Random Achievements

It's getting hotter and hotter everyday here, about 36-37 degree Celsius, which is beginning to make my usual 10-min walk to the nearby mall totally insufferable (hohoho someone sounds like a puteri lilin biatch =p). It feels like I'm walking in a hot, burning oven and it's not even summer yet huwaargghh!

Managed to randomly find 2 books with good reviews from Nick Hornby on the covers at Kinokuniya yesterday. I hope this means I'm getting back my 'book-selection' mojo. I used to have the ability to find good books (for my taste) by chance, but lately, almost all of the books I picked turned out to be rather disappointing and well, crap. (There's one where the whole book turned out to be the story of an imaginary friend's life. WHAT THEEE? Ngarut aah!)

Also, managed to, for the first time ever, successfully buat begedel from scratch, all by myself, to complement my soto yesterday. Maybe it's lame to most of you, but I still consider this my personal cooking achievement. I remember there's one time, it took 3 of us girls, each with a specific task, baru berjaya buat begedel ni; sorang gaul and buat bentuk bulat, sorang celup dalam telur and sorang lagi goreng hahah! Back at home when my mom made them, I was only involved in the buat-bentuk-bulat process and makan je hehe.

Tomorrow, I hope I can write here that I manage to go to the gym and do some exercise today. So I am heading upstairs now to change and hopefully I won't somehow end up being 'held captive' by my own bed, lured into some reading and eventually...an afternoon nap =p.

Wish me luck!

Love and Other Near-Death Experiences

'You can't stop yourself from having terrible, cruel thoughts about other people. It's simply the way we're made. It's probably even a good thing that we have them - that they come from within us, to disgust us, to make us actively claw ourselves back towards what it means to be decent.'

The Aquaventure Adventure

As mentioned earlier, dear SRB had a sudden urge to bermandi-manda di waterpark so last Saturday, off we went to Aquaventure in Palm Jumeirah. It.was.a.load.of.fun. Sakit badan for 2 days after that though.

The thing that I love the most about this place is how they use flowing rivers and uphill water escalators to transport you from one slide to another. So you don't have to leave your tube ever in order to enjoy all of the slides. Just sit tight on your tube, enjoy the scenery and the flowing water will bring you to the slide of your choice. Awesome gilerrr! And unlike Sunway Lagoon, the tube rent is included in the entrance ticket so you don't have to really guard your tube and bring it everywhere you go to avoid tube-theft (we experienced this once in Sunway Lagoon before, cisss!) coz there are lots of them and you can just grab them from wherever, whenever you want. Coolness!

The Rapids ride is my favourite coz it felt exactly like white water rafting but without having to worry about tercampak keluar from boat or terlanggar batu2 sungai and what not. Besttt! We had our picture taken during one of our Rapids ride and the outcome urkss, seriously, my face couldn't look even more cacat than that hahah! But since SRB wanted to buy the pic for kenangan, ok fine, but I will make sure that it's not revealed to the public - ever! =p

The most famous water slide in Aquaventure is of course the 100 feet high, 45-degree slide, appropriately named the 'Leap of Faith'. Now, in case you guys didn't know, SRB and I are most definitely NOT a fan of any activities involving plunging ourselves down from great heights (but at least I'm all good at cable car rides, unlike some pakcik, *uhuk*SRB*uhuk* =p). Hence nope, we did not make this 'Leap of Faith' ahah! My life motto is: only do things that you enjoy, so if you don't enjoy jumping off a cliff, don't do it - as simple as that hehe.

What's cool about this slide though, is when you slide down, you don't simply plunge into a pool of water. You will slide through a shark-infested pool first (oklaa it's actually a big fish tank hehe), then only you 'gedebushhh' into the water. I don't know about you, but if I were to do this 100-foot plunge, I'd be too busy being scared shitless that I wouldn't be able to notice let alone be mesmerized by the view of shark, stingrays or whatever colorful fishes they have in that tank hehe.

First you slide down here...

...into the shark tank...

...then continue some more, then straight into the water.

Standing at the balcony right across 'Leap of Faith', memang boleh dengar different kinds of screams. Some were screams yg buat2 takut, but some were definitely in the 'scared shitless' scream category hehe. Lagilaaa we taknak naik bende ni eeee! So amek gambar and senyum kambing jelaa ye hihi!

Dear SRB made a promise that before leaving Dubai for good nanti, he'll do the 'Leap of Faith' plunge. Well, your words babe, not mine. Don't you even dare thinking of nak tarik I sekali nanti dear, tidaaaaaaakkkssss!

Central Perk

Central Perk is now in Dubai, y'all! Woot woot!!! =D

Found this place while driving around town one weekend, during one of our jalan-jalan, cuci-mata-mansions excursions. For the non-fans out there, this might not be a big deal, but for a huuuge Friends fan like me, this is very very exciting!!! I mean, of course it's not exactly where the casts actually sat and shoot the scenes, but dapat gi to the cafe franchise pun jadilaa kan?

