Mooncake Festival 2010

When I was younger, Mooncake Festivals were celebrated by lighting my paper lantern (after that, it was upgraded to a battery operated lantern) and then someone would accompany me to walk around the housing estate. After that, we would light up the multi-coloured candles and line them up on the pavement outside the house and hang paper lanterns on the tree. Once a while, a paper lantern would catch fire, and we would have a bonfire show for a few minutes. :D

This year, i noticed that there wasn't much hype for the festival. Although there were mooncakes on sale, other than that, it didn't feel very festive. Me and the bf decided to have our own mini celebration.

First off, we had to get some lanterns. So we went to the most likely hypermarket to have paper lanterns. It was hard to find the plain ones with no cartoon features. Back home, we got ready all the items and hung the lanterns around our balcony. It was quite a challenge, as it was a windy night, but we prevailed.

All the equipments

Candles all in position

First one up!

All lighted up

Mooncake

We sat on the balcony for a while and enjoyed a slice of mooncake or two. After half an hour, the lanterns started going off one after another. The candles nowadays don't last that long, huh? But it was nice to play with lanterns again.

Emmy Awards 2010 Opening Skit

For those who missed the Emmys recently and love Glee, watch this. Can't wait for the new season of Glee in 2 weeks time!

Xiao Fei Yang, Damansara Uptown

Last month, me and some friends planned to have dinner at a Mongolian steamboat place in KL........well, that didn't happen. So we ended up in the new Xiao Fei Yang restaurant at Damansara Uptown.

When you walk into the restaurant, you would notice that the place is very clean! Even the utensils are all wrapped in cling film. We ordered the 2 soup combo, one is herbalish and the other spicy-ish.

All wrapped up

Appetizers and chili

2 kinds of soup

What we ordered

Still frozen pork liver

Full of steamboat goodness

After and before. Somekind of noodle that comes out transparent after cooking

The bill

The food was great, but on the pricey side. The bill as you can see came out in Chinese. We tried to ask for a translation or an English version one, but alas, they couldn't do it for us. So the bananas that we are, just paid up.

Thistle, Port Dickson

Two weeks ago, me and the bf decided to have a short trip someplace nearby. The bf surprised me by bringing me to Thistle, Port Dickson (used to be Guoman). We went on a Sunday, so it wasn't too crowded.

On the way to PD, we stopped by Seremban to have brunch at the market. Yep, the market! They have fabulous beef noodles there. Tried it the first time during my college days, and ever since we always try to make a point to stop there for the noodles when we are in Seremban.





Being in Seremban brought me back to my college days. We used to travel from Nilai to Seremban by train and then walk all the way to Terminal 1 for some shopping or to catch a bus. :D

After brunch, we continued our way to PD. Thistle is quite a ways away from the town area, tuck away nicely in a secluded area with its own private beach.




Turns out Thistle has been opened for 377 days only! It is a nice place to sit back, relax and enjoy the facilities. They have a few restaurants, games, a huge pool and a private area for adults with a smaller pool and bar, called Cumulus. Nice!




The room we stayed in had a great view of the pool and the sea. The room was nicely decorated and really cosy. The only flaw was the bathtub, it was kinda old and dirty looking. That's the only complaint I have of the whole place.







After checking out the room, we headed to Cumulus, for a swim in the pool. It was too sunny to go down to the beach, so the pool was a better and shadier alternative. The pool was next to the beach anyways, so we could watch other people going on the jet skis, banana boats and speedboats.



We lazed around till evening and then headed out to find a place to eat. We actually wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant, but turns out it was closed. So we just randomly picked another spot for dinner. The food was quite alright (too much lemon grass in the dishes for my liking) and reasonably priced.

It was back to the hotel after that. We walked around the hotel for a bit and took some photos of the place.

Then we headed back to Cumulus for a drink and to watch the live band. The performance was not bad. 3 out of 4 can sing pretty well. :P





Well, that was pretty much what we did at Thistle. We left the next day after breakfast. A great place for a relaxing weekend getaway.

A porky lunch buffet

As you can see, this is not a halal post :)

On weekdays, Bavarian Bierhaus serves a buffet lunch for RM25++ per person. This may sound like any other buffet, but they do have this special item on the menu.


One fine day, I was on leave, so I picked the bf up from his office and drove to Bavarian Bierhaus at The Curve. Once seated, we were served their soup of the day. I think ours was some kind of pea soup? Kinda icky, not tasty at all.


We then attacked the buffet table. The selection of buffet dishes are only a few, consisting of some cold cuts, sausages, spaghetti and mash. Nothing special here rite?

Buffet fair

And then they take out their secret weapon, The Pork Knuckle! We were served just one, but it was a very generous portion.

The Pork Knuckle, before

A form of measurement

Tucking in

After..........actually still got a lot of meat on the other side

We couldn't finish the pork knuckle, and being the considerate people we are, *ahem*, we offered to generously take-away the pork knuckle. But alas, we were not allowed to do so. So we purposely asked the waitress if they are just going to throw it away to waste? They said 'Yes'.
Geez......so wasteful. :P