Aloft in the City of Angels, and eats in BKK

Bangkok is my favourite city in the whole wide world. The dust, the humidity, the horrendous traffic, they're all nondeterrents for me. I love the food, the shopping, the all-round friendliness of the people.

We roomed at the Aloft Bangkok, a pretty cool place that's part of the Starwood chain. What we liked: the 42-inch LED televisions, the ports to plugin your hard disk or portable dvd player, the iPod docking station, the Nespresso machines and complimentary coffee pods in each room. Oh, and the super comfy bed that is the Starwood chain signature. The lounging area was also pretty nice, with its stock of snacks (yogurt, cereal, instant noodles) and coffee at very affordable prices. The lounge was also equipped with foosball and pool tables, comfy bean bags and a Sony PS3 console. AK and I spent a good amount of time trying to beat each other in beach volleyball, medieval swordplay and archery.

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If you're ever feeling peckish at the Aloft, then we do recommend the steak sandwich. Thick, juicy, totally tasty and worth the splurge. This was so good that we ordered it again  the night before we departed Bangkok.

 

 

 

 

 

Erawan Tea Room was a place I read about here and also in the Bangkok City Guide provided by the hotel. We tried the seafood "stir fried with rhizome" and red duck curry, plus pork noodles to share. Everything was superbly done, and I left with a tin of silver-tipped white tea leaves and a jar of prettily packaged guava jam. I vowed to return to try their exquisite looking afternoon tea.  

 

Seafood stir fry at Erawan Tea Room

 

Another place we really loved was Laem Chaer Roen Seafood. They apparently have non-distinctive outlets at both Central World (tucked in a little corner) and Siam Paragon (Level 5), but remain a local rather than tourist favourite. A friend generously bought us dinner at the Central World outlet, where we had the signature Deepfried Snapper in a sweet Thai fish sauce, Tom Yum Goong (with lots of super fresh prawns), an ikan bilis salad and stir fried morning glory. The snapper was addictive, the Tom Yum was perfect. Defnitely a must-return.

 



Deepfried snapper in a sweet fish sauce, ikan bilis salad and fried morning glory at Laem Cha Reon Seafood Restaurant



 

 

I love Siam Paragon's abundant, slightly chaotic basement food court, with its combination of street food (barbecued pork skewers for 15 bath, grilled squid, rice paper rolls) and relatively upscale cafes and bakeries all under a single roof.  

 

 

Chocolate inspirations (love the brownie cake idea) at Siam Paragon's basement Gourmet Market

 

 

 

The best is yet to come

Congratulations President Barack Obama! I toast your integrity, your ultra-coolness, your efforts at bipartisanship, your love of your people.

Gandhi's words

The first place our irreverent Mumbai guide, Felix, insisted we visit was the Gandhi museum. And I could see why any Indian would be proud of such a figure.

 

My own words here fail me, here in the presence of the Mahatma's.

 

And thus I leave you with such.

 

Gandhi on virtues:

 

On following what you know is right.

On women and equality:

A rendering of how his pacifist protests brought warring factions together:

His vision for his country. I think India today would depress him. Malaysia too.

"A leader of his people, unsupported by any outward authority, a politician whose success rests not upon craft nor mastery of technical devices, but simply on the convincing power of his personality; a victorious fighter who has always scorned the use of force; a man of wisdom and humility, armed with resolve and inflexible consistency, who has devoted all his strength to the uplifting of his people and the betterment of their lot; a man who has confronted the brutality of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being, and thus at all times risen superior.

Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that one such as this will ever in flesh and blood walked this earth."

- Princeton writeup

 

On the house, the gym and more reads

As I write this, my head is throbbing, and I am half drunk on Redoxon. This is the freakin' fourth time I've contracted some form of the flu since moving to KL. That's about the same number of times in 2 years in Miri, at most. Lucky girl that I am, though, I am being well looked after. AK has been ensuring that I get my constant supply of water in the bedroom, cooking gao zhi, reheating soup, buying taufu fah (as you can tell I did not lose my appetite) and making sure I take my meds.  It is nice to be loved :)

This business of falling sick at the drop of a hat was what I expected upon moving back. Well, in all honesty I did not expect a lot of things when I moved back. I did not expect us to hit this tremendous snag when we decided on the house we wanted. You'd think that being able to afford the place we wanted was the biggest issue. Well, this wasn't the case. Thanks to that snag we have been "squatting" in AK's parents' place since my company-allocated one month stay in Mont Kiara expired. His folks are easygoing, generous and caring, make no mistake. And I will forever be grateful to them for putting up with Boo and me in their lovely house. But 90%  of my things are in storage, and after 7 years of living on my own, I do miss my (lovely) things. I miss my cookbooks, my Home & Decor magazines, our splurge of a matress, my oven and all my cooking thingamajigs. I miss my Astro PVR, even my perfume. It depresses me even writing about all this. It has caused countless sleepness nights that more than likely contributed to this most recent bout of sickness (why my immune system is so vulnerable is another question).