The famous orange couch - again, not exactly the same, but I applaud their effort in finding the one that looks similar enough to the original couch.

Inside the cafe - very different from the Friends set, but it does look cozy and inviting for lepak2-sambil-minum2 sessions. The cafe menu includes a variety of soups, salads, sandwiches, pasta, pies, muffins, coffees and smoothies - menarik. And they also have breakfast sets as well, so we definitely gonna come here again soon for our weekend brunch.

Being in Central Perk that day somehow made me thought of one of those silly quizzes that will determine 'Which Friends Character Are You?' Hahah toye I know, but I think I am more of a Monica; the non-OCD version of her lah kehkehkeh! Dear SRB is definitely a Ross, no question about it hehe. But wait a minute, Monica and Ross are siblings. Ok ok, I take back my words. I am not a Monica, I am definitely more like the beautiful, fashionista Rachel (AS IF!) hahaks =p

Someone Else's Life

'Chris boiled with indignation and resolved there and then that he would never have another drink - ever. Just to make her look stupid. The human spirit is a powerful, powerful thing, and there's very little that it can't achieve, especially if it's out of spite.'

When it comes to domestic arguments, yesss, I found this to be very very true theeheehehee...

Paul and Bradley

Paul McDonald (AI 10) and Bradley Cooper - nak dekat sama kan?

Or am I the only one who sees the resemblance? And the only one who thinks Bradley Cooper is HOT? Hellooo, piercing blue eyes peeps!

But anyway, all the more reason to support Paul on American Idol this year bebeh! Besides having a one-of-a-kind voice, one-of-a-kind dancing style (some people found his erratic movement on stage irritating, I found it adorable), he also looks like the hot & macho Bradley Cooper =p. What more do you want?!! Hehe.

And oh, can't wait for Hangover 2!!! (I think I have to send you a reminderrr, here it is...)

Roti Canai Satu!

Dear SRB,

I had some rangup roti canai with kari sambal for lunch.

Like you always say (even though I hate it), terbaik dari ladang bebbb =p

Jangan jelesss muahahaha!

P/S: Since when do people start saying 'terbaik dari ladang' ni? Where did the phrase come from? It is becoming irritating, just like that over-used 'tau takpe' phrase.

Around Palm Jumeirah

At dear SRB's Christmas/New Year holiday party a few months back, I met one of his colleagues, an Egyptian who, interestingly, used to live right across the street from the Pyramids of Giza but has never, in all his life, really been to the pyramids (if you look at the map, there is actually a large residential area next to the pyramids). And I thought, whoaa, that's like 'taking things for granted' at a whole another level dude! Now that I think about it, arrgghhhh sangat jealous aa plak, especially since we had to cancel our Egypt trip due to the unrest there recently and don't know when things will be stable enough for us to be able to go there and see the pyramids ourselves!

Aaanyway, since then, we sort of made a vow not to take things for granted here and to make the time to explore the tourist spots in Dubai, as many as we can. So as a start, last weekend we drove up to Palm Jumeirah, parked the car, then took the Palm monorail around the island. Since the monorail is elevated, we could get a good view of the Palm as the train cruises along the island's trunk.

It costs 15 dirhams per person for a one-way ticket and 25 dirhams for a return one. Quite expensive for just a 20-minute ride, but oh well, everything's here memang expensive, so terpaksalah live with it. But I wish the monorail track is built higher so we can get a better aerial view of the palm-shaped island, macam view from helicopter hehe.

But I guess this is the next best thing to the much more expensive helicopter ride, so let's just enjoy whatever that we can get, huh?

The Atlantis Hotel

Aquaventure (the waterpark in Atlantis Hotel)

Luxurious villas on the fronds

Jumeirah Beach

After seeing the view of Aquaventure, dear SRB suddenly got excited utk bermandi-manda plak so this weekend, Insya Allah, we're gonna go have some fun in the water bebehhh woohoo!

The Terrible Privacy

"I seem to have lost a number of friends in the last few years. I don't mean that I've fallen out with them, in any dramatic way. We've just decided not to stay in touch. And that's what it's been: a decision, a conscious decision, because it's not difficult to stay in touch with people nowadays, there are so many different ways of doing it. But as you get older, I think that some friendships start to feel increasingly redundant. You just find yourself asking, 'What's the point?' And then you stop." -- Maxwell Sim

Talk about the harsh truth, huh? Hmmm...

*Put one hand under the chin, stare into the distance and ponder*

The Evil Laugh

**Major vanity alert**

Didn't know that I sound like an evil witch who eats children when I laugh muahahaha!