One of my favorite dishes by my mum.  Simplicity can rings a homerun at times...

I know there is an increase of food picts on my blog lately.  Guess I am trying to find my soul with them... A lot of things been on my mind & I feel like I'm losing strength.  Trying to pull myself together for the road ahead... There are a lot of things to catch up surely. Meanwhile my eyes are going blur with all the camera loggings to do...my scripts not ready yet...Things to shoot...and work waiting in line...Aaarrgghhh... Trying to climb the mountain ahead...

On a wedding photo shoot set...

Juggling between a video cam & a digital camera...

i captured castle...

Like a fairytale, the prince with his bended knees, helped his girl to wear the heels...  He held her hands...

And even rained on Sunday (Yesterday).

Feel really cold these days...the night feel like below 20 degrees...

It rained on Saturday...

This entry should be in on 15^th Sept.  But I was too dead tired that day & trying to keep myself awake till late night in order to sleep at a normal time.  And my sister had came home for visit.  My mum commented that I was like a sparrow, chirping non-stop.  I always feel so thankful & grateful whenever my family gets together, spending time like that.  It's so precious that I feel like I can forsake every other thing for it.  The night before that Friday, I almost killed myself to finish a one day job till 5am the next morning.  My friend stayed up with me till 630am for burning DVDs & having breakfast together.  By the time I reached home & settled down in bed, it was 730am.  I gave myself an hour to sleep, so I could wake up to type the job invoice & meet the client to deliver the job at 1030am.  But seriously it was a risky plan.  I was waked up by a call from my handphone.  I thought it was the client.  My eyes were bewildered to see a 10am clock!  It took me like an eternity to sink in who was the caller.  It must had been equally painful one for her, cos' my brain couldn't 'start' up.  It turned up to be the repair shop, and the sales assistant was trying to tell me that my VCR was ready for collection.  That whole morning, I felt as thought I was dreaming.  The sky was in a pale white.  I didn't remember seeing the clouds.  Everything looked really misty.  The night before, felt like a nightmare.  Even the conversations I had with my friend been floating in & out like a ghost.  And so, that misty colored sky turned up to be a prelude to the heavy rain coming next. 

I started to take pictures on my way home that afternoon.  Through that raining window on the bus, I was seeing a different world.  Maybe that was how fading memories look like too...

>  I think these old places will be tear down eventually.

>  Foreign workers on a work truck.

> The rush at a bus stop...

>  Even the trees look kind of eerie behind the raining glass.

> The way to shelter chairs at coffeeshop.

>  A rundown house waiting quietly to be renovated.

>  Road construction workers continued to work in the rain.

>  Outside a restaurant, with rising water puddles.

>  The drenched school girls who forgot their umbrellas.

>  Everybody in their space of waiting at the bus stop.

>  A school girl sitting alone on a bus-stop bench. 

> A man slicing meat behind a restaurant.

> A dining area with no customers.

The sky was still raining by the time I reached home & settled down.

If a soul can be captured by the blessed of delicious food, I wish I found mine...

This dessert above is a combination of pastry on 1 side & another side is jelly-like (Agar Agar).

Next, comes the Yam Quek ("Cai Dao Quek").  The toppings are fried onions.  The yam is mixed with minced mushrooms & little shrimps.

And end with coffee that helps one to stay awake.

Special Breakfast treat this morning... 

Bean & Meat Dumpling

Food is always a blessing I am thankful for.

And a coffee to wash everything down in splendid style.

My sister's friend may not have imagine that this birthday cup she/he had given to my sister had been with us for close to 20 years & still counting.  I love cups with thin rims.

GAMBATTE!!!  Trying to keep my chin up...

Miles : It's a hard grape to grow, as you know, right?  It's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early.  It's not a survivor like cabernet...which can just grow anywhere & thrive even when it's neglected.  No, Pinot needs constant care & attention.  In fact, it can only grow in these really specific...little tucked-away corners of the world.  And only the most patient & nurturing...of growers can do it, really.  Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential...can then coax it into its fullest expression.  Then...I mean its flavors, they are just the most haunting & brilliant & thrilling & subtle...and ancient on the planet.  Now, cabernets can be powerful & exalting too...but they seem prosaic to me for some reason by comparison.  I don't know.  What about you?

Maya : What about me?

Miles : I don't know.  Why are you into wine?

Maya : No, I like to think about the life of wine.

Miles : Yeah.

