The World Cup is all different now…

Posted on June 24, 2010 by The Giddy Tigress

 
Photo Credits

…and I’m not even referring to the fact that my beloved France is out of the competition.  Monsieur Domenech team’s clearly needs a HUGE change…but let’s not get into that, shall we?

We’re now heading towards the end of the 3rd round of 16 matches, and guess what…I haven’t even sat down to watch an ENTIRE match live.  No kidding.

Yup, things have definitely changed in more ways than one.

  1. Matches at 7p.m. are not conducive for watching because it coincides with my dinner time.  We like to keep the TV switched off as far as possible during dinner so as not to encourage having TV dinners.  But we sometimes relent, just like the other day when there were 3 or 4 goals scored by Portugal during our dinner.
  2. It’s hard to watch the 10p.m. matches too, because most of the time, I only get to take a shower after the kids are in bed around 10p.m.  After that, there is some washing up to do and preparation for the next day.  By the time all is done, it’s already sometime into the second half.  I only rush to watch the repeat of goals if I hear the commentator scream, “Goaaaaalll!!!!!!”
  3. Let’s not start on the 2:30a.m. matches.  Many a time, I have told myself I will wake up to watch, but that has never happened.  Oh wait, I did wake up for that England match and watched it for like 10 minutes, but that was about it.  Sleep is so much more important now…well, not till the knockout rounds, that is.
  4. I still haven’t got into the whole “waka waka” groove yet.  Ricky Martin’s “Go Go Go, Allez Allez Allez” from World Cup 1998 was so much more catchier and easier to sing.  I can now only manage 4 lines of the Waka Waka song, ending with “It’s time for Africa” 😛
Posted in Thoughts & Scribblings | 1 Comment

A haven of Ipoh food

Posted on June 21, 2010 by The Giddy Tigress

Four days in Ipoh just wasn’t enough to savor all the different wonderful types of food this hometown of mine has to offer.  But I did what I could in whatever time I had…I even forgot to take some photos because I was way too excited to rekindle that love when I laid eyes on the feast before me.

Anyway…one of my must-haves is the Canning Garden chee cheong fun, now relocated to Central restaurant somewhere near Hotel Excelsior.  I ordered the small plate the first day and the day before I left, I ordered the large plate.  Tung-koo-chup chee cheong fun at its best…it just doesn’t get any better than this.

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I didn’t miss out on the dim sum either.  There are so many dim sum shops in Ipoh, we were definitely spoilt for choice as to which one to choose.

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And then, definitely NOT to be missed, the chicken koay teow (kai see hor fun) in Ipoh Old Town.  Kong Heng probably has the best kai see hor fun  around, and it was definitely a bowl to savor.  I was definitely sorry when I finished the last bits of my bowl.  Ipoh koay teow is still the smoothest in the world, and slurping up every bit is just plain delicious!

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I also wanted to have the ever famous Caramel Custard from Thean Chun, located just right beside Kong Heng.  But apparently due to rivalry and whatnot, we are allowed only to order from Thean Chun, and bring the custard over to Kong Heng ourselves.  That being said, it was still well worth the effort (Thanks Mom!) and the smooth custard with the sweet-sweet caramel sauce drizzled all over it was just heavenly!

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Of course, I didn’t forget to tar pow the famous Yee Hup Hiong Piah.  They’ve now made it halal, and the packaging is all done up nicely, like so…yum!

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 Missed out several other types of yummy Ipoh food like the salt-baked chicken, beef stew, etc but there’ll be other times… 🙂

Posted in Close to Heart & Home, Drooling & Cooking | 1 Comment

Score!!! And it’s a GOAL!

Posted on June 20, 2010 by The Giddy Tigress

At the price of RM1.50 for The Star newspaper, which included a free Galaxie magazine, free key chain and World Cup daily supplement, we were given a *chance* to score a goal from a free kick.  Obviously hubby was the one who stepped up.

