Hello... I'm still alive! 0 lalalas
Just dropping by and saying hi.
Summer is here and weather is getting warmer these days - just slightly cooler than Malaysia I imagine. That being said, the air here is not nearly as stuffy as S.E.A.
Just wondering if I should get a fan - but then again, there's only less than 2 months left in summer so that probably wouldn't be a good investment. I guess I'll just get out of house when it gets too warm.
Been trying to cook more since I have lots of free time. Managed to find some pandan leaves in the local T&T supermarket (Awesome, was not expecting that) although the typo in naming is bordering on blasphemy (it shows the same thing on the receipt). They do smell nice though.
Anyway that's all for now folks. Signing off.
p/s: Flowa powa!!!!
Vancouver, Food Haven 0 lalalas
Following my brother's short visit, I've learned to appreciate and embrace Vancouver's wide array of good food. So I've began to try out more food in and out of campus.
I checked out Afghan Horsemen on this Tuesday. Based on the good online ratings, I had pretty high expectation of the restaurant.
The restaurant was nicely decorated. Besides from the usual table and chairs, there is also more private rooms and a place that you take off your shoes and sit with cushions. Afghan music was played and methought it sounded like Indian music. Let's talk about the food there, I ordered Combo Kebab Plate that night which was supposed to come with a combination of chicken, beef, and lamb kebabs. It turned out that the lamb kebab was nowhere to be found. This plate comes with baked rice, salata (some kind of toasted bread) with feta cheese, batter fried potatos, and yogurt dip. The kebab tasted like any other Middle East (e.g. Lebanon) food, nothing too special. It was pretty good but not too appealing to me, not my taste I guess. I found the fired potatos extremely tasty, although it might not be very healthy. Staff was very friendly, constantly asked me if I'm doing alright and refilled my water from time and time. The food was a bit pricey, that meal cost me about $20. Oh yeah, I ordered dough, a kind of Afghan drink - a mixture of yogurt and salt. It was a very weird drink, I didn't like it.
The restaurant's design - good atmosphere
Another pic of the restaurant
My meal
On Wednesday, I decided to visit the restaurants in a place called "The Village" in my campus. For your information, it is a place where the banks on the campus, a Staples stationery shop, a liquor store, some privately owned restaurants, cafes, and a discounted textbook shop, etc. are located. I went to a stall named Yi Kou Xiang to taste their 杂饭. I got three dishes with 5 bucks. The food was very good, much to my surprise. I knew they have good food in the village, but I didn't expect it to be this good. The lemon chicken I had tasted like ku lo yuk, but the meat is very tender. I think this is the food with the best quality:price ratio I've tried. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who comes to my campus.
My plate of rice
On Thursday, I went to an Indian restaurant called Akbar's Own. It looks like any other high class restaurant, albeit with Indian theme and background. The service is very good, the waitress is very friendly. I ordered saffron rice and lamb tikki masala. The serving was smaller compared to other restaurants, but the taste is arguably the best I've ever experienced. You can basically feel the spices at work and the richness of the flavour lingers in your mouth. It comes with a hefty price tag though - $16
Saffron rice & lamb tikki masala
Today (or should I say last night), I had dinner at the Hon's Wun Tun House for the second time. The service was pretty good. I ordered 牛杂干捞面-dry noodle with beef and cow's "spare parts" - and also 粽子 (glutinous rice w/ yolk and pork). Again, I ate too much and nearly puked after I wiped out everything. The slices of cow's heart were pretty gross and the smell wasn't very enticing, but pretty much everything else was ok. The glutinous rice was excellent, I haven't had this since I came to Vancouver. Everything for $11. Great value. Great success.
Dry noodles
Conclusions: Vancouver is a place of great food from a wide variety of cultures - Japanese, Greek, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, and so much more. But everything's pretty expensive. If you ask me, I'd say, do away with all those ambience and atmosphere stuff and gimme cheaper prices! To me, they don't really matter: 1. You can't eat them. 2. They don't improve the taste of the food. 3. I usually forget about them after 5-10 minutes. I want the taste only, I don't even care much about the hygience as long as I don't see cockroach in my food or shit in the cook's ring. I'll have to cut down on my food tasting trips as it just cost too much. Vancouver = expensive (well, for the most part).
