I joined the FriedChillies “Mum & Me @ Le Meridien” Contest on a whim, thinking I would never win seeing as my luck always strikes out when it comes to slogans and contests. So imagine my excitement when I received an email telling me that I won 2 vouchers for a dinner buffet at Latest Recipe, Le Meridien Hotel worth RM98 each. It was a wonderful prize because it means I get to do something nice for my mom and we get to spend some quality time over good food.

Latest Recipe is located on Level 5 of Le Meridien Hotel. We were seated at a table for 2 by the wall-to-wall window overlooking a great night view of the roads that criss-crosses the perimeters of KL Sentral. Latest Recipe boasts a sort of hawker-esque concept—albeit a very posh one, where you have different "stalls" for different types of cuisine e.g. Japanese, dim sum, and North Indian.

The first thing we hunted down were fresh oysters. We took 4 each with a side of abalones, crabs, and prawns, topped with Tabasco sauce and lemon. They're definitely fresh because if they weren't, mom would've started itching. Next was a plate of salmon, tuna, and octopus sashimi and a mixed plate of chicken and beef teppanyaki sans the rice. The sashimi was also very fresh, sliced right in front of you, and the teppanyaki meat combo was my favorite with its tender meat and perfect sauce. Ask for extra sauce when you order the chicken teppanyaki because you'll be tempted to dip everything into the creamy brown slush.

I was looking forward to the dim sum but it fell short with its limited selection and the absence of chicken siew mai. The ones I picked were rather tasty but overall, they didn't leave much of an impression. I only had space for desserts so I headed straight for the chocolate fountain, where you can coat your grapes, marshmallows, and cakes with smooth milk chocolate. I wished there were more choices of fruits like strawberries, melons, and bananas that night. I took a little of everything from the dessert table but none of them were memorable—not even the chocolate pudding. It was only when we left that I remembered their talked-about teppanyaki ice cream! Bummer.

We ordered plain fruit juices, which ridiculously cost RM19 each, and paid RM10 for parking. All in all, I spent roughly RM50 for an experience that's worth so much more. But most importantly, mom had a good time and that's all that matters. But would I go again? Probably only when I'm earning a much larger paycheck so thank you FriedChillies!

( More photos. )

It's incredibly tempting to say "I'm back!" but the truth is, I've been back in town since very late Saturday night. I've mostly been busy doing laundry, running errands, attempting to work, and trying to get over my holiday mood, which hasn't been very successful, by the way.

The island getaway was beyond awesome but more on that in a proper entry—with lots of photos, hopefully—soon-ish.

My bags are packed, my finger and toenails are painted deep fuchsia (I've yet to deduce the relevance of nail polish and the beach), and I've already checked everyone in for tomorrow morning's early flight via AirAsia's web check-in service. We have to wake up at 3am to catch the flight but you know what they say: pain for pleasure, baby.

See you guys on Sunday!

So Urbanscapes 2009 last Saturday was loads of fun. To be completely honest, I was initially somewhat dreading it due to personal reasons but once Suff and his little sister picked me up in the afternoon, all feelings of dread dematerialized, leaving in its wake a refreshed sense of excitement.

We got some KFC first before grueling it out in the sun. I went to last year's Urbanscapes, which wasn't all that great, so I anticipated the heat and made it a point to dress as lightly as possible with a hand fan in tow. It was scorching hot when we arrived at approximately 3.30pm but it quickly became cloudy and incredibly humid, which wasn't that big of an improvement judging by the amount of sweat trickling down our foreheads.

One of the highlights has got to be bumping into people I know. Lynn and her boyfriend joined us later in the afternoon and I also met Zek, Oliver, Lesly, _amuseme, TJ, Rusyan and his new girlfriend, Keith and a bunch of Suff's other friends, sharonisme, Ena, Adli, Perry, Wan, Mooky, Ayesha and my cousin Andy.

I wouldn't quite call it an escape, seeing as the whole of Kuala Lumpur was there, but the buzz, the colors, the art, the music, and the shopping made pretty good components of a Saturday. And astonishingly, I only left with a t-shirt Evan asked me to buy for him from Stoodle. Everyone's welcome to pat me on the back now.

Three days with no updates isn't looking very good, considering I've been blogging—almost—every day this month. I was down with a viral fever on Tuesday and took a day off from work. And when I was well enough to return to work on Wednesday, let's just say the work miraculously piled up.

