further weight to the evidence that drinking tea and coffee in moderation is not harmful for most people, and may even lower your risk of developing, or dying, from heart disease.

hmm... happy, happy enough peeps? however we must always remember that leading a healthy overall lifestyle is the thing that really matters when it comes to keeping your heart in top condition. so if you are here in kualè, silver line studio is there for you. make sure to 'like' their facebook page to get a quick update... :)

al-fatihah to cikgu yuwan

pic taken on 11 november 2008, at the school's hari anugerah cemerlang. she was of course invited.

i just got back from visiting my late malay language teacher in primary school, cikgu yuwan; who died in alor star at ± 5.30 pm yesterday of ovarian cancer. they scheduled to bury her at the nearby cemetery at 10 am. i had to go back straight after the visit as i have my red flag now, and prohibited to go there *sigh*

i dunno why that i feel so down today. when i wanted to leave the house this morning with my mom, i thought that i wanna be kewl and stay strong. but i can't help it, really. i still had my tears running from my big eyes. luckily i had my sunglasses on. this sad news really 'touched' me.

i know, everyone from the school remember her as the one who always sang 'widuri' during teachers'/children's day and such. she was the school's headmistress for a few years before she left in 2002/03 if i am not mistaken for a primary school in lubuk merbau until present. her youngest daughter is same age with puteri. i will bring puteri to visit her later after school.

although we love cikgu yuwan so much, but Allah loves her more... RIP.

i spotted "it" !

this happened yesterday morning, when a friend and i just parked the car for us to go to the mpkk building. i saw something familiar when we were just about to enter the paking area.

can't figure just yet? well click on the (above) pic for a bigger view on my flickr album; or let's just see a close-up view of it~

haaa... there you go! an "ai read redmummy.com" car sticker spotted here in kuale... =D

my friend was eventually wondering of why i wanna snapped such view. so this blog post for sure answers her inquiry and my tweet yesterday!

dear, sorry to confuse you; as i am in kuale right now. and the word "mo" is a short for 'moment'. ☮

al-fatihah to uncle sabree

thanx to twitter, i tweet about this earlier before hand. it was kinda easy-peasy; as i just forwarded a text that i received from a dad's friend, pak pian.

uncle sabree passed away this morning around 1 am. our condolence to his family, and may he rest in peace...

uncle sabree was well known to kualè and the surrounded area, with his kind of songs on kualè of course. check-out the song of 'masa kecilku di kampung karai' (my childhood life in karai village) — its all well mentioned in the song, of his way of life.

in his life, uncle sabree not just performed at weddings but also at corporate functions, not forgetting at istana iskandariah too. he also performed in my school many years ago for some functions. a dad's friend even brought him to australia for his son's wedding!

i know, uncle sabree will be missed by kualè people indeed. RIP.

and now, let me leave you people with another song by uncle sabree~ 'jangan dok mengata orang'. enjoy!...

eventually they never say NO to any 'makan-makan' invites...

this is a story about the difference between the current and past students of the koleq (mckk) boys. yes i know they loveeeeeeeeee food, and who doesn't right; but here's a something~

remembers peeps, the recent eid adha was during the spm exams. the school didn't allow any of the form 5 students to go back for the holidays. so puteri invited them to come to our house after the raya prayers. none of them came. it seems that they were... s-h-y(?!!!) *glurp*

when mama told this to my lil bro (batch '93, who is well known as boon since his koleq days) recently, he said: "EEEEE... malu². budak koleq never deny to any makan² invites!" hiks!

yes true. we have experienced them all, especially at my grandma's place here. from papa's younger years in koleq until my lil' bro, they always brought their koleq friends home. even when they wanted to take their spm results (my lil' bro time), they were quite a number of them overnight here. they slept everywhere i tell you! yes everywhere. no need ler for me to tell about this in details, just go and figure ler... and from what i know, when they were here... its always like home sweet home :)

shu la jin...

this blog post has actually been sitting in the draft folder for more than 3 weeks! *phew* and since its kinda an interesting one, i must say that its better i post this good information for everyone no matter what.

shu la jin is a form of exercise that has been founded by madam chin sau ying. eventually i knew that my line dance group has been doing it almost everyday as a form of warming up before our line dance routine. i didn't join them anyway as i normally opt and prefer for a breeze walk up and down the resident's hill near my former secondary school. then only walked down to laman budaya to join them for line dancing.

i only became more aware of this kind of exercise when madam chin dropped-by recently to introduce and promote it to kualè people.

madam chin brought a lady who looked so healthy; that no one could ever imagined she used to be a stroke victim if she didn't tell us of her past story. she practiced shu la jin and look at her...

they showed us some newspaper cut-outs written about the exercise.


rules and regulations of shu la jin exercise:

1. only madam chin sau ying, being the founder and master of shu la jin, shall have the sole right to appoint her assistant instructors.


