Christmas Decorations at 1 Borneo

Some pictures of the Christmas Decorations at 1 Borneo I have taken a few weeks back. This year's theme is under water creatures, you can see dolphins and jelly fishes, pirate ships... I've edited them to give a dreamy feel to it. I wished I could have taken some without so much people in the background.

Jelly Fishes

Chirstmas Tree

Lanterns

Dolphins

Merry Christmas

Ho Ho Ho. Today is Christmas day, how did yours go? As planned, we slept in, open our presents and went out for Dim Sum breakfasts at D'Junction Royal China. Then we went home and napped and woke up for dinner at Miso Japanese Restaurant at Karamunsing Capital. Nothing much I'm afraid, we're not the type who loves to partaaaay, more of a bunch of home bodies.

An update on last nights Lamb Leg

 It was yummy, rather dry on its own, but taste nice with the gravy that comes with the lamb. The cranberry juice and soda water was rather nice too, I'm sipping some right this moment.

Roast lamb with hints of rosemary herbs, smells absolutely lovely. We still have some leftovers in the fridge, maybe we'll heat it up for a snack.

Monica McCarty The Chief

Stayed in bed this morning reading this book, I got it from the Popular Book Sale last month. I rarely buy Scottish Highlander books, this is my first. Of course I have read some before borrowed from the local Sabah State Library while I'm still studying in college, I enjoyed Elizabeth Thornton's Highland Fire, Lord Iain Randall is my first Romance Hero crush *blushes*.

The Chief is base around a highland chief- Tor who bears a huge responsibility of his people's safety while enemies attacks, while he runs around protecting his people, his wife Christina felt somewhat neglected and she would do anything to bring her husband's attention around. Quite an interesting read.

Mimi

 Look who came to join me in bed? Mimi and her son Tommy, Tommy is a major Mama's boy, he would follow his mom around the house, and he still wants to feed on Mama's milk although the two of them are almost the same size ( I suspect Mimi's teats no longer produce milk, but yet Tommy would still sniff around for some)

Tommy

This years Christmas Present

 A wallet from Mum and a new phone from Daddy. My old wallet is battered and peeling, its a complete state of disgrace, now I have a new one and its glittery pink with the lovely gold heart. I always put off buying things that are necessity for myself, most of my money went to books. This phone will be replacing my old Sony Ericson W200i that my dad bought me when I first step into college, it was still functioning well and I don't exactly need a new phone, but who's complaining?

I bought mask sheets from Skin Food for my mum and a new polo shirt for my dad, I really don't know what else to get them as they never want anything particularly except last year where I bought a new wallet, watch and belt for my dad as his are old or broken, my moms gift last year was also something from Skin Food.

Pink Giossardi Wallet

 It's the last one on display, comes in black as well.

Fried Carrot Cake

 We went to Royal China for Breakfast, I've been craving fried carrot cake recently, too bad this is way too spicy for my taste, but it successfully stopped my cravings.

Dim Sum

 Not sure if I've take a picture of this previously, here's another one just in case. Not very nice taste wise, maybe its because of the strong parsley taste. Go right ahead if you like parsley. For the rest of the dim sum you can read HERE.

Later at night, we went to have dinner at Miso Japanese Restaurant Many repeated dishes, but we've also tried something new this time:

Forgotten its proper name

 I especially like the seaweed thing, they taste so sweet and refreshing. There are baby octopus and jelly fish too.

Spinach fried with butter sauce

Have to eat some greens to balance out a mostly seafood and meat meal. Taste like usual fried spinach but you could also taste a faint hint of butter.

Salt grilled Shake

 Suddenly crave salt grilled salmon, this is nicely done.

Teppanyaki Squid

 Not too springy, there are chewiness but not too chewy like you're chewing on bubble gum. Well seasoned.

Teppanyaki Beef Skewers

 Nicely flavored, soft chewy beef slices wrapped around a cube of spring onion. Grilled to perfection, yums.

Gindara Shioyaki

 Never could forget the salt grill cod fish, its a must order for us in any Japanese Restaurant.

Vegetable Tempura

 A mix of mushrooms, veggies and sweet potatoes deep fried in Tempura batter. Nice and crunchy. Dessert is honey dew cubes in coconut milk, a lovely light and sweet concoction to finish a meal.

We loved dining at Miso although the pricing is a tad more expensive elsewhere, but their service is quick and efficient and their ingredients very fresh, they have some of the rare stuff that wasn't found in other restaurants in KK. I cannot give them enough free advertisement in this blog and will continue to do so. Do apply for their membership, the discounts are absolutely worthwhile especially when you dine there during birthday and anniversary.

Well, this basically concludes our Christmas Day this year, after this I'm probably going back to read more books. Merry Christmas again to all my readers, God bless you all.