[Exeunt]
Thanksgiving (Canadian version) 0 lalalas
Today is Thanksgiving day for Canadians, just so you know (not for Americans though, they have it somewhere in November). We (my JPA seniors, Zul, and I) were invited by a Malaysian (and fellow JPA scholar too), Kak Ayu for a thanksgiving dinner. She lives somewhere on campus too, but it's about 25 minutes away from my residence.
We had a great time there. There were good food - stuffed turkey, baked veggies, mashed potato, and later, chocolate cakes, cookies. Like a beggar who has been starving for years, I kept stuffing food into my mouth all the time. The turkey was so good. We didn't really finish the turkey, but we just left it on the table. So while we were chatting, we just couldn't resist the turkey temptation (alliteration) and carved out slices of turkey and kept eating and eating. I had more food tonight than the food I usually have for whole day. Guess I'll be putting on some significant weight.
Her husband (I forgot his name) is a friendly man and he plays good guitar. He can play piano by sight too. He even composes his own songs, and they were not bad. He's a fan of anime, just like I was back in the good old days (when girls were girls and boys were boys). He and his wife just started in Vancouver, like me. His wife, Kak Ayu is currently pursuing PhD in some kind of commerce course, while he's hunting for a job. They have 2 cute kids. And I also met a Malaysian whom I met during Gala, I still remember his email is nasirlemak. He spent a considerable time growing up in U.S. That's explains his un-Malayish accent.
It's a good Thanksgiving. I certainly look forward to a better one next year.
Cheers. (Looking at the weighing scale, "Oh no!")
The celebration of mid-autumn festival in Vancouver 0 lalalas
After all my crappy classes for Friday finished, I went to the Chinatown to buy a mooncake. By the time I got there, most of the shops were closed. And I wandered around trying to find a mooncake. I saw a lot of poor and weird people, and they look so weird that I felt like I was going to be robbed any time. I realized that the poor is with us everywhere, even in one of the best cities to live in the world. People were sleeping at the street; people scavenging the garbage bags; people begging for money (I made the mistake of giving some money to a guy, and he wanted more; he looks scary and desperate so I ran away); people who smells like garbage; people who ate sandwiches from a truck offering free food for the needy (I nearly took one for myself, but my honour stayed my hand); people dressed up as if he's doing witchcraft, etc.
Finally I found a bakery and bought a green tea mooncake with yolk for CAD$7.70 (more than RM23). I was so hungry by then that I finished it even before I reached UBC (My initial plan was to eat it with beer).
When I reached UBC, I went to a feast, called OktoberfEUSt, an EUS (Engineering Undergrads Society) version of Oktoberfest. There were beer, food, German music, and drunk people. I got to know new people in my year or in higher years. I'm not ashamed to tell you that about 6 cans of beer got me drunk. I managed to walk back home, though. The next day I woke up with nausea and headache.
And that's how I celebrated mid-autumn festival a.k.a. mooncake festival. Sucks? Yeah. I wonder if it's just me, but the Chinese students (at least among my friends) don't see the festival as a big deal. Well, I hope I have a proper celebration next year (Sept 25, 2007) (Source: Wikipedia).
p/s: There's this weird guy sitting beside me playing around with his dentures. He's sort of pushing them out with his tongue then biting it or whatever. Whatever it is, it's damn gross.
Some remarks on Vancouver/UBC 0 lalalas
Here's something slightly more interesting than the previous report-like post:
- I heard from somewhere or someone that 60+% of the Canadians are overweight, but ... I don't see that often on campus. But they do eat a lot: 4 slices of pizza is just like a regular meal size to some guys, considering the size of one slice here is about 20-30% larger than that in M'sia. Yeah, I ate 4 of them at noon, but hey hey, I only had dinner just now, like 11 hours after lunch.
- They love alcohol!
- They got LOTS of Starbucks. I've already came across 4 of them in my campus.
- A lot of them wear sunglasses. I think it's kind of cool, and people can't see your eyes, which is handy when you got your eye's fixed on some chicks.
- They got too much events going on. I've got to make a lot of choices, and it's tiring chasing after the activities.