2. appointed assistant instructors shall fully understand the objective of shu la jin.


3. learner are expected to co-operate by helping each other to enjoy good health and love and to perform charity.


4. learner shall not be selfish or greedy and shall instead devote themselves voluntarily to promote the exercise of shu la jin.


5. learner shall seek permission from madam chin sau ying prior to carrying out any plans or activities concerning shu la jin.


6. learner shall not conduct any private business or activities within the compound where shu la jin exercise is held.


7. nobody is allowed to collect money in the name of shu la jin unless the collection is meant for charity donation and such collection is approved by madam chin sau ying.

it was just so happened i brought my oly along that morning. more over i guess an introduction of this shu la jin exercise via a video that i managed to capture would be much helpful~

shu la jin from ku E on Vimeo.

if you like this blog post and are interested to know more about shu la jin, do email me or leave your comment in the comment box; and i would be much glad to get my friend to pass madam chin's contacts to you.

lantern festival celebration

according to wikipedia: the lantern festival 元宵节 is a chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the chinese calendar. it is not to be confused with the mid-autumn festival, which is also sometimes known as the "lantern festival" in locations such as singapore, malaysia. during the lantern festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns 兔子灯 and solve riddles on the lanterns 猜灯谜. it officially ends the chinese new year. read more here.

kuE' note: this blog post supposed to be posted a week already. but i don't care ler... its better late than nothing or never hor? i updated my twitter anyway :)

ever since i joined my line dance group, my life kinda hectic with other activities too. sometimes i was asked to perform with them in functions or events here. i remembered that my first experience was for a mother & father's day celebration organized by a chinese community. it has been attended by local umno leaders. so i had to do a zapin number and some other line dances to english tunes erm... layan je ler. to tell you the truth, of course i lurve english numbers more especially all those fast tracks.

then there was this function organized by umno people quite some time ago. it was radically damnnnnn delayed i tell you. i stressed out the word damn because it was really late by 2 hours!!! blerk!... pity the kids who followed us. we don't have choice but to stay as we had to do some performances. if you could see my chinese friends, they were all crazy like mad. what to do. anyhow you can view one of my performances that has been recorded by megat here.

so basically my performances last saturday was obviously my third one! it was for a lantern festival celebration held here in kualè. unfortunately i didn't manage to take lotsa pics as usual though as my oly was running out of battery huhuu... now i dunno whether to blame myself for not charging my oly's battery beforehand; or my friend-cum-translator ms tung who didn't explain to me about the function properly. never mind lor... ms tung, no sweat ok?

lesson learned: every night before bedtime, i will ensure that i fully charged my oly's battery before the next day turned up, no matter whether i have anything going on or not! ;)

the function started with everyone singing the national song; as soon as the guest of honour, minister in the prime minister's department datuk seri mohamed nazri abdul aziz arrived.

there were variety of music and drums and of course the chinese lion dances and firecrackers.

children carry their lanterns around the village and families come together to eat sweet rice balls for good fortune and family unity. chinese lanterns were traditionally made of silk, paper and even glass. although the most common is the typical red balloon lantern, nowadays chinese Lanterns come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. there are lanterns in shapes of boxes, lotus flowers, dragons, butterflies and all sorts of animals. they range from the small lanterns carried by hand made of paper by school children to gigantic floats shaped in the chinese zodiac animal for that year made by teams of craftsmen. lion dances came to the main stage then along with these group of people. i knew that they have some kind stories and meaning behind the lion dance performances.

towards the end of the performance, both "the lions" tried to peel out the mandarin oranges skin. they then presented the oranges to datuk nazri, who is also the mp of padang rengas.

