I have a simple name

It goes like this... P-A-G-A-N. Only one vowel to repeat. And I don't really care if you pronounce it the English way or the Malay = Spanish way because I understand that it is an unusual name. (I said it was simple, not ordinary) Simple, isn't it?

NO.

Over the phone: Some people will annoying insist that my name is either Megan, Peggy, Haagen (you think my mum will named me after an ice cream brand? puh-lease), Pageant (who will named themselves pageant?), Pecan (do I look like a nut to you?), Penguin (don't... just don't go there), or Vivian (which part of my name sound like Vivian?).

Fine, it's over the phone, the line might be fuzzy. I forgive you.

In person: The most fundamentally salah question: "Do you know what 'Pagan' means?"
The answer I'd love to give: No, I have been living with this name for eons and still, I don't know what it means. Enlighten me. OR, if pronouncing my name proves to be too hard for you, you may call me Goddess.

In writing: Ok, I may have written like a man for all my professional email liaising, but Mr. Pagan? MR. PAGAN? Even when I have purposely put a (Ms.) at my email signature?!?!

And today, the creme de la creme - Ms. Chellapandi! Where is the connection?????

My only consolation is that the person got my gender right. Argh!

toffee nut latte and flying sardines

2 days ago, I dreamt that I was in a school doing some field work with a bunch of people whom I could not remember, then Tyson (yes Tyson, its YOU) walked passed and asked if I need any drinks and I beamed: "Starbucks Toffee Nut Latte please!" (oh yes, as if it's not enough to plague me during my conscious state, the frigging toffee nut latte absolutely has to invade my subconscious mind as well!).

Then after that particular episode I dreamt that Jaime (yes Jaime, it's YOU), ashen-faced, told me that she was just opening a can of sardines when they suddenly all grew wings and took flight right in front of her! (I forgot to ask her if the tomato sauce was dripping all around when the sardines were flying.)

And if what they say is true - that what you dream is a reflect of your state of mind - then I guess I'm nuts?

birthday resolution

1) limit my clubbing sessions and do more leisure trips instead (next stop: National Science Centre!)
2) drink moderately, the aim is not to overdose
3) stop dining at expensive places and fag lesser to save up dough for trips with darling drey
4) get a boyfriend so my dad will stop pestering me and leave my ears alone!
5) reflect more on myself

and above all, stay young, free and always beautiful!

the fish and me @ aquaria, klcc

I spent an unhealthy amount of time in KL Convention Centre doing events throughout my course of life in KL, and passed by the entrance of Aquaria endless times, but I never get around to step my foot into it. Strange, consider I like fishes a lot.

There are many reasons why I prefer fish above all moving living things. The popular ones are:
1) they don't quite ever bark, or meow, or moo, or oink, or make any sound in general
2) they require very little food
3) they generally keep to themselves
4) they do not require a lot of attention
5) even when they perish, they die quietly and peacefully and won't make a stink around the area
...Which makes me think, did anyone ever cry because their fishes die?

Ok, I digress. Well, I finally went to Aquaria last Saturday with a very nice JC who indulged me in my crazy mood. Dark, dank and with the pipe-in waves sound, I already felt relaxed the moment I stepped into it.

They had a touch pool right after the registration counter with the normal harmless sharks, siputs, and starfishes. They did not, however, have any facilities for us to wash or even wipe our hands after that! I had fishy smelling hands with me the whole trip. :(

After that were the spiders, the geckos, the urm.. monkey-look-alike-sad-looking-mammal, iguanas, alligators or crocodiles. It totally escaped me why would they want to feature any unfishlike or non-water based animals in the Aquaria at first place.

Then came the turtles, the fresh water fishes, the salt water fishes (I don't know the difference, and no, I didn't bother to taste the water to find out), the coral type fishes, the cousin of piranha, etc etc etc. (Can anyone tell me why are all the fishes so big? Is it because they are overfed and they lack of room to exercise?)

My favourite will have to be the Lion Fish! They are soooooo awfully cute and colourful, poisonous not withstanding.


...and then we eventually reached the tunnel! Actually before the tunnel they had a skunk and a small kangaroo, according to the personnel. (I think it's actually a willabe. I, afterall, just went to the zoo but anyway) for photo ops session. Again, why anyone wants to take pictures of a skunk / kangaroo during their visit to the Aquaria completely eludes me.

Back to topic. The sharks and the sting rays were HUGGGEEEEE with a big capital 'H'! JC told me that the sharks will have to be trained to turn their bodies because in the big wide ocean, they don't ever have to since it's so wide. I got to examine the razor teeth of one particularly nasty looking shark up close! Hohoho.

