Squad complete!

Guess what? I caught a Charizard!

Although I didn't really "catch" it. It was another gift, again from the friend who helped me get my Venusaur. By this time I had figured out that the Venusaur had probably come from a claw machine (people who play those for fun don't really want the stuff they catch), and he confirmed that this Charizard did come from a claw machine.

I did the obligatory photo-shoot as usual, but I'm not posting the rest of the photos because firstly, they don't look very good (the Charizard can't stand up on its own very well, so most of the shots have it balanced precariously or awkwardly), and secondly, there is not much to see! The major parts are on the front, and the fiery tail tip.

Anyway here's a photo of my Pokemon squad!

With six Pokemon, I guess I can go to the Pokemon League now! :P

Even the types are pretty balanced: water, grass, fire, electric, normal, flying/dragon. The basic types are all there! (Though for some reason I kept thinking that Dragonite was a psychic type, and was gonna say that I had a normal and a psychic Pokemon...but then I checked online and turns out it isn't. Hmm...I guess it just knows Psychic moves...)

Surrounded...and a Circle

I just watched You're All Surrounded. It was quite entertaining... and some parts of the plot was actually quite good. But they didn't handle the details very well. I am very disappointed over some loose ends!

If you plan to watch it, you might want to skip reading this, because spoilers are coming up!

The story is about a boy who changed his identity after his mother was killed, and grows up to become a policeman to catch his mother's murderer. Loose end no. 1: He gets a sponsor at the orphanage that he ran to, and the sponsor turns out to be a policewoman who had helped his mother's killer in the past. Did the policewoman know who she was sponsoring? She told another person that she didn't, and it was a coincidence. But we do not know whether she was lying... When the main character (the boy) found out that his sponsor was with the bad guys, he asked her "Why did you sponsor me?", but he did not ask the most important question (in my opinion): "Did you know it was me you were sponsoring?" Because, if it was not a coincidence, another question needs to be asked: "How did you find me?"

When the boy was running away, they show him going to a number of orphanages, faking amnesia, where every one asked him to report to the police first, in case his family was looking for him. He had heard the murderer say that they had an inside person in the police, so he left each of those orphanages. In the end he stayed at one which did not ask him to go to the police, which to me, basically means that the orphanage director is an awful person. (not allowing his parents to find him! But I guess that's needed in the plot :P ) So I was expecting the orphanage director to have been briefed by the to-be sponsor, to accept the child, or something like that...meaning that the sponsor saved the boy somehow. But no, nothing like that happened! (maybe I should go help them write their story :P )

Loose end no. 2: His mother turned out to be killed by another woman (rich woman) who suspected that his mother had given birth to her (rich woman's) husband's child (the boy's mother was a single mother). We even get to see a flashback of how the rich woman got angry after seeing her husband talking to the boy's mother (his old flame), and rich woman told off the boy's mother, saying "I told you never to meet him again", to which the boy's mother responded that she didn't intentionally bump into the husband. So it would seem that the rich woman had paid off or threatened off the boy's mother somehow. But...we get no more news about what had happened then. Instead, the murder turned out to have been instigated by another factor altogether.

I have a few other things that I'm not quite happy about in this drama, but I will stop here with the two major complaints. :P

Before this, I watched Circle. This is another case where the synopsis of a story doesn't do it justice. (like Pinocchio before) When I read the synopses online, I never wanted to watch the drama. It wasn't until I caught a few snippets that my mother was watching on TV, and she told me that it was quite interesting, that I decided to watch it.

For example, AsianWiki says:

Story is set in the present day and the year 2037. An alien comes to Earth. The alien believes human's emotion should be controlled or they will have no future. The alien becomes involved with humans. 

Google says:

In 2017, a student investigates mysterious incidents while aliens invade the planet; meanwhile in 2037, a detective investigates a murder in the alien-controlled "Smart Earth."

The mention of aliens just didn't cut it for me. So even though I had heard of this drama before, I was never interested in watching it.

