Penang Bridge Marathon 2007

I'M IN!

Chili's @ Mid Valley

It's absolutely tiring today! Slept late last nite, and woke up quite early to drive to KLIA this morning. Compounded by yesterday's moderately intense gym workout. Decided to nap in Seremban after KLIA, and...

...headed to Chili's @ Mid Valley for dinner. Cannot eat crabs all the time mah rite?

We decided to go healthy for beverages. Two glasses of iced-water, zero calories, very good for health.

For starters, we ordered their Wings Over Buffalo. These are grilled chicken drummets topped with slightly spicy Buffalo wing sauce and served with cool bleu cheese dressing and a few batangs of crunchy celery. RM14.95.

Rachel had the BBQ Ranch Burger. It's a thick fat slab of meat with smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, shredded lettuce, tomato, pickle, and fries. RM17.95.

I was famished, so I ordered something with rice - Citrus Fire Chicken and Shrimp. Citrus Margarita Grilled Chicken topped with spicy garlic and lime shrimp and pico de gallo, served with rice and chimichurri sauce. RM32.95.

Did I mention we were famished? All the dishes were sparkling clean!

This post is not to popularise the already popular Chili's chain of Grill & Bar franchise, so no comments on the food. Go try it out, coz when you're hungry, everything taste good in these kind of restaurants. Service here at the Mid Valley branch is outright unpleasant. My food has rice in it and they expect me to have the rice with fork and knife! I had to hold my arms upright so long that my armpit was air-dried, and yet nobody saw my sexy arm. I grunted a displeased "EXCUSE ME" to a nearby Bangla worker but he headed straight to catch a broom to sweep the nearby floor . Why they hire these kind of sick-fucks who fetishes on floor-sweeping rather than serving hungry customers?

Similar posts:
• Chili's @ KLCC (30.06.06)
• TGIF @ Section 14, PJ (02.07.06)
• Dinner at Chili's (23.08.06)
• Hardcore ASS Dinner (23.08.06)

@ KLIA

Buggeratto! De elevators in KLIA are freakin high and long and scary! Ok maybe it's juz me being heightophobia. Sendin Rachel's mum off to Philippines.
1005hrs @ KLIA via W880i.

Papaya Sex!

People, especially the Chinese, associate food that resemble the genitalia as sex-enhancers and libido-boosters, i.e. the aphrodisiacs. Oysters, sea cucumbers, rhinocerous' horns, as well as penises and bollocks of tigers, oxes, etc. are well-known local aphrodisiacs. Ever thought of classifying papaya into the aphrodisiac category?

This is an organic papaya. Look at its curvatures. It looks sexy from any angle. Are you aroused yet?

Notice most of the other claimed aphrodisiacs are either seafood or animal organs, which are very high in cholesterol and thus causes atherosclerosis (deposition of fat on blood vessel wall) which ultimately predisposes to erectile dysfunction (inability to make erect the male genital organ)?!

Why can't papayas be aphrodisiac as well? For starters, it's healthy! Papayas contain known anti-inflammatory nutrients including Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate, Selenium and Beta Carotene. It is also a good source of dietary fiber and potassium.

Besides the packful of nutrients, papayas are good for cleansing the bowel system so that you won't pass out rotten-smelling farts (flatus) while in action on bed (caution: do not attempt any bed action within 2 hours after consuming papayas).

It's also claimed to be one of the world's healthiest food, and something that can "kick start or push yourself off that plateau you have been sitting on in your weight loss goals". Read the article here.

It's also heterogenous in aphrodisiacal appearance - when uncut and whole it looks like the male genitalia (refer to photos above). And when you're done with it, with some skillful allignment, the papaya skin can be made to look like the female labia too:

I say make organic papayas Malaysia's national aphrodisiac! Visit Malaysia 2007 and go tropical sex! PAPAYA BOLEH!

It's Mother's Day Today!

May 13 - it's Mother's Day! Had to wake up at an ungodly 4.00am to send our maid to LCCT. Mum crept into my room at 3.58am and touched my backside to wake me up, and my whole body jolted into the air in shock. Mum was shocked wide awake by my reaction too. Haha!

So the first few hours of Mother's Day was spent with mum chatting in the car to and fro LCCT. We then had dim sum for breakfast on the way back at this famous dim sum place in Taman Connaught (this shop is situated along the famous Connaught Pasar Malam stretch, also dubbed the longest pasar malam in Malaysia!). More chatting and talking with mummy dearest. It was a light breakfast as we intended to continue sleeping upon reaching home.

And sleep I did! Right till 3.00pm, when my stomach howled for food and I decided to crawl out of bed to find something to munch. And I saw mum getting ready to leave the house. Gonna do her hair she said. I need a haircut too! Let's go do hair together, I suggested... how sissy! Spending time together doing hair is supposed to be a mom-and-daughter activity. And it takes forever for a woman to have her hair done! My haircut and wash took less than 30mins. Mum's entire hair procedure totalled 3hrs! Lucky me we were in Mid Valley!

