Another Free Morning for Breakfast

Well, you guessed it, I took the opportunity to have breakfast with Puan Anita again this morning. We again went to La Bodega, but this time, rather than the outlet at Telawi, we went to Bangsar Shopping Center.

The offer a similar menu, but the ambiance was completely different. The Telawi outlet were smack in the middle of a row of shoplot, giving it a more claustrophobic feeling. But the area was more opened and assessable as people would just park be the street and enter the restaurant.

Nice opened spaceMy rather too dry for comfort Egg BenedictThe BSC outlet was more of a proper cafe. The had two parts, an indoor shop - smaller - or the open space, where the smoking area was. More spacious, complete with sofas. I prefer these opened spaces, although I could do without people puffing about.

Personally, the service here at the BSC was a lot faster, but comparing the two outlet, the meals - or at least the breakfast - was tastier at Telawi. My egg Benedict was moist and the toast better prepared there. Coffee was similar. But that was nitpicking really. For sheer convenience, the BSC was probably better since there was ample car parking space as well as you were shielded from the elements. It would save some time as well, as usually we could do some groceries as well as visiting Anita's favourite food outlet, O'Gourmet.

At the end, it was down to personal preferences. There were really not much difference between the two outlet foodwise. I would choose depending on whether I had business to carry out near the two restaurants. But it was raining outside, I would definitely head for BSC for obvious reason.

La Bodega at BSC was located on the Ground Floor by the main entrance next to Chinoz.

A Sunday Morning Around Central Market

After planning for so many days, everything finally fell into place on Sunday morning. The weather was gorgeous, there were hardly any traffic in town, and more importantly, I managed to wake up early that morning.

It was Sunday and it was early. The vendors were still setting up their stalls.Most of the work were just out in the open over night. I was sure there was security.And the artwork were pretty amazing.The mix of the rustic and new .....I set off from Central Market at around 9.30am and was already back home by 11. So where did I go?

I mingled around the street next to Central Market, called Kasturi walk. The vendors for the weekend market were just opening their stalls then. I then walked towards Lebuh Ampang, snapped more photos there, passing by Jalan HS Lee, before doubling back. Walked inside Central Market as the shops were being opened, before heading back home. Using the X100, people were less suspicious when I was snapping away. Handy.

Setting off by Lebuh Pudu, running parallel to Central Market.The eye-catching roof of Kasturi Walk. Nice and interesting.The stalls were just being opened. But sadly, the majority of the workers here were foreigners, kinda sucked as this was one of the hot tourist spots in town.This used to be a McDonald's outlet. I guessed the influx of foreign workers had something to do with this ....More stories as I ventured out a bit further.

The area around the market was still empty as on Sunday, it was normally filled by foreign workers meeting their friends and visiting shops around there. At 10am, it was still way to early. I only saw pockets of people ascending down. I was sure it would be packed by noon. The portal for this photowalk entry is here.

Birthday Party at Julia's

Having all three of your children celebrating their birthdays in one go was definitely a great idea. Even though, technically they were almost a couple of months apart, bundling them together saved you on the headache. But them being my nieces and nephew, created a different kind of headache for me. I had to get three birthday presents in one go.

Balloon galore as the clown was let looseNot sure what Idlan was asking for ....What? An orange sword? Lame!As this being Syawal, my sister organised an open house on the same day as well. The party was held during lunch, and Kajang, on current traffic was 45 minutes away. Managed to reach there well ahead of time, and get things organised as I was the designated cameraman.

Some of them were cooked by Mum. The rest were catered.Happy Birthday to you .... the sing song had startedYaya preferred Tom and JerryThis was one cute cake. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.This was how you make it ...If you were going to ask for some swords, ask for eight of them. The ultimate fighting machine this ....And the games went on ......The clown arrived at around 1, and after that, it was cake-cutting and general mayhem. Unfortunately, there were no party food, so, my boys were restless. We ended up leaving early, and was caught in a horrific traffic jam on the way home. We left before most of our family members and visitors arrived. My Mum cooked my favourite dish for the party, and at least I got to enjoy that before we left.

Next destination, open house at Anita's cousin.

Home to Chelsea

It was one of those games which we could have ended up losing. And losing badly. We were lucky, and my thoughts went with Torres. That miss in the second half would haunt him for the rest of his career.

On the whole, Chelsea did not play badly. They did what they had to do, and was still down three by halftime. United's first was offside, second was another off side, but the shot itself deserved a goal - a mother of all thunderbolt off Nani - and the third was a fluky bounce, falling down invitingly for our man Rooney. We had it easy.

AVB did something almost unthinkable. He replaced Lampard at halftime, and putting Mata in the middle seemed to make Chelsea tick. And ticked they did. Anelka opened up the defense, exposing the inexperience of Phil Jones within half a minute of the restart. And United were on the back foot since.

Poor Torres ......In preparation, I went to NZ as usual for the Tandoori and Mee Ladna take-outWe were given a lifeline when Nani hit the woodwork and was fouled in the area when he pounced on the rebound. Rooney, slipped on his standing foot, and missed. That goal would have made such a difference, restoring the three goal cushion. As it stood, pressure was mounting on United's young shoulder, and we were exposed a few times.

Then came THE miss. Torres was put through, rounded the keeper, but skewed the tap in on his unfavoured left peg. That would have made the last 15 minutes more interesting.

Not only that we were lucky, but Liverpool self-destructed, and Citeh gave away a two goal lead to just come away with a point from Craven Cottage. We were standing two points clear this morning, taking maximum points from the first five games. And it made such a refreshing change that we stopped talking about De Gea for a start.

Out for a Spin

Frustrated that I could not go out for a spin with the camera in town, I decided to take some pictures around the house, dusting off the lens and making sure that the batteries were charged for tomorrow - where I would be taking photos for my nieces and nephew's birthday party.

I decided to do away with taking snaps in RAW. These were all jpg files. Yes, the latitude in terms of flexibility during post-processing was reduced somewhat, but at least I wanted to test if the skin tones were accurate. It turned out OK on most of the snaps. So, I was all set for tomorrow!

All snaps were taken using my EOS 7D and EF-S 60mm Macro lens.