Confessions of a City Slicker

I stole this pic from Conny’s blog.

This was during the finale of the Yallah Hafla when Conny invited everyone to come up to the dance floor for a final dance off.

I got the honor of being the first person that Nath pulled to the floor after he danced with Conny, simply because I was sitting front and center. Hey, I wanted to get a better view of the performances and since those seats weren’t occupied, a few friends and I decided to move there. It could have been anyone of us that got pulled out. I just happened to be right there.

Now I know how all those girls feel during a rock concert when the lead singer pulls someone from the crowd up to the stage.

So, was I swooning like those girls, absolutely googly eyed and drooling? Can’t contain my excitement and draped myself all over him hoping to soak up his sweat all over my clothes (ewwww)?

Ahh…of course not! I was cool, managed to match his moves, even if I can’t do better than him. Don’t know how I managed to maintain my composure.

On the inside, it was a different story. Of course I was smitten! I mean, the guy was sizzling hot and absolutely heats up the stage when he was performing.

You’re probably thinking that I can’t sleep that night. Yeah, you’re half right. I rolled around a little bit, but more with the excitement of attending his workshop the next day, but I got to sleep eventually.

Definitely the highest point of the night, for me, at least.

Finally, after a long wait, our pictures from the Yallah Hafla have arrived, although, I think they didn’t give me all of them. The picture I took with Ms B was not included and the photographers were snapping away when our performance ended. By right there should be a few shots of the end of our performance as well

I’ve uploaded the pics to FB. Haven’t got the time to add them to FS yet. Be patient…I’ll get to it when I have the time.

Meanwhile, here is a peak a all the leng luis preening before proceeding to the ballroom hehehehe……

Conny said that we are stronger in our performance this time, although it was obvious that some of us were really nervous. The entire duration of our performance was a blur to me because I was too busy reminding myself to smile. It didn’t help that Nath was at the front row looking like some film director auditioning a new cast

Looks like this is going to be our signature performance piece. We will be practicing it on and off should there be an opportunity to perform in the future.

BB Willgrant will celebrate his full moon in a few days time and his parents are busy distributing the full moon packages to friends and family.

I got my package this morning and was salivating at the prospect of having nasi kunyit with curry chicken for lunch. Oh, I can just imagine the taste of the sticky yellow rice blended with thick, creamy curry chicken and tender potatoes.

But my heart sank like a rock when I opened the box

Do you see what’s missing????

What’s that cake doing in place of nasi kunyit and curry chicken?

I’m not that familiar with the customs of full moon packages, but I think people don’t adhere to traditions that much anymore. It’s a pity considering Eaton is famous for its curry chicken

I just had to blog about this before I go to bed.

Was watching Burn Notice a while ago and there was this scene where Fi was giving Michael hints on what to get her for her birthday. She tells him about this lingerie shop where she spotted a teddy that will suit her very well.

Guess what? Our ever learned scribes, the people whose task is to translate everything on TV to BM, so our Malaysian public will be able to understand and follow what’s going on, literally translated that line to (drumroll please…)

“Dalam kedai itu ada beruang yang sesuai dengan saya.”

You can guess that I was practically rolling on the floor laughing with tears rolling down my cheeks upon reading that.

Just makes one think that our Malaysian women are so deprived because we don’t know that teddy does not refer exclusively to those adorable bears that we cuddle to sleep and drool over.

They are also cute little things that women wear, not necessarily to sleep, and have the same ability to extract a drooling effect.

And no, they are nothing close to a sarong :p

There are three rules to dancing that Nath shared during his workshop recently and these are the three rules that he stressed on all the time.

• Never put yourself in a position where you could injure yourself. This refers to how you execute the different movements. I notice a lot of newbies tend to bounce on their knees when doing hip drops and lifts. Actually, the movement should be concentrated on the hips alone. Bouncing will eventually hurt the knees. This also applies for shimmies. While it is common to find that your shimmy is stronger on one side compared to the other, you should try to make it even so that you don’t put too much strain on just one leg.

• Never do any movement that can be inappropriate. In spite of all the sexy costumes, belly dance is actually a very modest dance. Therefore, be aware of how you pose/move. Conny always stress this part in class, especially how we stand. “Kang-kang” stances are a no-no.

• Always listen to the music. This needs no explanations.

And most of all, have fun and enjoy yourself dancing.

Here’s another tidbit I picked up.

While most people will say that you should pick a leng chai in the audience to focus all your electric shock on when performing, it can be quite intimidating to that particular person, especially when your attention is focused on him all the time. It’s also not fair to the rest of the audience because they will feel a little neglected.

If you are shy about making eye contact, just look at somewhere above their heads. They will never know. Look at the exit sign if you have to because to some people, it’s comforting to know where the exits are in case the audience starts to throw rotten tomatoes at them :p

Nath uses water a lot in his explanations.

Like when talks about hip movements. The hip is just a bone. There are no muscles to move it, so we depend on other muscles surrounding it like the legs and the abs. We want to picture the hip as a container full of water and we want to rock that container so water can flow to the ground.

When it comes to being sensual on stage, imagine that it’s a big shower. Ha ha, this is fun. So every move you make is aimed at splashing water at the audience.

Water is good, it fertilizes the ground and encourages new growth.

So get ready…splish splash, I’m taking a bath

So I finally went to check out that Arabian cuisine stall I’ve been talking about.

The tau keh soh at the stall was very pleasant but she can’t speak English very well.