For dinner, we headed to grampa's favourite restaurant in the heart of Ampang old town - Restoran On Pong. An old skool restaurant serving old skool, nostalgic Chinese cuisine (the way my grampa puts it). Reservation was placed last week, and we still had to wait for 30 mins before the first dish was served. Business was obviously good - it's a full house!

The first dish is a combination of fried, steamed, barbequed, and stir-fried dishes (direct translation from the dish's bombastic Chinese name) consisting of pork, stuffed roll with salted egg yolk, veggies, tofu, etc.

And a huge serving of Superior Shark's Fin soup, a must for any Chinese-themed feasts. This dish alone costs a bomb! (I am sure they didn't use REAL shark's fin so wildlife conservationists can look elsewhere if you wanna pick a fight!).

A closer look of what's inside... got some fin-ny stuff aye? Hmmm wonder how many sharks fishes they kill for that bowl of soup.

Then it's the Steamed Kampong Chicken.

Next up - Steamed Ikan Bawal.

Mixed veggie - inside got mushrooms, abalone slices, tofu slices, broccoli, and ginkgo.

And lastly, Butter Prawns. Huge succulent prawns with loads of fragrant fried butter + egg strips!

Mum, sis, and I.

Mum, sis, grampa, Aunt Angie, and I. There were 9 of us, the rest camera shy, scared I put their pics in blog. Heh heh heh...
That concluded this years Mother's Day. And mom, I love you since your very first touch 24 years ago! Thanks for everything you did for us, your neverending care and love!

@ LCCT

Sending our maid of 2 years home. She's so happy, going back to Yogharta to see her children on Mother's Day... after two years! Nana, we gonna miss you! Woke up at 0400hrs, it's a nice drive. Took the Nilai exit to KLIA. Felt the Nilai route is nearer compared to following the road signs, plus cheaper toll too. Correct me if I'm wrong. So many Indon ppl at LCCT today! Yawn...
0545hrs @ LCCT, Sepang via W880i.

Baked Crab @ Choy Kee

Daniel was depressed today due to his "fantastic" End of Paediatric posting results (the result graph can be viewed in IMU's Semester 9 notice board). He demanded crabs for dinner for symptomatic relief of depression, and Choy Kee Food Stall we went! I heard Felix did "better" than Daniel by obtaining a "F", and having won the bet, Daniel paid for his A&W lunch. So we left him out. Moreover, it's a Friday, he'd already be by mummy's side.

First dish, Stuffed Tofu Steamed with Soy Sauce (the name I simply kelentong one la, the waitress blabber something-something tofu in Chinese and asked whether we would like to try, and everyone nodded). Tasted like tofu. Nothing to shout about. RM8.00.

Next is Thai Style Chicken. Deep fried chicken with plenty of fattening chicken skin coated in breadcrumbs batter topped with onions and doused with tasty Thai sauce. RM12.00.

Veggie, and again those China-educated friends of mine preferred to keep mum when the waitress repeatedly asked what veggie we wanted. And what did I order? Yes, always a Fu Yue Yao Mak (lettuce with pickled tofu and garlic) for me! This is RM8.00.

We had the above three "side-dishes" with rice. Those three dishes are considered appetisers, and by the time we finished everything, the main course came. Our all-time favourite Salted-Egg Crab.

And Choy Kee's all-time popular Baked Crab. They are super-delicious. Second to none. The dark caramel sauce is so fragrant, Daniel ended up licking the crab shell clean.

So it's a tie between Choy Kee's Salted-Egg Crab and Baked Crab! If thick buttery salted-egg taste is no good to you, go ahead and try their Baked Crab. To me, I luuurrrvee both crab preparations. The crabs totalled 2.3kg, and costs us RM92.00. What a meal to start the weekend! Wonder what I'm gonna have for the coming Mother's Day banquet. Heh heh, crabs did I just hear you calling?!

Related Crap Crab posts:
• Seremban Seafood Village
• Choy Kee Food Stall
• Daniel's post on "Crab Feast at Choy Kee"

Intensive Care Unit

A panoramic view of Hospital Tuanku Jaafar's ICU. This week sees my first time stepping into an ICU. Full of mechanical gadgetry and sick people. Am posted there again tomorrow. Yawn!

Saman Ordeal

For those who thinks that settling your summonses online is convinient and saves time, reconsider your options. I just settled four summonses last week - 3 for speeding and 1 for traffic obstruction, totalling RM520. Went to the PDRM booth in Terminal 1, Seremban. To cut the long story short, the police officer reduced the compounds to a total of RM340 after much acting, and asked for RM20 "duit kopi". All in all I saved RM160, enough to pay for another speeding ticket and one more traffic obstruction compound!

California Fitness @ Mid Valley

Managed to get hold of this 1-month guest membership at California Fitness gym, Mid Valley. The trial membership is good till June 1, courtesy of my secondary school mate who recently joined the gym.

Having been a member of Fitness First for few months (I later transferred my membership to my sis, sensible thing to do since I'm in S'ban), I thought I'd write up a general comparison between these two gym biggies.