And I didn't see this until now, but MyDramaList says:

Taking place in both the present year 2017 and in the year 2037, when people believe that their future depends on humans controlling and regulating their emotions, this drama is a sci-fi mystery. When alien visitors arrive on Earth, humans learn new skills from them and take advantage of them; what ensues is a story of alliance, resistance, and love.
Each episode will contain two shorter stories, the first part set in 2017 and called “Beta Project,” with the second set in 2037 and called “Grand New World.”

Personally, I would have written the synopsis like this:

In 2017, a series of suicides occur in a university. However, some suspect that they are actually murders. In 2037, a murder occurs in a "Smart City" where every resident is equipped with a chip to regulate their emotions and prevent crime. How are the events in 2037 related to what happened 20 years ago?

Never mind aliens...that should not be the draw here!

I felt that Circle was quite good...despite the events cutting from 2017 to 2037 (half an episode for each year). The cliffhangers were a bit annoying, because we would get a cliffhanger on 2017, then we have to watch something in 2037 instead. Then we get the cliffhanger in 2037 at the end of the episode, but the beginning of the next episode goes back to 2017. But I feel they edited the story really well...the revelations are done so that what we discover in 2017 will match what we will discover next in 2037 (or vice versa). So I do admire the final product that they came up with (unlike You're All Surrounded! :P )

I also liked the characters, and their development. We could see a number of characters having strong beliefs, which would later be overturned by events.

Western fusion food at Cottage 75

When in Meru, we went to this Western food restaurant called Cottage 75 Cafe. The chef is a Malaysian who worked in Ireland before opening his own restaurant here.

beef burger

The beef patty was soft and juicy! Unfortunately I've thrown the receipt away, so I can't remember the prices. This was maybe around RM16...the same as the chicken chop dish below.

emerald seabass

This is a very special dish, priced at RM25 I think (the most expensive that we ordered) It is grilled seabass, with a spinach velouté filled with seafood (mussels, clams, fish pieces, even a prawn). Seriously very yummy! (didn't taste the spinach though...I just remember it from the menu description because it was so uncommon)

mee rebus tulang

For this one, I think the taste was just normal. However the beef pieces were very tender! This was the cheapest dish, probably around RM10.

nasi goreng chicken chop

WW ordered this one because we saw some people eating nasi goreng and it looked nice. However the taste was just so-so. WW requested black pepper gravy for the chicken chop. It looks like they just added the gravy on top of the sambal on the chicken chop?

onion rings

This was okay... just as onion rings are supposed to be, nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't order it, but then I'm not a great fan of onion rings.

Anyway, we want to go again...mainly for the beef burger and emerald seabass!

Say hello to Captain Tetra!

Some time ago we purchased this pilot bear for our "Fun Place to Work" activities. We would put the teddy bear on someone's desk, snap a photo, and send the photo out for people to find the bear. (Unfortunately not many people are willing to make the effort to go and find the bear, but that's beside the point here :P ) We (I) called this bear Captain Tetra. It was meant to be a pun on Captain America, as in, "America has Captain America, so Tetra has Captain Tetra!" (I'm rather disappointed that no one seemed to catch on to the pun...)

Small digression: Speaking of puns, I even called the activity "Finding Captain Tetra", which is meant to be a pun on "Finding Nemo". Again, no one caught on. (though this is more far-fetched :P )

Anyway, recently someone created a "Captain CE" image for one of our colleagues (CE being the initials of the colleague). He put the initials "CE" in the middle of Captain America's shield. That made me realize that I could do the same for Captain Tetra! If you search online, you will find that Tetra logo easily.

Previously I had stuck a label onto the bear's shirt with the words "Captain Tetra" written on it with a marker pen. It couldn't stick, so I pinned it on with a safety pin. When I got the shield printed, I printed out the words "Captain Tetra" as well, and made the bear a new badge. The badge is now reinforced with cardboard :P

What's more, the shield is held by a rubber band. Which means that Captain Tetra can pick up and put down his shield any time!

I didn't spend much time perfecting this, so the result is rather crude (approximate sizes, etc) However I am still quite proud of the result, and of how simple it was to make it just presentable.