- I don't know how to approach the Chinese! Some of them are from Vancouver/Canada and they got accents. Those from China/HK, I feel like, you know, like how a half-elf is a human to the elves, but the humans see them as an elf. Yeah, so I feel a bit trapped like the half-elf.
- A lot of those Asian-like people (esp. Chinese) speaks in accents. About 90% of the people I meet here speaks in accents. Darn, I feel weird!
- The gay people here have more rights than women do back in Malaysia.
- In larger shopping establishments, you need to pay for the plastic bags if you want to put your purchased goods into them. A pretty good way to conserve resources if you ask me.
- People here are rich!
- You don't have to wait for 15 minutes for a train.
- Drivers don't accelerate past the zebra crossing.
- I don't know, there seems to be more hAwt chicks here than in Malaysia.
- It's not always cold here, just now the sunbeam was scorching.
- You have to walk a lot here. I think I walked more than 20 kilometres during my orientation just now.
- People actually recycle here. The recycle bins are not just for show!
- Calling back to Malaysia costs a fortune with Ring Ring card: it's more than RM1 per damn minute!
- There's a nudist beach VERY near to my campus; I gotta check it out as soon as possible.
- I have less than 5 dollars in my wallet.
- I am so very extremely unbelievably extraordinarily tired. I seriously need some serious rest, which is not very possible considering the amount of things I have to get done, like writing this post
Signing off -
Chaos 0 lalalas
Well, I've been head over heels trying to settle down. I still haven't got my blanket, mug, cutleries, water cooker, hangers and stuff. The orientation has too many interesting things that I hardly have time for other things. And I have a LOT of stuff on my list of "Things to Do", like getting my textbooks, applying for the health insurance, settling my meal plan problems, settling my award problems, getting a cellphone., getting a laptop, .. the list goes on.
Everything's so damn messy, and I feel like there's no time to finish anything. I just want to get things done as soon as possible, but for now it's impossible. Life's been topsy-turvy here, I bathe like once a day, brush my teeth like only in the morning, seldom get enough sleep. I'm still floating on a turbulent sea. Damn it, I need money to settle my fees.
Damn it!
By the way, orientation wasn't as interesting as I expected; perhaps it's because I can't participate in the more exhilarating activities; or perhaps my friend wasn't as eager as I am about this orientation; or perhaps I don't really have any friends (besides that guy and my senior) to spend my time with.
Last night, I went to Aunt Linda's house in I-forgot-where-it-is with my friend and my senior. I got to know some Malaysian and some Bruneians who have become Canadian citizens. It's pretty weird seeing Malays and Chinese like those you usually see in Malaysia speaking in accents here. But everyone was friendly and hospitable. It's was pretty pleasant, and the food was excellent too. We had nasi biryiani, ayam masak merah, beef rendang, fried noodles, and black glutinous rice porridge - the cream of the Malaysian cuisine.
p/s: Someone please pick up the phone, I'm dying of lethargy here!!
Bye Malaysia (for now) 0 lalalas
29th of August, 11.50 p.m., I boarded the airplane to Frankfurt, Germany from which I'll take another flight to Vancouver, Canada. A kind friend of my mother drove my family and I to KLIA (Thanks auntie, although you were a bit late). So touchingly, the Si Da Cai Zi (Cai as in Fei Cai) - CK, CS, YS, and Ah Hey - came to bid me farewell. They even gave me a pink T-shirt as a parting gift (Thanks, cowboys)! After inciting vows to continue to be faithful to each other (as well as to keep in touch) and a ceremonial (as opposed to useful) briefing and lengthy photo-taking sessions and a heart-wrenching and tear-inducing farewell, we marched off towards the check-in counter.
After an hour or so of waiting and some procedures,we boarded MAS' MH0006. In addition to that, my nailclipper passed the screening ('cause it doesn't have a blade) and so did my dvd which contained the pirated version of the excellent unwatched movie of the Shawshank Redemption. I did it, Ben! The flight was mostly pleasant, I'd say. The air-hostesses wore close-fitting attires, the food was excellent and the alcohol was.... intoxicating. We get to choose what we want to watch from tens of channels on a small screen located on the back of the seat in front. I tried out the vacuum-sucked toilet hole and it was pretty cool. What else? There was a hot French chick sitting a seat and an aisle away from me. The space between the seats were a bit narrow and it's bloddy cold in the plane. My only serious regret was that my friends get to enjoy the golden club member seats while I and another guy that's going to UBC enjoy the economy seats. To my bewilderment, despite the difference, our tickets cost about the same.
