A castle of our own :)

Read a facebook status from a dear friend this morning..

"If Allah brings you to it, He will bring you through it".

I have faith. I know He will.

As of 9.30pm yesterday night, we finally have a castle of our own. Alhamdulillah.

Pic is taken from here.

Now I can happily crossed 5 out of 6 things from my to-do-list 2010.

"If Allah brings you to it, He will bring you through it".

Ya Allah, I know you will bring us through this. Permudahkan. Ameen.

Weheartit

Love had a stressful week at work this week and the tense of buying the house made it even worse.

So as I browse through weheartit yesterday, I found this..


And decided to surprise him with this drawing yesterday..


Hope you have a nice day, Love. Cuz we're about to have a home of our own. :)

National Art Gallery

Sebab dah kahwin, tak mature la kan kalau still pegi tempat2 mcm dulu. So we thought of being a grown up and throw a visit at the National Art Gallery last Sunday.

Okay, I lied.

Actually we HAD to go to National Art Gallery cuz I had to work last Sunday. Pfftt.. But it's ok, I have off in lieu.

I was participating in an exhibition called Innofest, which unfortunately nobody cares about our invention cuz they (including me and boss ;p) were too excited for the magic show! lol!

But actually, I'm quite glad that I went to the National Art Gallery cuz I never knew it was an exciting place to visit. For an instance, this is the entrance, nice ryte?

And look at this piece of art, made of some copper wires called 'The Couple'..



Love fell in love with this drawing from Farid Raihan called 'City Trap: Bomber still linger over my head' cuz apparently it's one of the drawing that he can get the meaning straight away. ;p


He also like this P. Ramlee stuff..


But, I prefer Latiff..


Anyway, I must show you my fav!


Allahu Akbar. Cantik kan?
The time that we went, National library had some renovation going on, so we did not manage to visit some of the auditoriums. Look at the construction symbol, pon sgt cantik.

And the toilet signage..


I want to go there again..

Rumah lelong

Went to property auction last Saturday to bid for a house, price is RM139k. And it went up all the way to RM178k. Can you beleive it??? This is not the price of rumah lelong.

So anyway, today I would love to share the procedure of buying a rumah lelong.

1. Check the house and TNC. The taxes and maintainance fees usually will be covered by the bank. You cover only the utilities bill (kalau ada tunggakan)
2. If you are interested, register your name, us we registered to the agent.
3. Then, do a banker's check (5% or 10% from the price of the house before bidding)
4. Bidding day, register and leave your check and IC at the couter.
5. During bidding, stick to ur max budget. Minimum bidding usually every RM1k or RM2k.
6. If you win, you'll be given 120 days to get a loan.
7. Else, take back you banker's check and IC at the counter.

So I lost the bidding.. Maria said, "Maybe rumah tu berhantu". So funny! But, I know it's not the best thing for me because...

I found a better house near the rumah lelong at a better price and it's not rumah lelong!! :)

Moral of the story, please survey the price of the house before you set your maximum target during the bidding. The bidder who bids the house for RM178k surely did not do his homework cuz the value of the house is way lower than that!

Don't do the same mistake!!

Korea korea

One thing I love about Korean and Japanese is their passion towards their own country.

When I was a Liaison Officer for the Japanese swimming team during FESPIC, I saw that they would go to every Japanese shopping malls (Isetan), hotels (Nikko) and restaurants. Also they love Malaysia so much, that they make sure the stuff they bought are from Malaysia.

Once we went shopping for groceries, I took a pack of tea brand 'Lip**n'. And one of them asked me, "Why you used Lip**n? Boh is from Malaysia, ryte?" And I started to be a faithful fan of Boh ever since.

Also, my mum-in-law is Korean who stayed in Malaysia for at least 3 decades now. Still, everything in the house is Korea brand. The washing machine, the TV, the rice cooker. Even the writing at the electrical appliances is in Korea (I wonder where she got it) that it made me hard to even cook the rice. I would go like, "Which one is the On button, Sayang" and he would go like, "Ha! That's why you have to learn Korean."

Last Saturday, I had another exciting experience. In the evening, Love asked, "Jom Sayang pegi tgk bola dgn orang Korea, nak?" I didn't know what he meant by that, but he had this kind of exciting tone which made you say, "Nak!" with the same exciting tone in a reflex manner.

