Sawah at 1Utama

Keeping away the pesky birdsWhen I was in the UK, during the cold o winter, one thing always kept me going. The decorations at the shoppings malls and around town centre during Christmas. There will be carols, Santas and the Santarinas of course, store fronts with gorgeous decorations. There were also blockbuster movies being released. All the TV programs will have special airings during these festive times. To cap it all off, there was the Christmas sale from Boxing Day onwards.

BubuI guess I was hoping for something similar come the festivities. The main issue with Malaysia maybe there were just too many celebrations for the malls to really invest in and make an effort to decorate their lobbies. There will be the Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali and of course Christmas at year end. Last Raya, KLCC won hands down with Dato’ Lat’s effort. Chinese New Year, I must say The Curve had a really superb decor. I think this Raya, 1Utama will definitely win. For God’s sake, they brought in a whole paddy field into the lobby, removing the tiles and all. That was what I called effort!

On Merdeka Day, I had the chance to give it a visit. I was impressed. And judging by the number of visitors, plenty of people did as well. The children are running around. Family busy posing at the huts and scarecrow. Eager dads explaining what was on show to their city-dwelling kids. Some of which may never have been to a real kampung, let alone getting their feet dirty in the muddy paddy fields. One Dad was explaining his young boy how to use the bubu to catch fish. So sweat!

The floor tilings were removed, and the base was lined up with some plastic material on which real paddy were planted on a bed of soil. Some of it were already sowed, while the rest was still green. There was also a scarecrow, replica houses and some other kampung tit bits. I managed to browse through the upcoming programs they have in the days leading up to Aidilfitri. There will be demonstrations by real farmers, and other craft making shows. The programs were mainly for kids, and it was pretty obvious that the kids were enjoying what on show. It was a shame that I couldn’t bring Idlan and Irfan. I didn’t think they would have enjoyed the traffic and the rush coming in. Parking was already a struggle at 10.30 am. Imagine arriving there in the afternoon ……

Jalur Gemilang

It was the National Day today. I remember back in 2003 upon my return from the UK after living there for 13 years. Then, all the cars have flags strapped on their sides. Most of the houses on my street have Jalur Gemilang - the National Flag as it was affectionately called - flying proudly at their gates. Even the motorcycles presented with accident risk with flag poles sticking out from the back of their seats. Put it mildly, the whole country went Jalur Gemilang crazy!

I was wondering back then, what the fuss was about? Maybe the economy was good. The peasants were happy. Business was good. I stuck the flag at the front gate and that was about it. I could appreciate the need to have flags coming out from my car. Fast forward 7 years, and things were rather different. There were only a couple of houses with Jalur Gemilang at the gates - anther one belong to a Chinese neighbour. When I went out yesterday with Puan Anita to a Bazaar Ramadhan, we did a quick count on how many cars have flags on them. Out of 43, only 3 had one. Less than 8%. Maybe everyone realised that celebrating the National Day meant more than just flag waving. Maybe the economy was not as rosy as it was. Maybe Ramadhan was taking its toll after all. I shudder to think that the current generation have far less appreciation of what Merdeka was …… That’s not a good sign …..

The ultimate in OCD

Yes! Since young I have always been a kind of OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorders. Not too serious but I always wanted things to be organised, in a certain way. It used to be way worst when I was a student. Nowadays, I can stand my boys making a mess of my things but when it comes to my laptop and personal study, everybody better stay away …..

The strips adhesive area can be peeled and split in the middleReady to be stuck!Last weekend when the whole gang was out at the Curve, I thought I have a look at one of these portable electronic label maker. The one I have read most in the internet was the one made by Dymo. It cost me around RM130, with the cartridge for the labels selling at around RM15 to 25 depending on the flavour you want. Easy to used although the keyboard was awkward because it was not QWERTY. Powered by 4 AA batteries, and the labels cartridges carry 4m of strips. The handy strip cutter which was built into the unit made cutting the label ribbons a breeze, plus the fact that the label ribbons came pre-wound inside a cartridge made swapping the labels very easy. Another thing I noticed was exposing the adhesive part on the label - at the back - to stick them on can be a bit tricky. If you’re not careful, you can damage the label.

Walla!This should keep me going for a while!

Oh! So posh!

iPad? Rubbish bin?Brought the boys to Pavilion yesterday, since I had to hop round the corner to sort my credit card payment. Thought I would take my camera along to see what the decor was like there. Suffice to say I was disappointed. There was hardly anything, apart from a few decorated trees here and there. THere were not much in the way of Merdeka celebration either. Put it this way, the Ipoh Municipal would have closed the shopping centre if it were located in Ipoh - they insisted on all shops there displaying the National Flag - Jalur Gemilang - at the front of their establishment.

On the way back, I noticed that somebody just stacked away an empty box of iPad at one of the rubbish bins. A quick look around for cameras to make sure it was not a candid camera prank, I took the snap. Oh! So posh!

Trendy Cow!

Moooo!I will be off Saturday - today. Taking Monday off as well, so it will be 4 straight days - woot! Even though I got the feeling that I will have to turn up at the ward on Monday morning to sort something out. Today, after berbuka, I thought I bring the troops out. The boys wanted Marche, so off we went to The Curve. It was a public holiday in Selangor - Nuzul Quran, so the traffic was light coming in, although the car park was packed.

I blogged about the lobby decoration in an earlier entry, but since Idlan was not with us then, he got excited with the kampung house, and was keen to visit our house in Kuala Kangsar during Raya. Hmm! Not a bad idea actually. After a few minutes walking around, we settled for Marche. Unfortunately in the evenings during Ramadhan, they only offered buffet. The boys insisted on pizza. We had a look around and the waiter at Marche suggested that we try Italiannies, just a few doors away. The boys noticed that the Marche bull at the front of the store was decked up with Jalur Gemilang and songkok. Cool!

Decor at the Curve

Italiannies was rather packed even late on in the evening, after the berbuka puasa crowd has left. Since I already had dinner, I decided to just try the salad and desserts. I was so surprised at how fast the service was. As soon as we settled in, we got the bread ready, followed by the salad Puan Anita ordered. My bruchetta came a few minutes after, with the drinks. The pizza came last, and oh boy, did he boys love it. Puan Anita then had creme brule while I tucked into my bread pudding. The portion was huge, so I had to take home half of it - consistent with its slogan, “so much, so good, so share”. The ambiance was nice, complete with a loud Italian family sitting on the next table - I was not joking, they happened to be customers as well. You can’t get any more authentic than that. I was worried that they will start a song anytime soon. The waiters were also very friendly, speaks very good English - mostly Filipinos I think.

Welcoming sign outsideCozyBread and virgin olive oil - nice!BruchettaFor the drinks, I had a mocktail which was really nice. Well, any drinks would have been nice after fasting a whole day. We had a nice time. The boys enjoyed their pizza. After dinner, we had a nice stroll before heading to the car park. We finally made it home close to 11pm.

Pudding to finish things offTime to goWill I recommend Italiannies? Most definitely. I would have preferred to comment more if I had had a main course but from what I sampled, the food there was really nice. In terms of price, it was comparable to similar joints such as Marche and Apartment. I will definitely return again in the future.

More details available here. Address - Lot G75 & G76, Ground Floor, The Curve, No. 6, Jalan PJU 7/3, Mutiara Damansara, 47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia - Tel: +603 - 7728 1715.