Check out the difficult angle the ball was placed at, and given that hubbs is a right-footer at best (the ball was placed where a left-footed shot would have been better), and the ball was a really light beach ball (read: difficult to control), he slammed the ball straight into the goal (which was quite small to begin with).  I was thrilled!

It wasn’t the free shoe bag we got for scoring that made me happy, but the mere sight of the goal being scored.

 

Now, don’t you think my hubby could be a great asset to Liverpool?  Perhaps as a manager? *hint hint*

Posted in Relax & Celebrate | 4 Comments

Lost and gone, but now recovered…

Posted on June 14, 2010 by The Giddy Tigress

I just got home from Ipoh 3 days ago.   Hubby had been away on business trip for about 5 days, so I took both my kids to my hometown, so they could spend some quality time with their grandparents, since it coincided with the school holidays.

5 days in Ipoh meant 5 days of photos of kids having fun, photos of food and some scenery.  But when I wanted to show them to my hubby from my camera, to my horror I discovered that almost ALL the photos had VANISHED from the memory card!  I do not know how it happened but I have a feeling I might have accidentally formatted the memory card!  I don’t think there was a warning message before I clicked on OK and somehow it happened….

A quick google search told me that all was not lost.  Apparently formatted SD cards still contain *memories* of what used to be in them, and the photos could most likely be recovered.

So yesterday I spent some time downloading software to recover my photos…finally I chose Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery which I felt produced the best overall results, and voila, aabout 98% of all my photos were recovered successfully! 🙂 

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I’m definitely a happy camper!  The 2% unrecovered photos were not really unrecovered, it’s just that the high resolution ones of the 2% were irrecoverable, and I only got the smaller sized versions.  But it only affected like 2 or 3 shots, so basically I got almost all the shots (and my sanity) back.

See…this is what the software looks like…I get a preview of the photos which can be recovered, and I can select the ones which I want to recover.  Click on RECOVER and everything will be saved to a specified location.

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Needless to say, I am really really happy with the results and I’m glad that now I don’t have to post a blog post with only words and no pictures… 🙂

…I’m off to edit photos now! 🙂

Posted in Blogging, Thoughts & Scribblings | 3 Comments

A Delicious Detour that did us Good

Posted on June 7, 2010 by The Giddy Tigress

We had planned on having a Japanese lunch before we headed back to Penang.  We even had a specific location in mind, somewhere in Damansara Uptown.

But fate must have had other ideas. 

As we walked towards the Japanese restaurant, something beckoned us as we passed a Vietnamese restaurant, just a few doors away.  I was drawn to the menu because it had a few of the Vietnamese stuff I love.

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The name Du Viet sounded familiar, but we couldn’t quite remember where we had seen it before.  Most importantly, I checked to see if they had the Vietnamese Beef Stew dish, that Ethan loved back in the US. 🙂

Oh yes, they did…and they had other stuff too…

Like the summer rolls…

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Tasted good, but there was something missing in the peanut sauce…

Hubbs had the dried noodles…

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Verdict: Not enough fish sauce, and the noodles should be the Vietnamese vermicelli, instead of regular meehoon.

I, of course, ordered the beef broth noodles.  They didn’t have a whole lot of selection and customization available, though.  And I felt they could have added more basil.

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Verdict: I’ve had better.  Broth was not thick enough, noodles were koay teow, when I was expecting the thinner Vietnamese vermicelli.

The highlight of our lunch, however, was the dessert.  My sister-in-law recommended their durian pancake, which, according to her, was to die for.

I thought I had gotten over durians, but when I put that spoonful of durian pancake in my mouth, it was just HEAVEN in one bite!  See how tempting it looks?

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It’s like they took the durian, removed the seed, and replaced it with some whipped cream.  So it’s got some of the durian inside, mixed with the cream…the result was a SPLENDID dessert.  Now, we never got this in Vietnamese restaurants in the States…. 😛 Whatever it is, I LOVED it.

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I would go to this restaurant again, if only to eat this dessert. 🙂

Posted in Drooling & Cooking | 2 Comments