So, we went to Ampang Avenue, where we saw some policemen blocked the road, and a big screen with Korean song at the background an all these mata sepet people all around. I almost said to Love, "Where are we?"




Siap dengan a Korean guy wearing hanbok playing his gendang lagiii!!


Oh my!! The players should see this! And when they scored, you should be there to witness the excitement.

I wonder if I could ever be this passionate for my country. Don't get me wrong, I love Malaysia so much you'd be surprised. But, this is different.
Well, at least for a start, I've been using Petronas and drinking Boh and eating Big Apple. Hmm..

Gaucho Grill

As I mentioned previously, when you got married a lot of people wanted to buy you lunch or dinner, right? So, I discovered a new makan/lepak place called Gaucho Grill in Chulan Square.

The price range is more or less the same as Chilli's. But the best part is that during weekdays, they had this promotion where you pay RM 28 for your lunch set and you'll get free buffet of vegetables. Not so excited, I'm not a big fan of vegies btw, but the asparagus is really really yummy!!

Anyways, I went there with Love and his parents. Hadn't really try variety of foods there as Love and his parents had beef steak and I tried the lamb chop. But, I discovered soemthing very interesting that day..

See, mum-in-law had her steak medium rare, dad-in-law had his steak medium and Love's steak was medium well. I didn't know that it made a whole lot difference on the taste of the steak depending on how you cooked it. Medium rare is a lot more tender, but I just couldn't stand the blood. So, my fav is still well done.

I googled on some Degree of cooking in wikipedia, I think it's fun to share this with you:

Raw - Uncooked.
Seared, Blue rare or very rare - Cooked very quickly; the outside is seared, but the inside is usually cool and barely cooked. The steak will be red on the inside and barely warmed.
Rare - The outside is gray-brown, and the middle of the steak is red and slightly warm.
Medium rare - The steak will have a fully red, warm center.
Medium - The middle of the steak is hot and red with pink surrounding the center. The outside is gray-brown.
Medium well done - The meat is light pink surrounding the center.
Well done - The meat is gray-brown throughout and slightly charred.
Overcook - The meat is dark throughout and slightly bitter.

Anyway, this is the latest picture of Love and me..


Please tell me the specs make me look rounder.

Things to expect after you get married ;p

As a newly wed, I feel that I hold the responsibility to tease you with what you should expect after you get married..

1. People thought that straight away after you got married, you will feel a whole lot different with your partner. I thought so too. But, actually it feels more or less the same for a while. Because you really can't measure love rite? So only after a while that you discover, it's a whole new feeling after all.
2. They say, wedding is a whole new start of a relationship? They are right. It starts all over again. The "get-to-know-each-other" part, because you finally live in the same room and you see him every waking hour. The flirting moment. The "i-miss-you" part when he's 5 minutes gone. Duh! So cheesy!! I can't beleive myself either seriously!
3. The tense of adjusting to each other. I mean, men are less tidy than women after all.
4. The overloaded room, if you're staying with your parents. Buy a new wardrobe! You won't have enough space for his clothes.
5. The waking up in the morning to cook for him.
6. Googling for recipes and an hour conversation with your best friend on what to cook. Man, i sound so boring!
7. Using your time more wisely. Usually on weekends, if both of us have nothing to do and we just met each other the day before, I would end up having a nice rest all by myself the whole day. But now, I would call my gf and just have a nice girlish moment.
8. This is the worst part. You would eat like mad!! It's like everyone was so excited for you that you go anywhere people want to buy you lunch or dinner. (Thanks lovers, for making me.. urm.. rounder)
9. Memorized his family member and start doing your family tree to explain to him. Haha.
10. Everytime you eat a lot, people start asking you, "Gosh, are you pregnant?". Or when you're dizzy. Or when you drink a lot and go to the toilet more often. Or when you look at a baby and give a normal gesture like, "OMG so cute!!!". Kesimpulannya, no matter what you do, people will ask, "Are you pregnant?" My solution is that, everytime I met my relatives I would start with, "Owh no. Not yet. But insya Allah soon, I'll get pregnant ok. So hye Aunty!" Before they even asked, and they always laughed at that. So, heee.. :D