Christmas Traditions

We didn't really have any so-called Christmas Tradition in my family, other than a small dinner on Christmas Eve and buying/making presents for each other, but there are some things I would find myself do anyway when Christmas is nearing. One of them is rereading my old copies of Prima magazines, especially the Christmas edition, these used to belong to my mum, from 1994-96, almost a decade old and you can see how battered and crumpled they are now from the many times I reread them. I would flip through the pages and look at the colorful pictures before I could even read and asked my parents what the pages are saying. Those are fond childhood memories and every time I read them now, it give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, gone are those carefree, happy days but I'm still able to relive the moments through these old magazines. I would never ever throw them away even when some of them have lost their covers or sport missing pages, they are like some sort of time tunnel. Here are some of the pages that I liked, and some are ads that I love:

Prima December 1994, December 1996 and October 1994

I didn't have many surviving copies, therefore I treasure those that I owned, these two are Christmas Editions I would peruse before Christmas, they may be outdated, but I still enjoy reading them. New ones just don't give the sort of fuzzy happy feelings like these.

Prima December 1994, page 54-55

 I actually tried using these tips to wrap presents once upon a time, but I couldn't be bothered anymore, laziness grow as we ages.

Prima December 1994, page 42-43

Absolutely love the pin curls on the left, so pretty. I love vintage stuff like that, the make up are pretty simple too. On the far right, there's an instructions teaching you how to cut bangs like a pro.

Prima December 1994 page 12-13

Lovely pictures, I wished we could have such perfect family portraits similar to those above. Everyone dressed up nicely and take pictures with the decorated house. This year is dismally bare, no Christmas tree or decorations set up, maybe after we moved. I can't imagine what will happen to the Christmas tree with 9 cats around (oh yes, we just took in #8 and #9, more on them in another post)

Prima December 1996 page 22-23

 The Prima team dressed these girls up in something different from what they're used to and their partners gave their opinions about their dates in the following pages. I love the gold lace shift dress and the long red gown, so pretty.

RSPCA and Scottish SPCA ad Prima December 1994, page 148-149

 Don't buy a Pet for Christmas and abandon them when the novelty ran dry, that is completely irresponsible. When you bring home a pet, you are responsible for him/her, if you don't trust yourself to do so, don't even get a pet the first place. And you shouldn't buy someone a pet as a gift unless they specifically requested one and can be trusted to take good care of them. A gift that the recipient don't like can be set aside or re-gifted, but a pet is much complicated than that. By the way, those tidbits on the next pages never failed to get my mouth watering: Kebabs, Filo parcels, honeyed bacon bread sticks, mozarella and basil toasts and Pastrami vol-au-vents. Yums.

Prima December 1996 page 78=79

Yummy recipes that can be easily created using Chicken Tonight sauces, as usual, I've never seen this product in the shelves of our local supermarkets. But they all look so yummy.

Prima December 1996 page 94-95

 I remember my mom made one of these for me using the patterns attached, I wore it to my Aunty's wedding dinner. It was has pale blue and gold roses on a pale cream background, I didn't like it then, but I do now. Wonder where it went?

Polly Pocket ad Prima December 1996

 I never had a Polly Pocket before, my little sister does, but hers is nothing as fancy as these. Do little girls these days still want Polly Pocket's? Maybe not, they probably prefer NDS or PSP.

Prima December 1996 page 38-39

 I like this article, the writer in this piece- Sarah Edghill went out to discover about prejudice about people who are bigger. First she went out as herself at size 12 where everyone from the cafe owner, clothing shop sales girls, hotel doorman and passersby treated her nicely or barely pay her any attention. Few days later, she went back to the same places, meeting the same people but she was wearing a padded body suit and makeup to look like a size 20 and she was able to see that those people treatment towards her has changed dramatically. Its a good article that lets people reexamine their perception about certain stereotypes. Please don't be mean to people just because of the way they look, its downright mean.

Persil Ad Prima December 1996

 I love this ad, so nice and colorful. Each box of Persil can wash up to 12 loads of laundry, more value for your money.

Prima December 1996 page 66-67

Truly scrumptious looking desserts made from Lyle's Black Treacle. Never had the chance to try any of these before. Can we get Black Treacle in Asia?

Sea Fish Ad Prima December 1996

Doesn't that pizza looks so yummy? My mouth waters every time I see this ad, I want pizza!

Quorn Ad Prima October 1994

Enjoy pasta with a lot less guilt, just use Quorn as it is healthy and contains more dietary fibre. A recipe is included. I love looking at pictures of food, these sort of ads made me stare at the pages longer.

These sort of advertisements has never been seen anymore, so Old Skool but I love them all. There are more advertisements that are unique and different from those we normally seen in recent years, maybe I'll feature them again sometimes.

Christmas Eve

Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'm going to be having a small dinner with my parents and siblings. Ordered a roasted lamb leg from Tong Hing and some roasted potatoes with gravy, just got back from picking it up at the store. Both dishes smells wonderful, I can't wait for tonight. Instead of the usual sparkling apple or grape juice, this year we're doing something different: we bought Cranberry juice and Soda Water, since I though the juice is a bit too sweet, it might be a good thing to dilute it a bit with the soda water, hope it works. Here's a sneak peak of what will be going on for tonight:

Roasted Leg of Lamb from Tong Hing

Roasted potatoes

Western Family Cranberry Juice Cocktail

Schweppes Soda Water

Do you have anything nice planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas? We planned to sleep in late, laze around reading in bed, get up and open up presents and then head out for breakfast, dim sum I hoped. No idea what we'll be doing the rest of the day though, but I'm sure we'll be able to find something fun to do. Happy Christmas Eve to all those who are reading.