It was a little disappointing to see that they don’t offer a lot of varieties.  Just two choices of kebabs (beef/chicken) to be eaten with either saffron rice or naan. Well, it was just a small stall so I guess they can’t afford to offer a lot of different varieties.

No prizes for guessing which kebab I chose and since I’ve had a few types of naan before, I opted for the saffron rice.

I must say, their kebabs are different from what I have eaten before. The ones I’ve had before were always moist and some are even slathered with lots of sauce.

When my food arrived, I found that they were really dry. Maybe cooking over a charcoal fire dries up all the moisture. The kebabs were a mixture of beef and onion and they gave me a dollop of butter on top of the rice.

I forgot to ask the tau keh soh what the butter was for, so I mixed it up in the rice. It did work to give the rice a little bit of fragrance. But other than that, everything else was below expectations.

I’m planning to give the chicken kebabs and naan bread a try the next time I’m there.

I picked up something interesting from the tau keh soh. Dairy products feature very prominently in their cooking, so it is common to see yoghurt on every dinner table. But they don’t eat it together with their meal. It is only consumed after a meal to prepare the tongue for a change of taste, like from a salty main course to sweet dessert.

Hmm….interesting.

Will it work just as well after a bowl of pedas gila tom yam that leaves my tongue throbbing and lips swollen?

What is it?

It’s the new way I destress. It’s interactive and very relaxing, leaving you a warm, fuzzy, happy feeling at the end.

You don’t need much, just a very friendly cat who is willing to sit on your lap for hours. There’s something really soothing about a darling little cat purring away on my lap.

This is my current purr therapist sunning herself on a hot afternoon.

She doesn’t have a name yet, so it’s “Mee” to us and “Puss” to the security guards. I don’t know what the other neighbors call her.

She’s a feisty little one, that even the neighbor’s Maltese runs away, tail between his legs when she hisses at him. You go, girl!

Somehow, she’s developed a sixth sense where I’m concerned. She always seems to know when I come home and will be around somewhere waiting for me.

There are a lot of new stray cats around my area lately. Maybe people got wind that there are lots of soft hearted fools like us here who will take care of them because we couldn’t bear to see them suffer.

Christmas is just around the corner. Just realized it this morning when my choir mistress mentioned that we have only a few practices left.

Definitely gotta check on the turkeys with the frozen food supplier and keep my fingers crossed that the price has not gone up too much. Like Lillian says, we’re buying a dumb bird called a turkey, not a golden goose

I came to know of a beef koay teow stall near home from Lillian. Sweet! Now I don’t have to go all the way to Perak Road to have my fix.

This stall is only opened in the evenings, from 4.30 pm till quite late, I think. Lillian had hers at 11.00 pm!

Here’s my koay teow, minus the aliens, of course :p

First thing I noticed is that the smell of eau de boeuf is not that strong. The owner, a young-ish kid, told me that he puts “kin chai”, which I think is corriander, in the stock to mask the smell. Apparently a lot of people don’t care for the strong smell of beef.

You can see that there is a generous helping of ingredients in the koay teow.

Verdict: it’s a close imitation, but definitely can’t fight with the one in Perak Road or the other one owned by that sweet Vivian Chow lookalike at the junction of Chulia Street and Beach Street.

But, at RM6.00, it’s still cheaper and a bigger helping than what “Vivian” dishes out. A plus for “Vivian” is that she also has beef balls.

I love it when my #2 Aunt comes to visit. She will always bring a chocolate chip walnut cake from Berry’s Cake House. The chocolate chip will stay moist in the cake and the walnuts ever so crunchy.

Berry’s has a few branches all over KL and Selangor but none opened up this far North yet. The only other type of their cakes I have tried is their chocolate cake which definitely pales into comparison to Jenny’s moist chocolate cake.

The cake that my aunt gave us is half finished now, most of it by me…burp! They make such good savories for tea time with a nice cup of coffee.

I guess most people watch Bond movies for the action scenes, cool cars and gadgets and things getting exploded gloriously. The story telling takes a backseat.

One certainly can’t say that the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, is short of any of the above. I just wish that they didn’t have to cram so much of it into the movie because all that did was take viewers’ focus away from the story.

Maybe it’s because the story is so simple and straight forward - Bond hunting for the guys who got Vesper to betray him and eventually caused her death.

I really can’t say that I symphatized with him, not when I got caught up with all that gun fights, on land, sea and air to boot, grand explosions and fist fights. My attention soon shifted to other things because those scenes were so long drawn out that I lose interest mid point.

And oh, that very famous “The name’s Bond. James Bond,” line is conspicuously missing in this movie.

I liked the trailer at the beginning, though. Really made me think that they had upgraded from the classic Bond shooting down the barrel of a gun. Those parts when you see the bullet exiting his gun in slow mo and the stir of the air around it sure is cool.

But fear not for those who love the classic one. They saved that for the end of the movie.

It was disappointing that even the trailer had to go through the scissors happy hands of our censorship board. I know this because there was one part where there seemed to be a disruption of the theme song and Dame Judi Dench’s name appeard for just a micro second that if you blink, you’d miss it.

And yes, the girls. My questions is, what the heck do we even need Agent Fields in the story for? To fill in the two Bond girls a movie quota?

Another question, actually, it was a question from a colleague, in this age of the internet and electronic banking, do people still exchange cold hard cash in brief cases? Haven’t these people ever heard of Paypal?

And for my friends who love mixing alcoholic drinks, pay attention to the formula for the vodka martini, shaken not stirred. You might want to try that out when you have the chance