I, surprisingly, had a lot of free time at work last week—so much that I had to ask other people for some work because I was bored out of my skull—but on the last few days before I leave for my island holiday, I suddenly see all these projects stacked up high on my plate. Life's funny that way.

I did manage to go for dinner with ericamouse, Aimi, Elena and Aiman, all friends since primary school, on Tuesday night despite the fever. We decided to give the fusion Asian cuisine at Kafe Brisik, Jaya One a try. The food's pretty good and incredibly spicy, especially for someone who's not used to consuming spicy food like yours truly. The Kerapu Thai Sauce is highly recommended.

I'll be working throughout the weekend up til the day I leave for the island, which is on Wednesday morning, so updates might be scarce til I'm back. But I'll be at Urbanscapes tomorrow so if you're going, well, I'll see you there.

I fully intend to post an entry today but I seem to be experiencing some bouts of fever tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Here comes another rerun of the usual Sunday night laments and gripes about how the weekend elapsed so fleetingly, brought to you exclusively by pre-Monday blues and the folks who decided weekends should only fall on Saturday and Sunday—or Friday and Saturday if you're in the east coast, where I will be in 9 days!

Speaking of the east coast, this weekend was mostly spent getting our beach necessities for the trip. On Friday night, I was at David's, who is Suff's colleague, short-but-fun farewell dinner at Chili's, Bangsar Shopping Centre. Here's a tip for the fuming souls: when angry, surround yourself with much angrier—but funny—people. Once I got home, my mom called to pick her and my brother up from the hospital. It turns out that Dad's been admitted again for the 4th time in 2 months due to his very low sodium count. There have been numerous attempts at feeding him salty food and 100 Plus but the man is impossibly stubborn when he's sick.

Suff and I spent Saturday at Pavilion on a quest to find his mom's birthday present. After walking into every jewelery shop known to man—and probably burning every single calorie from our lunch at Yo! Sushi, we finally found something simple yet incredibly pretty. We rewarded our hard work and perseverance with Starbucks afterward and bought sunscreen, insect repellent, and other toiletries for the beach. And Jaymee will be pleased to know that I finally got my wristwatch battery replaced; it's no longer 7pm all the time.

I visited my dad at the hospital on Sunday morning and hung out with ericamouse in the afternoon at Hartamas Shopping Centre for another fruitful shopping mission for her bathing suit. I also snagged a pair of cheapo backup flip flops in case my Zara ones fizzle on me and face masks for traveling purposes. And of course, there was also the almost-regular Sunday dinner with Suff at Old Town, Hartamas. Elena's also back from London today but I've yet to see her.

I supposed it has been a pretty productive weekend but it still doesn't make it okay for Monday to drop its anchor so soon. But on the bright side, I'm much closer to my long-overdue holiday.

If I had to choose a favorite outfit combination from my wardrobe, it would have to be that pair of pinkish heels and that black pleated skirt. It makes me feel pretty, as opposed to just make me look a certain way. And not to mention ladylike, which we know doesn't happen a lot when the person in question is yours truly. Just ask Craig.

I think most of it evolved into hate, but this is just a single-handed, unfounded hypothesis, the kind that clouds an already cloudy night, where one spends gazing out the window, musing in the dark.

At the risk of sounding satirically cheesy, love is everywhere. You can't see it and unlike the wind, you might not even feel it, but it's there, waiting to be taken advantage of and for us to try hard enough to let it in. In fact, there's just so much love to give, to consign to the objects of your desires, to be pledged to things that matter to us. I reckon the problem might just be too much love and not enough outlets to dispense it to.

I think when all that love circulates in the air around us long enough and goes nowhere, it gradually warps into hate, bitterness and resentment. And when one's heart swells with love, it'll reach a point when it'll just erupt and thus extricates all that unused love, frittered away, a complete waste.

There's really no logic or rationale in this argument because love itself is never something that's made out of logic, reasons and proof. Therefore, anything related to love, whether they're advice, theories or even relationships, should never be set in stone because there is no stone large enough to contain the amount of love there truly is or strong enough to withstand its powers.

Love makes us do apeshit crazy things but in my opinion, that is no reason to fear it. Believe in it, let it in, and most importantly, share it before it turns into pure, unsolicited hate.

Happy 25th birthday to our Light, Sound, and Magic Engineer, Sidney! Hope you're having a blast tonight—sorry I had to leave so early.