There are currently only 2 California Fitness gyms in Malaysia, both located in the Klang Valley - one at Mid Valley and the other at Menara Standard Chartered, Jalan Sultan Ismail. The third branch is opening soon at Sunway Pyramid.

Let's start with California's plus points: It's got a swimming pool, a jacuzzi pool, and a small basketball court. That's it really... (oh yeah they provide towel service too!)

The pool.

The jacuzzi pool.

The basketball court.

The rest of the gym is pretty standard, classy. Quite similar with Fitness First.

Treadmills.

Kickboxing ring.

Weight machines.

More machines...

Free weights.

I have my gripes though:

I personally think the free-weight section could be better. The selection of dumbbell weights for example, I think they have exactly two pairs for each weight (eg. 2 pairs for 20lbs, 2 pairs for 120lbs, 2 pairs for 200lbs). They should provide more dumbbells in the practical weight range. Come on, how many dicks can carry 200lbs on one hand?

For a gym of such reputation, the free-weight area should be larger to cater for the big number of members. Or at least arrange those benches in an unencumbered manner! Close proximity with gym goers make me feel like I'm in a gay-club! I liked the way Fitness First separate the machine area and the free-weight area.

Fitness First provide a lounge area where members chill out after their workout with free-flowing 100Plus (and other carbonated soft drinks), a selection of tea (green tea, oolong, etc.) and coffee, not to mention warm drinking water in addition to the water coolers littered around the gym. Looking for a watering hole in California Fitness? "Sorry sir, if you're so well off that you can afford to join the prestigious California Fitness, you might as well buy from us from the vending machines provided! Or else, help yourself with the free water in the swimming pool. Thank you!"

I can't help but notice there are loads of posers, fakers, jokers, as well as homo people around. I'm gifted, the moment I detect these faces, I could quickly categorise these people into the appropriate category. These people are those who enrol into a gym with motives other than working out. A better way to put it is that they use the gym to socialise, as a place to meet people of opposite/same sex, and the gym to them is an alternative from gaybars, pubs, etc. Not that there are none of these people in Fitness First, they are substantially fewer in number.

Now practical issues: gyms provide LOCKERS for their members to LOCK up their belongings in a safe manner. Needless to say, for a locker to be lockable, the locker must have a key hole on the outside, a hinged lock on the inside, and of course a key! California Fitness has a policy of forcing all new members to buy small padlocks if they wish to use their so-called-lockers. Therefore they can save costs by only making pigeon holes with flaps, sans the conventional locks. The size of the pigeon holes are pathetic, and weirdly shaped too. Guys with huge gym bags sure have problems stuffing them into that sh*t-hole!

On second thought, making gym members bring their own padlocks can be beneficial, security-wise, as members can always sneak out from the gym and duplicate locker keys and prey on the next member who uses the same locker. But the management would argue that it's member's padlock fault if something got stolen!

If you're looking for solid doors to safeguard your rectal tissue while in shower, you're in for despair. Each shower cubicles are covered by a thin piece of curtain which is a flappy plastic piece of sheet. Once you're in the cubicle, you find there's no hooks for you to hang your towel and underwear. To hook them, you gotta flip open the plastic curtain, and hook it outside the cubicle. I find this practise unhealthy, as it may harbour morbid jealousy from other members in the shower area and this may spark the incidences of penetration and perforation. I know it's a free country, we're in Boleh-land where whatever also Boleh as long as you pay up, but at least provide a few solid doors for guys who are well endowed and do not wish to show off, like yours truly.

So is it a practical gym to join? My answer is a very NO. For starters, the revised parking rate in Mid Valley means you would need to pay up to RM6.00 per gym session. Have you driven to Mid Valley on weekends? If you haven't, try do so this weekend. How many branches did they have again? Oh, three (including the yet to open Pyramid branch)! But I heard there are ELEVEN Fitness First gyms (if you join the Passport membership, you could go to all the Fitness First gyms around the world), and some provide free parking (like the Fitness First Menara Axis)!

I would join California Fitness if I:
(1) Drop out of med school and decided to sell handphone in Mid Valley.
(2) Work in University Hospital or UMMC as a male nurse (nearby mah, a lot free time oso).
(3) Decided to go homo.
(4) Own the going-to-be-launched upscale condominium in Mid Valley City.
(5) Own the Boulevard Hotel.
(6) If Fitness First go bankcrupt and California Fitness take over all its branches.

Having said that, I have an extra free one-month pass to California Fitness. Who wanna join me go swimming in Mid Valley?

Celebrity Fitness, the 3rd gym biggie in Malaysia. Hope this 14-day pass is still valid when I redeem it in August. Then I can complete my quest of having visited the three gym biggies in Klang Valley. But more gyms are sprouting like weeds in KL - True Fitness, Real Fitness, Pure Fitness, Serious Fitness... how to choose??


Related posts:
• Fitness First Membership
• Fitness First @ Leisure Mall, Cheras
• Fitness First @ Menara Maxis, KLCC
• Fitness First @ Menara Axis, PJ
• UAV Gym