Big Bad Wolf Book Sale 2013

I told my boss that I will take leave on 6th December 2013 to go to a book fair, he's OK with it. Hahaha, this will be the 2nd time I take leave to go to this "Big Bad Wolf Book Sale". 

I first went to this book sale on 2009 after reading about it on the newspaper, when I reached Amcorp Mall, the queue was so long, I think I waited for 2 hours to go inside, imagine that, Malaysians queuing up to buy books. When I saw the price, it's so cheap! So, I bought more than ten books home, so satisfying ♥! Actually I brought along a recycle bag, when I saw what I wanted, I just put the book inside the bag until I felt it's quite heavy. I took public transport then, I had to lug the books from the LRT station and walked quite a distance to a bus station, I had to change the bus twice too. I felt like I almost fainted on the roadside. Anyway, I had a very good impression on the book sales already. Among all the books, I like 'the Big Oyster' and 'and a Bottle of Rum' the most. That is not the kind of books I would buy if it wasn't for the price. Thanks to "Big Bad Wolf"! 

Then, on 2010, me and a colleague (a fellow books lover) decided to go on the opening date to feel the atmosphere. It's on Friday, so both of us took half day leave to be there. The space was definitely bigger than the first book sales I went on 2009. However, the crowd was huge! That time around, my colleague drove me there, so I bought more books! We were like fan girls, posing with the big bad wolf cutout. After satisfying ourselves, we queued to pay. I chatted with fellow book lovers when queuing up, all of us were so happy! One of them actually bought five boxes of books, I was so surprised when she gave a card to the staff and they lugged out five boxes from the storage area for her. Wow, that's a little too much!

My First Foray Into Gardening

May 2011

I reached Japan on March 2011 for a work attachment in Japan for two years duration. Away from home, suddenly I found myself have nothing to do on weekends. So, I planned to develop a new hobby which was gardening!

I didn't fancy flower because it's just for decorating purposes, I planned to plant something edible. After reading from many gardening forums, I decided to plant tomatoes because a lot of people claimed that it's a very easy plant, very suitable for newbies.

After deciding on that, I went to Daiso (there's a Daiso in the Kumamoto Station) after work and bought a plastic pot, pot tray, trowel, a bag of soil and a plant support. Sometimes, this 100 yen shop is like a convenient shop, we can buy almost everything in Daiso or Seria. Then, on a fine Saturday morning,  I cycled to a gardening supermarket to buy tomato seedlings. The supermarket was quite awesome, there were so many seedlings, seeds, gardening tools, soils, flowers, decoration stuffs for garden, etc. There're many kinds of tomato seedlings, finally I settled for a cherry tomatoes and momotaro tomatoes (桃太郎トマト). I bought only 1 pot, so I took a plastic container and punch holes under it and turned it into a pot.

Beppu Jigoku and Beppu Christmas HANABI Fantasia

23rd November 2012

After leaving Showanomachi, me and my friends (SK, Ari and CY) continued our journey to Beppu 別府, a famous place for onsen in Japan. However, except for SK, three of us didn't go into the water, we busied ourselves visiting the Jigoku 地獄 (Hells!!!). Actually, when I first heard about this jigoku, I thought people actually dip into the water, it's spring water, right? Then, SK was like "what!?, nobody in their right mind will go into the pool" Hahaha.

We had lunch in a restaurant near the Beppu Station, the restaurant is famous for the Toritendon 鳥天丼. Well, it's actually fried chicken rice, but it's very delicious. One thing I love about fried chicken in Japan is there's no bones, just the easy to eat part! Whenever I eat chicken dish with bones, I will leave a mess behind, very ugly and messy. Just one thing not nice about fried chicken in Japan, they do not provide chili sauce! As a typical Malaysian, I like to add chili sauce or belacan to my food. (*Japan is very famous for the Karaage 唐揚げ, fried chicken, very juicy inside, much more better than KFC!)

Beppu famous dish - Toritendon 鳥天丼

Showanomachi 昭和の町

23rd December 2012

A colleague told me about a place where many stuffs from Showa Era (昭和時代) is exhibited, well I am not a history buff, so I didn't feel like going. Then, me and my friends (SK, Ari and CY) wanted to go to the Beppu Winter Hanabi, however, it's at night and we would have the whole day free. So, after much discussions, we decided to stop by at Showanomachi 昭和の町 to kill time.

We reached Showanomachi quite early, the parking lot was still very empty. Wow, we were early birdies. We bought ticket to enter the place, one ticket costs 600 yen, not so cheap, but not so expensive too. Well, as the name suggested, this area is full of stuffs, memorabilias from the Showa Era. Some are really alien to us, some still existed in our childhood. Hahaha, good things last forever, or at least a very long time.

One of the examples is the Ultraman ♥! In a toys corner, there are many figurines, the most recognizable one is Ultraman and the monsters. I grew up watching all these Ultraman shows! Looking back now, the story is quite silly, since Ultraman can only be on the form for 5 minutes (not sure about the duration though), after fighting for a while, the "heart" starts to blink, means that Ultraman have to finish off the monster as soon as possible, somehow Ultraman always make it! LOL! Just knew that Ultraman is still going strong, a neighbour kid is following the series now. Wow!

Miniature Ultraman 

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

After reading a successive of romance novels, I needed a break, so I read a crime novel for a change. I have never heard of this author before, I bought this book for the cover, I feel it's money well spent after reading this book, hahaha!

The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

Telenovelas, Soap Opera, Series, Serials Or Just Plain Drama

Compared to movies, I like dramas more. I grew up watching all kinds of dramas. Be it romance, doctor, police, crimes, lawyers, family, comedy, etc. 

When I was in primary school, well, my home didn't have the vcr, so what I watched was what the TV stations provided. There was three free TV stations back then, TV1, TV2 and TV3. I would watch the Hong Kong TVB dramas and sometimes, some Malay dramas. I still remember Opah. Hahaha, there wasn't much choices then. (My mother likes to watch Malay drama though, she said that compared to others, Malay drama is calmer, not so violent and more family oriented, she is getting sick of the Hong Kong dramas, people framing each other, siblings rivalry......)

Then, I remember I started to follow The X-Files and ER on TV2. The X-Files started my fascination with Sci-Fi dramas. Oh, another series that I love so much is Star Trek. Personally, I think Star Trek is much better than Star Wars, in terms of story lines. Then, there were many re-runs of old dramas, like The A-Teams, MacGyver, AirWolf, Knight Rider (hahaha, the talking car) and many more. When I was not studying, I would stare at the TV screen to watch all these dramas. Well, other than American dramas, Hong Kong dramas were huge during that time, other than that, Singaporean dramas were starting to show up on the free TV.