Something very dear to me

I heard this at the beginning of a YouTube video:

J'ai perdu quelque chose de très cher à ma vie - ma jeunesse. -Natoo

Translation:
I lost something very dear to me - my youth.

The video isn't that great, some parts are funny, but some of the jokes are not that good (to me). But I really liked that opening phrase. :D

Doctor John

I just watched Doctor John, which was recommended as one of the best dramas of 2019 in an article. (that's probably just the author's ranking?) Anyway Ji Sung is the lead character! (I previously wrote about his role in Kill Me, Heal Me)

After watching it, I can see why it was recommended...but I can't really say that I like it very very much.

The backstory is about euthanasia. Jodi Picoult's Lone Wolf touched on a similar topic too. The topic is well done in this drama, which is I think its strongest point. The discussions of what a doctor's role is, what terminally-ill patients want, and so on are very powerful.

The characters in the medical team are very well fleshed out, which is another strong point.

But there is something I really don't like, which is how there are some glaring inconsistencies in the personality on the main character. (and also the lead female character was too emotional and weepy. But she was consistent...I just didn't like her :P ) 

(and from here onwards there might be some spoilers...)

The main character has CIPA, which is chronic insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. Basically it means that he can't feel pain and is insensitive to temperature change. And so, he doesn't sweat.

CIPA patients generally die young because of their inability to know when they are sick or injured. I had read about this condition before, in Lisa Gardner's Fear Nothing. (It's better than this drama, in my opinion :P ) In the drama, the lead character monitors his health every day just to ensure that nothing is wrong with his body. But, a very inconsistent fact is that he does not worry about cuts or broken bones when he falls down.

At one point, he experiences dizzy spells and keeps falling down, hitting his head, and so on. But he always insists that he is fine, without checking anything. He can't feel pain, so how can he be so sure that he's fine just because he can get up? (In Lisa Gardner's book, there is a scene where the character with CIPA gets told that she is bleeding, and she does a full inventory of her body to find the part that is bleeding. Am I biased by that?) After he gets a proper health checkup and knows that he is definitely ill and will constantly experience dizzy spells, he still does not take care of himself properly. He takes the stairs without even holding the handrail, for goodness' sake!

Another inconsistency in the drama is that they keep saying that it was so difficult for the lead character to keep himself alive till now... But his father, who suffered from the same condition, was alive till he (the main character) was eight years old (or around that). How did the father stay alive? That was something that was never questioned.

The main character is a doctor who keeps his CIPA a secret. When it is found out, lots of people say, "How can someone who can't feel pain treat other people's pain?" Of course, it is a question that you would expect from naysayers, but why did the good guys never think to retort, "You felt he was doing fine before you knew he had CIPA, right?" It's like saying you have to be a cancer patient to treat cancer (and I could come up with so many other analogies, but somehow they didn't think of it). It was the hospital lawyer who said that CIPA was not something that would prevent him from carrying out his duties, so the hospital couldn't sack him for having that condition.

At the time that his CIPA was discovered, there was a CIPA patient admitted in the hospital. With the excuse of "How can you treat patients' pain when you can't feel pain?", they stopped him from treating patients. He said okay, but he wanted to treat the CIPA patient. But I am disappointed that he (or someone else) did not use the counter-argument of "How can you treat a patient who cannot feel pain when you don't have the same condition?"

Another thing that I didn't like was the female lead's being out of character for a while (I said above that she was consistently weepy and emotional...except for this!) The male lead disappeared for a few years, and after that we saw that she had become a senior (they call it a "fellow", after "graduating" from being a "resident". I don't know those terms that well, so I'll use senior and junior here), and she was scolding the junior doctors just like how the male lead had scolded her in the past. But the thing is, the male lead's character is an arrogant one, so that rude scolding made sense. The female lead is supposed to be a very compassionate person, so how could she act that way? We could say that she changed after her love interest (aka male lead) disappeared, but after that she didn't display any more of that kind of rudeness. So I felt it was just put in to be funny. But it would have been better for her to say the same things, but in a nicer way, staying true to her character.