i tell you what people. i could say that the function that night was really celebrated with 1malaysia spirit although it was meant for a chinese festivity. there were dance performances of all sorts of cultures like malay, chinese and indian, not forgetting shuffle dance by kualè youth itself.

my performance was the first one. i didn't get to ask anyone to capture a video of it though. none of our kids followed anyway as the function was at night, and we afraid that it would be dragged till late. i should have asked bebudak shuffle tu to record a video of mine kan kan... :)

the function wrapped up with lucky draws. looks like people were already looking forward with it from the beginning, as prizes offered were not bad i.e. hampers, bicycles, electrical items like blender, stand fans, and tvs too! but we didn't wait till the function ended though, as we knew it that there must be jammed if everyone were to go back together. from what i understood, since the function happened to be during syawal, datuk nazri also gave away raya money packets to all children who came that night.

and before i sign off this blog post, i am so glad to present you part of the performances held during that night... enjoy!

lantern festival celebration from kuE on vimeo

so how's the lantern festival at your places celebrated. care to share them with me?

see... when i blog, i really blog away *phew*

• coming up: more delayed blog post and sponsored blog post.


• coming up as well: the most bloggers' events talk of the blogosphere! can you guess of what is it? tungguuuuuuuuu... (wait) *winks*


• besides that, i am also waiting for ms tung to pass me a china press newspaper cut-out about the function. they actually have a pic of me there you know. i wonder whether any of you people realized it ;)

“It’s Krrunch Time, Get Playful!”

It's 4th day of Syawal! Some people already started working especially those in banking industry, and also some offices no matter in government or private sectors. While kiddos are still on Raya holidays until this Sunday! wohooo!!!... Better let them enjoy the “Krrunch” yo... Can't hassle them much also, not good occay?!!...

Basically my online timing was kinda off a bit during these days lor... I only managed to sign on around noon today. One of the "must" visit site is of course none other than my FB page. As soon as I signed on, I was like: "Oh my GOD!!!"...

A junior of my former secondary school typed this on her FB status: "Sat lg nak siap pg beraye kat umah Kak... tgh mkn cup cakes yg Kak... bg bawak balik semlm... yummy..." (translation: going to celebrate hari raya (eid mubarak) at kuE's house in a little while... am eating cupcakes now, given by kuE yesterday... yummy...).

Like I mentioned earlier, it's already 4th of Syawal now. We don't have much thingy to be served to them... there's no more lemang, rendang and what's not!

So I quickly grabbed my car keys and off I went!...

Check-out the clear blue sky people... Aren't we feel sooooo damn lucky to have this kind of weather during a festive season? It's way easy for us though to go and visit our relatives and friends. But anyhow I had an important mission to go through first!

The main road along Clifford School (yes, this is how local veterans called the school!) was smooth... kewl! I can't have much hope though, while tapping my fingers away on the steering wheel; with hope that the road will be just like that all the way...

And when I was about to reach the "Jam Besor" (Big Clock Tower)... Holy SH*T!!! Look at the traffic to/fro every corners of the roundabout junction people especially towards the Jalan (road) Kangsar (the 3 o'clock turning).

Then I headed straight to a local mini market. I searched everywhere, hi and low, and finally...

Thank God that there were only two tubes of Pringles left! *phew*

You people don't know of how happy I am until now, smiling from ear-to-ear seeing what I was thinking of. Whatever it is, at least there's something that nothing at all!

And now... I am all ready with my open hearts, waiting for my guest to be arrived!!!...

Besides that, of course I also have some Raya money packets to be given away... Hah! those in the pic below are mine actually, courtesy of my lil' sis and lil' bro hehee...

Hey! btw KL-Kualè is not that far ler... You will only take about 2.5 hours drive :)

“It’s Krrunch Time, Get Playful!”

salam lembaran...

greetings to all you people who are celebrating aidil fitri, from all of us here in kualè...

i wish you ALL a very happy and peaceful eid. may Allah accept your good deeds, forgive your transgressions and ease the suffering of all peoples around the globe.