Over the PA system there was this woman who kept repeating NON-STOP some annoying facts about Napolean Fish from the time we stepped into the tunnel till we left! And throughout all her announcement I have no frigging idea what was a Napolean fish until I googled it... and found out that I actually took a picture with this big fish. (sweat)


The last thing on the menu were the jellyfishes and the peculiar looking huge snails and some weird distorted fishes. I'm really bad at remembering names so I don't know what they are called. But we were fascinated by the jellyfish... I also like jellyfish because I like the concept that they are brainless. (mwahaha)

Honestly at the end of my trip I felt like I was turtle-nized because if nothing else, I really saw a lot of turtles. But I had a splendid time touring the Aquaria and will recommend any of you to pay it a visit as long as it's not during weekends (else you'll be swarmed by school kids like I did).

And by the way, if any of the Aquaria folks read my blog (fat chance), please have signs in both Malay and English, and make them SUPER BIG as I don't fancy lecturing yet another inconsiderate prick who actually smacked a turtle down towards the bottom when it broke for the water surface.

Enjoy the pictures!
PS: Zephyerseeker, the pictures of tarantulas are a special tribute to your dead one and served as a note to you - don't ever attempt to rear one again.


And here's the map!

Zoo Negara Trip

I actually have a list of place that I wanted to visit in KL like Zoo Negara, Aquaria, the whatever wheel, FRIM, Science Centre. So couple weeks ago, I was bored out of my mind and decided to visit the Zoo Negara since I've never been there ever (shame on me) and dragged DB along with me.

I must say that the map provided in the Zoo Negara website is USELESS for people who are not familiar with that region. The map I found in mycen is not much better. The road sign that leads to Zoo Negara is PATHETIC. In any case, I found it since I'm such a good navigator haha.

When I reached there, I saw families upon families with little kids and strollers and I was thinking to myself "What the heck is a grown woman like me visiting the Zoo?". But my worries were worthless because I saw grown MEN visiting the Zoo in PAIRS haha. (No, they did not hold hands!)

We had some Ramli burger to boost our energy first. Then we went to see the monkeys, more monkeys, and more and more monkeys, till I swore that if I saw one more type of monkey I would eliminate the entire race of monkeys from the surface of earth!

Before I could made my threat come true it started pouring. How timely. We had no choice but to buy an umbrella each, and I was forced to roll up my jeans like an ah-sam or else my jeans will soak up all the rain and gather all the rubbish along the way.

And so we continue with our journey to the next stop - the bears. We were taken aback by the sheer size of the brown bears! They were like 2 of us combined standing up! I don't fancy meeting any bears in the wild anymore... :( The honey bear looked really cute foraging the ground for earthworms though.

Next came the tortoise. One can only imagine how heavy is their shell with size that big. That's why they move so slowly? In any case I wouldn't want to be a tortoise in my next life - think about how you would feel if you can't change out of your clothes even after you are dead...

Then we reached the reptiles section. In good time too, since it started pouring cats and dogs (why not pouring donkeys and asses? fishes and frogs? hmm...). Let's just say that there's no snake I've not seen in other zoos before.

After that were the giraffes, lions, tigers, leopards, emus, ostriches, elephants, wild cats, birds, birds, birds, and birds. *blek*

The highlight of the day - the Orang Utans! You cannot believe how cute they were. At first we only saw a huge orange furball and we were wondering if the zookeeper accidentally left the rugs there. Then it MOVED and we found out that the two love birds (or love apes) were actually kissing and cuddling. The female OU was throwing a little tantrum and the male OU was trying to pacify her by kissing her and holding her hands. (The female OU sneaked some looks at us when she was kissing the male OU... talk about female's multitasking ability.) I guess the female OU got pissed off by us looking on and decided to give the male OU the cold shoulder treatment and run off to play with the ropes haha.

The worst letdown of the day - the penguins and the aquarium. What penguins!? There's none since their home is under renovation! And I was looking forward to see the penguins all day! *argghh* And the aquarium is murky with humongous overfed pale looking aimless ugly fishes. *yuck* I wouldn't even consider eating those fishes.

Despite the rain and the let down, I had an extremely good time there with DB. (Thanks DB for being so supportive of my crazy idea! *mwah*) But honestly, if you have the money, go to Singapore Zoo. At least they have penguins there!

Vietnamese Kitchen @ Jaya 33

One fine noon, my colleagues decided to check out the new Jaya33 building and have lunch there - that's why we went to the Vietnamese Kitchen situated at the ground floor. (Jaya33 is a new commercial building which dubbed themselves as "The Hyperoffice" that uniquely combines office & showroom capabilities.)

It was packed with people and we had to wait for about 10 minutes before we were seated. It wasn't a big restaurant, and the sound proof mustn't have been good because the chatter of the diners actually make the whole restaurant abuzz with echoing sounds! Not that it affected the quality of the food in any case...

dining area near the entrance


More sitting area inside

Introducing some of the nicer food:

You *must try* the beef noodles! I mean, just look at the chunks of beef swimming lazily inside the pipping hot flavoursome soup! The tribes could be a little softer but I'm not complaining.


Spring roll and fried chicken vermicelli


Stir fry seafood spaghetti - not too bad.


Stir fry noodles Vietnamese style - ok la...


the *free* spring rolls! Most delicious (and not because it's free!)

