Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Baked Salmon

I am currently staying with my wife, sister, Pooi See (My wife and my common friend) and Catherine (My wife's ex-colleague). I am assigned the task of being the chef of the house with my sister being the sous chef. For the last dinner of the year 2008, I have decided to prepare bake salmon as I always have salmon craving once in awhile. Oh by the way, the pronunciation for the word "Salmon" is not "Saal-mon" but instead without the "L" sound, which will make it sounds like "SAA-MON". So remember not to order "SAL-MON" next time.

The preparation is simple and in fact everyone can try this as it doesn't requires much complicated stuffs.

Monday, December 22, 2008

First Honeymoon

"Honeymoon? I thought you got married in 14th April 2007?". Well, yes... but the honeymoon got postphoned and before it hits 3rd year, I better make sure that my wife is not deprived of a proper honeymoon. Ever since we have purchased the Marriott Vacation Club International (MVCI) membership, we have not utilised it for a proper holiday yet, so that is one reason why we make sure that the trip is a really good one. After much deliberation, we decided to head to Hong Kong since it is nearer plus we could communicate better in their local language and the reputation of HK as a food haven also makes it more enticing to go there. I undertook the task to make reservation for the air-tickets and for the hotel.

The hotels available to the MVCI members are as follow:


MVCI Asia Pacific Club Connection Resort
Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel

Courtyard Hong Kong

Thursday, December 18, 2008

What are the little things in life?

To each his own. Different people has different definition of things be it big or small but I guess the more important matter is that one constantly stay conscious to their surroundings. I remember reading an e-mail forwarded by a friend long time ago on the importance of time to different groups of people. I managed to find the article on the web here. The e-mail I read somehow has a more extended info with the importance of a nano-second or something to a Formula 1 racer and on the list goes.




Personally there are many little things (LTs) that I enjoyed in life and I will list a few of those down in this posting and of course, these are what I termed as LTs. I enjoy walking in the local supermarket especially in the raw products section. I love to just have a stroll and watch all the beautiful array of vegetables, fruits, fish, meat and cheese. Its truly exciting to see something new as it will trigger my curiosity to search for it on the web. Of course, there are some items that I would not buy in the near future either being too expensive or I simply don't know how to go about preparing it. So to me, seeing these stuffs in the supermarket really makes me felt grateful and happy.


The other LTs that I love to do would be to spend time with my loved ones, especially my wife. I used to be a PC game junky and when I started playing games, my surrounding grew dim except for that 21" box. I will skip meals, calls, work, tv and everything in between until nature call or fatigue sets in. Ever since I met my wife, she restrict my gaming time to 3 hours per week. The reason she argued is so that we could spend more quality time together. I make the effort to resist playing games in totality as l knew that I would be so absorbed that hours after hours would passed by without me ever realising it. Thank God I survived and has little urge to play games nowadays. Having done that, I can spent more time with my wife and doing something else more beneficial like reading and bringing my pet dog, Bon Bon out for a walk in the park. I have friends labelling me as hen-pecked due to the PC gaming matter. Seriously, to me, I don't see the reason why must I stand up to my wife's restriction on PC gaming and get into arguments over such trivial stuffs. I would question myself whether it is worth the while to have an argument and hurting our oh-so-precious relationship JUST for PC gaming and academically speaking, anything at all in the world?


 
I also love to be able to cook whenever possible as it really helps me to destress (Yes... destress). My mum used to hum and whistle a tune or two whenever she cook and initially I thought that "Wow, mum is really enjoying cooking!". Probably that's why I have the mentality that cooking is enjoyable and destressing, thus my passion for cooking. Its only like a couple of years back that I realised why my mum hum and whistle when cooking.... she said that cooking to her is something stressful, that's why she hums and whistle to destress -_-". Anyway, I am still cooking today and loving it. I love to be able to enjoy (people like mum doesn't) cooking for people l both love or love lesser. My wife once tried to stop me from cooking because I never liked cleaning after cooking (I guess we all don't) and I got really depressed. Only after I made the effort to clean THEN she let me cook again but please don't get me wrong, I STILL despise the washing and cleaning.

I enjoy being able to sing and play music whenever possible. It used to be like a ritual to me everyday to play my guitar and sing a few dozen of songs but sadly nowadays, there are one thousand and one things (The so called big things!) bogging me down that I have missed the chance of doing this. In fact, My guitar string was so rusty that it will give me tetanus if I play it. Guess time to do some moderation and enjoy playing music again. Maybe I should just make a trip down the guitar shop and get a new set of strings and change it. I used to tell my guitar students that they MUST buy their own guitar and that I am NOT teaching anyone that doesn't have their own guitar. The reason is simply that "the heart is where the treasure is", meaning that if you have spent hundreds of dollars (The treasures) to buy that guitar, it will be a total waste if you don't practice hard enough to ensure that you make the fullest of the money you've spent. Thus, the students will all obediently practice their guitar skills.

So in this blog, there will be plenty of LTs in life that I will record down. God knows what benefit or revelation it will give to the reader. That's all for the time being.