"at the end of ramadan, the islamic holy month of fasting, worship, and reflection, millions of the followers of islam are celebrating eid as the renewal of faith and a time of great rejoicing."

eid mubarak!

project 365: 6th week—

day 36 — the last day of the week before, i snapped a hinting picture of what i sew for redmummy; while this is how i shipped my packages ie via pos malaysia’ pos ekspres! the best part of it is the recipients can keep track of the packages shipped online with the code number provided. i would like to take this opportunity to thank ayu for helping me to arrange for giving out the personalized laptop sleeve to redmummy!!! terima kasih daun keladi, lain kali kita plan lagik ek? lol... the best thing is she lurves the gift sooooo much! *big grin*

day 37 — actually on that morning, i attended a farewell function for my former teacher cik hajjah ramlah who has been officially retired on 22 june 2009. it was a very nice event indeed, unfortunately yours truly forgot to bring her camera!!! eventually i never took it out from my handbag unless i wanna snap or load any pictures. but i did the night before to charge the camera’s battery— importantly to prepare for cik ramlah’s retirement and also a function that i was supposed to attend as well over the weekend. so at last i end up with this picture of a chinese temple near our house. i had a line dance practice for a function on last sunday, at a hall next to it.

day 38 — it was a wedding reception night of my uncle at royal ipoh club. that’s me with my cousin nenen. he can speak mandarin very well occay… just like megat, yes… he went to study in a chinese school in ipoh. besides that he was also a basketball player for the state’ team if i’m not mistaken.

day 39 — it was last sunday night, when i performed for the first time with part of my line dance group. it was for the MCA kualè mother & father’s day celebrations. i was kinda nervous though when I danced the first song, to a zapin tune… walaweiii… what more when i heard a guy shouted: “come one, kuE!!!” wargghhh… i focused to the audience and i saw shafizan, an old cliffordian i knew since my school days. he must be one of the UMNO guys that he has been invited to the function, blerk! anyhow sorry ler dude, i wore my dad’s sampin koleq on that night lol… credit goes to megat for helping me to take some pics and videos :)

day 40 — it was a hazy morning in kualè, and i bet it was the same to other places around the area. luckily i happened to have my N76 with me that I snapped this pic from the river bank, before i started my line dance session— you can’t even see sayong! take note that normally i didn’t bring my mobile phone when i go for my morning exercises; but i did that morning because i wanna show-off my new N76 case to my friend ms tung hehee…

day 41 — busy at work: people take note that kualè is clean thanks to those MPKK guys for making sure that everything are in order and in good condition at all time.

day 42 — work in progress: nothing to capture? must be like it huh… that’s me anyway, trying to finish sewing the “in-the-mood” handbags that i am selling. as you could see, not all parts of the handbags were machine-stitched; thus the prices are as such.

moh ke kuale weh!!!...

today is the sultan of perak's 81st birthday.

check-out these great yearly events happening in kuale:

1. jet-ski competition
   
   
   
   date : 18.04.2009, saturday
   time : 2.30 pm — 5.00 pm
   
   date : 19.04.2009, sunday
   time : 10.00 am — 5 pm



2. panjut festival
   
   
   
   date : 19.04.2009, sunday
   time : 8.00 pm
   venue : laman budaya, kuala kangsar



3. water sports (as in sukan ayor as per kuale people hehee...)
   
   date : 25.04.2009, saturday
   time : 9.00 am
   venue : laman budaya, kuala kangsar



4. international vespa carnival
   
   date : 26.04.2009, sunday
   time : 9.00 pagi
   venue : arena square, kuala kangsar

*information excerpts from here

so see you people there?...

satë night...

we brought megat to his taekwondo class only when the class was about half way started. it supposed to start from 8pm to 9.30 pm. but i have to be firm and make sure that megat completed all his school homework first before anything else. i knew that he normally would be sleepy and tired by the time he comes back. i am proud that i did so.

the private taekwondo class lead by a chinese muslim instructor, is located at jalan raja chulan along a bhp station.

its been quite some time since the last time we had satë (satay)! so tonight was a satë night for both puteri and i. there are quite a number of food stalls infront of the shop houses building that housed the taekwondo class, in one of the units. we opted to have some satë at stall number 12, for us to kill the time while waiting for megat tonight. it was +/- 45 minutes so its not worth it for us to go back, unless if we send him before 8pm.

the satë there looks very tempting, what when the seller only cook them upon order! we ordered chicken satë only as per puteri's request. its RM0.40 each.