Mind you, all the portions are BIG! If you are not a big eater, do share your food with your girlfriend or just give some to your guy friends haha.

Now here's two cool refreshing drinks for you to try:

Sea coconut and red dates - just nice


My fave - basil drink. Really refreshing on a hot sunny afternoon.

And for the first time since I write reviews, there's an actual map! Albeit with chock full of typo errors...


All in all, the food is generally tasty and although the service is a-ok only, I'd still recommend you to go and have a try! It's not that expensive anyway.

So How Do I Rate It?
Food? 4/5
Beverages? 4/5
Service? 3/5
Price? 3/5
Promotion? free spring rolls!

Kiku Zakura Japanese Restaurant @ Mid Valley

While milling around in Mid Valley, ASL & me chanced upon this restaurant on the top floor, next to the Vietnamese restaurant. When we walked into this restaurant, a face-all-painted-up-geisha-lookalike-waitress greeted us at the entrance with a fake Japanese accented English. Mann, that face! Gave me a fright! (I tried to surreptitiously take pictures of her but failed... because she was always surrounded by other geisha-lookalike-waitresses)

view of d'entrance

So we got seated and been presented the menu. The set list that they've got is really amazing! Tons & tons of sets to choose from. Too many choices sometimes are a bad choice.

Impressive leh

First came the *free* appetizer - Jellyfish, some shellfish and octopus. So-so only.


ASL ordered the tempura udon & gyoza set. It's normal, not too salty, not too tasteless.


I love this type of egg though...

I had the beef sukiyaki set. It was tooooooo salty that should I didn't take rice with it, I will be completely bald by the time I finish the whole set.


Although the quality of food was so-so and the price is quite expensive, the waitresses were attentive. Give it a go if you run out of ideas to eat and feel like paying a little bit more.

So How Do I Rate It?
Food? 3/5
Beverages? 3/5
Service? 5/5
Price? 4/5
Promotion? iN/A

difficult crossroad

Since the beginning of this year, I noticed there is a change in myself. It's a subtle shift really, more on my outlook of life. Then I am smacked with a whirlwind of unexpected events - like most of my good close friends moved down to Singapore, very precious few of them actually came back into my life in KL, some good colleagues left for greener pastures, a change in job role, living alone, etc.

And therefore the expected subsequent consequences are me having too much time on my hand which leads to some minor soul searching, thinking about what I really want with my life. Can't really spend too much time on reflecting on myself, I'm really afraid it's all pitch black inside haha.

I tried different maneuvers to pacify my restlessness. I tried job hunting, I tried dating, I tried hooking up with different new friends, I tried catching up with old friends, I tried clubbing, I tried not to club so much, I tried dieting, I tried going to the Zoo (haha), I tried throwing a party.

...All of which served as a temporary reprieve. I am never a person who takes leaving nicely. Especially hate changes when it comes to friendship/relationship. I wish all my friends are all in one location and all of them get along well

But at least now, after some effort made, I know my life is finally going to lead somewhere different. I wanted a change, now I got the chance to change. But I am given TOO MANY choices! Too many choices are not good! So now I find myself once again at a difficult crossroad, thinking of which direction will eventually lead me to the highway I wanted to cruise along. So many things to consider, so many decisions to make. Arggh!!! Can somebody help me please?

MyElephant Thai Restaurant @ Happy Apartment, Section 17, PJ

This little unassuming Thai restaurant is quite hard to find as it is located in the apartment block itself. On the outlook, it is really nothing. But when you stepped inside, you will be amazed by the interesting and incredibly creative decor! It's mainly concrete you see, but a little bit of colours here, a tad of creative brick works there, some wood furniture & soft cushions around, make it a very cosy restaurant which you can relax with some friends and have a good dinner.

Ok ok, no more decor talk. On about the food! If you decided to go there, here's your by default *must try* menu:
- Snow Fish: oven baked with sea salt. Inside, the flesh is soft and with a slight salty taste (obviously... so much salt all over). Be careful not to have any generous amount of sea salt in your mouth!
- Chicken Curry/Pineapple Curry: Take the pineapple curry if you can't take too spicy food. Both are yummy!
- Chicken Nugget: Better than KFC's!
- Thai Salad: Any salad of theirs are good, but make sure you ask if they are spicy.
- Tom Kat / Tom Yum Soup: YUMMMYYYY!! The more you drink, the spicier it gets! Woohoo!

Try the special Hibiscus Tea to wash down your food with, very refreshing!



So How Do I Rate It?
Food? 5/5
Beverages? 5/5
Service? 5/5
Price? 3/5
Promotion? N/A

read my reviews at TheLocalKing
read my blog at BlogSpot

Black Canyon Restaurant @ Centre Point

Last last Tuesday I think... Went to Black Canyon Restaurant with Kamjie & Chin2. They have Thai fusion food and a HUGE ARRAY OF COFFEE that are *to die* for! Don't order the salad though, not their strength. But their fried stuff are really delicious and their coffee.. yummmyyyy...