And, the worst part, is how the male lead drops out of contact when he falls sick (almost dying), and decides not to tell his love interest (aka female lead) about it, and then after he recovers, he still refuses to contact her, waiting until he is "fully well" and sure he's not going to die. Before that, he had told her that he would try his best not to make her worry (and she is a worrywart...weepy and emotional, remember?). But then he makes her worry for three years?! What a jerk! But of course, compassionate female lead understands very well after he explains his reasons to her, and accepts him back. Yeah, made for each other indeed!


By the way, right before this drama, I watched Partners for Justice 2 (I wrote about the first season before). That one ended with a case on Fabry's disease. And Doctor John started with a case of Fabry's disease! I guess there are a few mysterious diseases (Fabry's, CIPA, DID (that was in Kill Me, Heal Me and Partners for Justice 2)) that are good drama fodder!

However I wasn't so happy when Partners for Justice 2 revealed the DID plot twist. I would have preferred that they keep the character as one character with complicated motivations (good in some things, but willing to break the law sometimes?), instead of taking the easy way out with two separate personalities.

Anyway Partners for Justice 2 was pretty much the same kind as its first season. It was very enjoyable, though without being extremely good. I do look forward to the third season!

Just another day...

Another day in a why-do-people-speak-mandarin-to-me's life:
Someone from the residents' association came over to ask about our attendance to an upcoming event. She started the conversation in Mandarin. Fine, it's a simple conversation, I use Mandarin too. Then my father comes up and asks her something (also in Mandarin), and she replies to my father in Hokkien. -_-

Myeongdong Topokki

When we were in Ipoh, we tried Myeongdong Topokki which we cannot find in Penang.

bulgogi beef deopbap, RM18.90

We all agreed that this was the yummiest. Everyone wanted this.

fried chicken ramyun, RM18.90

This was instant noodles with fried chicken.

rabokki, RM17.90

I felt that the topokki (rice cakes) was too hard, and there were not enough pieces of fish cake.

The last two sets came with kimbap. I guess the rice sets don't come with kimbap because they already have rice!

The total bill needs to have 6% service tax added to the menu price.

Found a good Vietnamese restaurant

Good, but pricey...

My mother and I had previously noticed this Vietnamese restaurant in Gurney Plaza. It is called An Viet. When we were passing it, we saw the pictures on the menu and found that they looked good. But when we proposed it to the guys, they preferred something else.

So the other day when just the two of us were at Gurney, we decided to try it.

We didn't want a too heavy lunch, so we took a snack and a set meal to try.

grilled rice paper with minced pork, RM9.90

grilled lemongrass chicken with vermicelli, RM17.90 (RM22.90 for a set)

It looks better after being mixed up, and it tastes very good too!

The set comes with three side dishes, clockwise from bottom-left: spring roll, fried wantan, and clams in soup. The reddish sauce is to be mixed into the noodles before eating.

We liked both dishes a lot. The grilled rice paper was very crispy. But we did feel that it was very expensive! The side dishes were fairly good. The wantan were very crispy! But the clam soup didn't taste that good, and it was also not hot.

(We needed to add 10% service charge and 6% tax to the prices above)

Dragon Noodle

A friend of mine recommended a rather new noodle place at Solaria Square called Dragon Noodle.

Since my father is a fan of soup noodles, I took my parents there. They were really pleased with it.

The menu is a customizable noodle menu, where you choose your noodles and your soup, then how many ingredients you want to add on. (the veggies are not counted; they are included in every bowl of noodles)

My father took 3 ingredients: fried fish, sui kow (dumplings), and fried foo chok (beancurd skin)

I took 2 ingredients: pork slices and bursting meatballs. The colours don't look so nice because the two ingredients are of the same colour!

Besides the noodles, there are other items like stir-fry on the menu. My mother ordered a spicy stir-fry served with white rice (we could also have it stir-fried with noodles).

We chose a mild level of spiciness, but it was already spicy enough for us. The taste was very good, and the ingredients included oyster mushroom and lotus root (sliced thinly) which went very well with the cooking method. I'm not sure whether I liked this dish better or the noodles.