Maya : How it's a living thing.  I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing.  How the sun was shinning.  If it rained.  I like to think about all the people who tended & picked the grapes.  And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now.  I like how wine continues to evolve.  Like, if I opened a bottle today...it would taste different than if I opened it on any other day.  Because a bottle of wine is actually alive.  And it's constantly evolving & gaining complexity.  That is, until it peaks.  Like your 61.  And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline.  And it tastes so fucking good.

Love is like opening a bank account, interest adding to the saving day by day on its own.  Sometimes one may be holding a cheque that cannot be cash in... Is it a cheque that worth keeping after all...?

Surprised to see lalang near my house one fine day, but they were destroyed by the mower some days after I took this picture.  I hope the seeds will survived which I brought back from my location scout.  Lalang belongs to Grass family and vary in height between 30cm to 2m.  Fruits are tiny & have long fine hairs which help them to disperse.

Glad to see more local films are being released.  Do support!

Trailer :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0wNtIdAQlE" title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0wNtIdAQlE" target="_blank"http://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Interesting Toilet Signs Visited :

You never know where you can get your inspiration from. 

Had a weird encounter recently of a cat that strayed to our garden and camped there for a few days.  I teased it by imitating its meowing one night and not sure if I had spoken its language correctly, it jumped up to our window and "forcefully" wanted to come into the house.  Its action sent my mum closing the window in stress and frustration due to cleanliness issue.  It couldn't stop meowing and even jumped up standing on its hind legs watching us and I was really amazed to see how tall it was.  It reminded me of "Puss in boots".  We were having dinner at that time and I wondered with care was it attracted by my mum's first effort of her experimental dish - salmon pumpkin porridge.  She prized nutritious value above taste.  It was certainly an interesting orange looking porridge.  We weren't encourage to feed the cat cos' it was likely to take up residence with us.  And my sister really had a problem with roaming animal in the house, as for my mum she couldn't do with one roaming in and outside the house.  So having a pet was not even an option.  Feeling really stuffy, we opened a bit of the window.  This cat went to the extent of putting its white hairy paw all the way in, feeling the wall beside.  It certainly didn't look like a normal stray or normal cat.  We were pretty stunned by its persistence of wanting to come into our house with such high enthusiasm despite our rejection.  As it was still the Ghost festival, guesses to explain for its action went as far as a dearly departed relative spirit was in it.  "Could it be my aunt?  Grandpa?  Or...?" 

Finally my dad came up with a temporary solution that was to "cage" us up.  I meant putting up a fence about 30 inches high at the window.  But it didn't damp the cat's enthusiasm.  We had squares like window grill outside the glass window and the cat went on to climb and fell on the first row of squares.  It kept doing it despite all the falls.  I watched in amazement when it managed to climb to the second row before it fell.  My mind flashed a scene of a predator dinosaur learning to open the doorknob from the "Jurassic Park".  It was the same feeling.  The next day, it really figured out that climbing the window grills worked like climbing stairs!  It landed inside the fence, and my mum called me up at work to announce the latest update.  I was thinking of carrying the cat out after work but my mum beat me to it.  According to my mum's statement, the cat watched her quietly when she scolded it and obediently let her carried it, after my mum told it to be good and let her bring it out of the house.  Out of the main door, the poor cat apparently still refused to give up, fell asleep under the shoe rack while it rained heavily outside.  My dad end of the day transported it out to a deep forestry factories area away from the road, hoping it will be a better option for its survival.  As I wrote this story, I miss and felt for the cat and really admire its ultimate persistence for its goal that we couldn't provide.  The cat was with us for 5 days at the window and maybe a few more undiscovered stays in the garden.  Sad to say we weren't the right family for it.

Sunday I could hear the practicing notes on the piano from a distance and birds chirping from the trees.  It was a pretty peaceful morning and I wondered with care, how's the cat doing?  Chasing butterflies?  That will be a cute sight to catch.

The sound of the early morning working crowd and traffic is extremely captivating for me.  It reminded me of my trips oversea of the liveliness in the air.  More so ever when I passed by bakeries and cafes filled with the fragrance of the pastries and brewing coffee as I walked down the street.  I could really imagine I was somewhere else.  One thing that always amazed me when I was on my oversea trips was that people were always so awake on the trains and buses.  It was a different sight over here in Singapore, where most of the people were dozing in the trains and buses and I was one of them.

These were pictures I took with my handphone of my piece of illusion.  I love those balconies and would imagine myself sitting by it.  A very quiet Saturday morning compared to the weekdays bustling ones. 

A sight of the sky when I was taking a breather from work.