Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Do I have a doppelganger?

Cafeteria aunty was weird today. When I passed through her counter at lunchtime, she said to me, “I saw someone who looked so much like you! Was it you?”

I laughed it off and said no, since it was the first time I was passing by the cafeteria today. But later during tea-time, she said the same thing. I thought she had forgotten that she had already told me that, so I said no again. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized she might have meant that she saw me outside of the office. Because, if she had seen someone that looked like me in the office today, she wouldn’t have had to ask whether it was me; she would have known just by seeing that we weren’t wearing the same clothes!

So now I’m wondering whether I have a doppelganger in the office, or whether she saw me somewhere outside. If she asks me again tomorrow, I will ask her where she saw "me".

Saturday, April 22, 2023

Where the name does not reflect the signature

The last time I went to Dragon Noodle (at Solaria Square) with a friend, we were sorely disappointed at the soup noodles. 

This time, I went with my family to the one at Golden Triangle 2. I wasn’t going to order the soup noodles again; instead we wanted to have the mala xiang guo and also try one of the new items on the menu (there are a lot of new dry noodle options). 

But my brother decided to get the soup noodles, and trying it, I feel that this is definitely better than the one we had at the Solaria branch. Not sure what happened…was it just a bad day for them, or has the soup at that branch simply deteriorated?


As for the mala xiang guo, it was as good as expected. (We had already had it a long time back, at the Solaria branch.) And…the unexpected star was the lemongrass chicken. Very fragrant indeed, and crispy to boot. I give it lots of thumbs-up.

The “signature” noodles that came with the lemongrass chicken though, was simply bland. I would prefer to order the lemongrass chicken on its own… (but seems like they didn’t have it à-la-carte on the menu)

Also, I'm not sure why this has become their "signature noodles". Aren't their "signature noodles" supposed to be the dragon beard noodles?

A lame lake

The photo theme for last week was lake.

Since I couldn't get a photo of a real lake (and nowadays I no longer take the initiative to go out of my way to snap these photos), I thought I would make my own.

It looks really lame though... I don't like it at all. 😅

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Automation at its best

I was pleasantly surprised the other day to see that Astro/Njoi has set up a bot for their customer service.

There is an error that happens every so often, and in the past I always needed to send their customer service a message, and then wait for someone to respond/attend to me. This time, the error message on the TV has been updated with a message asking us to WhatsApp a number and follow the instructions. 

I didn't take a photo of my TV screen when this happened, but basically the message tells us to WhatsApp the number, and also provided us with the error code and our smartcard number, both of which were requested by the customer service bot.

The instructions were simple, and the bot managed to execute the fix immediately (which I expect is something simple like resetting something on their side). Good job, Astro!

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Unlawful evacuation

I’ve been wanting to take a photo of these signboards since when the second one was first put up a few weeks ago. But I was always either in a hurry or there were too many people around.

Finally I managed to snap this photo!

To evacuate would be to break the law! 😱

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Hati-hati di jalan raya

The other day I saw this bus with not one, but two messages on its back. I don't like the one on top, but I really like the one about hati-hati ♥♥

It’s a play on words…in Malay “hati” means “heart”, and “hati-hati” can be the plural of “hati” aka “hearts”, but it also means “be careful”.

So the sentence reads, “When your heart and my heart meet on the road, then there will be two hearts there which are hearts* on the road (*in this case, be careful on the road).

Saturday, April 15, 2023

Chilly bear

This bear seems to be really afraid of catching a chill. :P

Because last week's photo theme was chill...seriously, it was so hard to think of what to take a photo of!

Thursday, April 06, 2023

Painted clay

When I was small, there was a (short-lived, I think) fad of clay-painting shops. We would pick a clay figurine, pay for it, and then paint the figurine in the shop (or should I say workshop?) The paint and utensils were all provided.

I remember that my cousin was the one who took us to such a shop the first time. After that I went to some other shop(s?) with my mother.

These are some of the figurines after being painted. 

The rabbit and the chicken are mine (the chicken can be lifted up; there are two eggs in its nest), and the dog and cat are my cousin’s (if I remember correctly, she gave it to me because she didn’t want it any more :P ). What’s for sure is, even though those were mine, I did not manage to paint them so well on my own…either my cousin or my mother helped touch up in the end, depending on who was there.

Saturday, April 01, 2023

An unlikely couple

I watched Brain Works recently. It was very entertaining indeed. :D

As a crime fiction fan, I have heard of almost all the neuro-disorders that are used in the plot, but the main enjoyment came from watching the interaction of the characters. The two main characters played by Cha Tae Hyun and Jung Yong Hwa are really the best…I hope they win some Best Couple awards :D (like Namgoong Min and Lee Junho won for Good Manager, a drama which I have mentioned before)

The crime plot ending was a bit of a letdown because the characters suddenly acted in ways that did not seem to match their character throughout the drama. I would have preferred a different kind of ending, where they would have acted more…reasonably.

But I liked the ending for the characters, and the character-interaction throughout the drama was really so enjoyable that I don’t mind the unreasonable plot points. :P

I remember hearing that Yong Hwa (of CN Blue) was not a good actor...maybe that was in the beginning and he is better now. I especially like the look of disdain that he sports constantly throughout the drama (since his character is an intelligent neuroscientist).

Plants having babies

After a long time, finally this is a Photo Friday that I could find a proper subject for!

The photo theme last week was baby.

It looks like I haven't posted about my (or more like my mother's) plants before, so here's the background story: At the end of last year, my mother got some plants from her friend. We planted those both in a pot and in the ground. (by just sticking the stalk into the ground)

On the first of January this year, they had grown a bit:


I took a bunch of photos as they were growing, but I will spare you the whole set, and only post a few. This is the difference between the photos taken on 20th January vs 16th February.

And this is how the plants looked on Thursday:


And now, if you still remember, what about the Photo Friday theme? It was baby, and here we have a baby plant growing!

There's more than just one baby plant...but of course I snapped one that I could get the best photo of.