While I repeated the routine of watching movie and sleeping, we reached Frankfurt airport, which looked like an industrial area. The Germans looked pretty much like those I've seen in games (Gothic series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein). Good job, game developers. And they have a sort of counter for smokers with the ever effective warning of "Smoking kills". After queueing for an hour or so to get my boarding pass, there wasn't much to do. I saw some people quarreling over cutting queues (which involved the chick I mentioned above). Then I went around to look at the shops, the bar, the McD. The first cultural shock hit me: there were magazines which features topless girlies on their front page. CC, stop drooling, will ya? The newspaper's price was exorbitant: I saw one at 1.5 Euros, which is more than 5 times the price of The Star in Malaysia, not to mention the thinner content. The other items were also very un-affordable, and I lost my interest in buying anything.
Finally my friend and I (both UBC student) get to board the Lufthansa's plane to Vancouver, AC9101. Checking in was a bit troublesome. I have to show my passport, offer letter, financial affidavit,and traveller's cheques and answer a few questions. For a moment, I thought there's going to be a problem as the officer looked very hard at my affidavit.I worried too much.
On board of the Luthansa plane, I automatically compared it to MAS, in which MAS prevailed. First, MAS's seat was slightly more spacious. And the hand luggage space was also larger. The largest gap, though, was the on-board entertainment. While on MAS you can watch all you can (hmm, this reminds me of Street Fighter) and want, you have to watch what they let you watch on Lufthansa, and there're only 2 movies to watch, not to mention that the TVs were shared instead of 1-per-person on MAS. However, Lufthansa wasn't that bad. They have a wider choice of alcohol: the Bailey's - a mixture of something sweet (maybe caramel) and alcohol was my favourite. Lufthansa has more toilets (although the vacuum failed to suck out the (yucks!) toilet papers. Another advantage of Lufthansa is that their passengers consists of more (foreign) beauties than that of MAS. In addition to that, I saw with my own eyes and spectacles the wonderful scenery of Greenland on route to Vancouver, a breathtaking sight if you ask me.
After 10 hours, we reached the beautiful airport of Vancouver. Both flights were enjoyable and fresh to me, although I myself wasn't fresh (despite my being a freshman) because of the long flight hours and the lack of sleep. After going through the immigration, we collected all our stuff and documents, and jumped into the welcoming arms of my senior, Mat Shafiq, who, being not warned about the delay of our flight and the short stint with the immigration, waited for us an hour earlier than our arrival. Happily, we took a taxi to UBC, my new home. Vancouver is a really beautiful city, something we hardly find in Malaysia, whose cities are constantly marred by the heavy traffic and air polution and inefficient public transport and busy people who are always chasing after Time. The air was very cool, which I compared to the old Genting Highland when boys were boys and girls were girls.
My senior helped me to move in my new residence in Cariboo House, Place Vanier. Fortunately, I live on the 4th floor and there's no elevators, which is a boon to my health and fitness. The campus is very beautiful; it would take me months to take the photographs of the gorgeous scenery. The people there are helpful: A guy who didn't know me greeted me, "How's it going? Are you looking for something?" and he showed me the way to the International House, where I got some materials for my international student orientation, known as Gala, tomorrow. Drivers patiently stopped when I was about to walk through the zebra crossing. At the moment, I don't feel very comfortable with the people's (what I call) over-friendliness; I'm much more used to passivity, as I think most Malaysians do. It's going to be tiring greeting and offering to help anyone you meet and don't really care about, isn't it? Somehow I think of myself as being inferior to them, both in nativity and height. Ah, worrisome brain.
Tomorrow will be better! (I hope). Sorry mom, you asked me to be disciplined and sleep early, yet I failed you on my first day here.
p/s: I'll update the photos later, ya?