I refrained from writing about this because, well, I was in kind of a denial about it. But it has been 4 months since we signed the SPA and nothing much has changed. So we now are looking at other options. Litigation is one of them. As you can tell, nothing pleasant. Sometimes I wonder if it's God trying to tell me not to buy that place, that we should settle for something else, use our money to travel, to live it up while we're still young and so-called restless. A clearer sign would be nice.

Big sigh.

I have been up to a few things nonetheless. The gym is one of them. I have tried almost all the classes offered by Fitness First Empire. I have flailed around like an idiot trying to follow the Aunties at Zumba, and I've bitten off more than I can chew attempting BodyPump with far too heavy weights (I was way too chicken to quit thought, not with a supercute instructor up front. I spent about a week recovering from that episode). My favourites are BodyJam and BodyCombat. I have noticed that I am the only person who attends both, as they are quite different. But they both provide endorphin highs in different ways. I especially love BodyJam and my instructor telling us to "just let go, don't look at what's happenning around you or what others are doing, do what feels good to you." And I did. I always end the class with a big smile on my face. BodyCombat has the ability to make me all sentimental sometimes, as I started learning this class in Miri, where it is taught by a very good friend of mine.


Reading is another. I just completed the sequel to the magnificient book that is the Fall of Giants, Winter of the World. I have been waiting and waiting for this and when I spotted the hardcover at Borders in The Curve, out came the credit card. I have to say, though, Fall of Giants seems more well thought out. WoW, while still good, at times feels a bit rushed, and wasn't so much of a suspense-laden, heartwrenching thriller that was FoG. Maybe it's because I didn't watch Atonement this time. :)

Still, I learnt a lot. I didn't realize how close England came to flirting with Facism, and how the people of London stood with their fellow Jews in the Battle of Cable Street. The book draws comparisons between the German and English anti-fascist movements, and how inaction on the side of Germans, and action in the form of protests (or more like protesting the protest). The story of the Battle of Cable Street, of how Englishmen (mostly the working class, socialists, the Irishmen, communists, sailors) fought their own people for what they believed in. And in doing so, they sent a message loud and clear: Fascism is not welcome in England. And so the movement faded. Germany, of course, is another story altogether.

Red commemorative plaque at Cable Street today. Source

Snippets of Subang & beyond

1) Boo adjusting to life in AK's parents' house - sneaking a (forbidden) nap on the sofa and standing on tip toes attempting to see outside the house

2) Rustic cart-inspired coffeetable spotted in a homeware shop in Bangsar. Way out of my price range but I hope to get something similar made.

3) Pecan pie from Whisk in Subang Empire and all-natural Butterscotch cake from Food Foundry.

 

 

Cart-inspired coffeetable @ Bangsar Village

 

Pecan Pie from Whisk at Empire Subang

 

Love the use of unfinished walls + exposed conduits + mostly Ikea furnishings in Food Foundry

 

Butterscotch cake from Food Foundry

What works for me

I have been dabbling in the stock market for a few years now, with ups and downs. While I did not lose anything I could not afford to, I also lost out on some chances to earn the bucks. I am now trying to be more diligent in trading - recording what I do and what I've learnt, doing reading, making full use of the tools I have. So here's what I have learnt so far:

1) Stay out of day/technical trading. I simply do not possess the discipline nor the tenacity to thoroughly utilise technical techniques to make this profitable. MACD's and dragonfly doji's can only influence so much in a world so interconnected and currently economically unstable. Headlines overshadow everything - whether it's the Euro crisis (Greece, and now Spain), the US debt, Iran, to name a few.

2) Close the gate once you're done. If my trading portal stays open, I tend to search and "hunt" for something to do (i.e. buy, with what little information I gather in about half an hour. Not recommended). That's just the way it is. So once I have done what I intended to do, I logoff.

3) .......BUT keep track of what's going on. Have I mentioned that I can't live without my iPhone? Other than keeping photos of Boo, noting down songs for downloading later, recording my latest gastronomy discoveries and Facebook-ing, the nifty Bloomberg app keeps me up to date on what I want to monitor. Economic news, prices and trends of stocks on my watchlist. I can't trade, but at least I know what's happening.

4) Be selective. I have fallen for the herd mentality too many times. Whether it was succumbing to Analysts' recommendations (never made money off it, by the way), buying only after the publishing of good news, I realise now that it is all just too late. Now I monitor a few stocks I like, buying and selling when I see fit. And I can do that (with some confidence) because I keep track of their movements and know when low is really low and there is potential to rebound. There is no free lunch, whether it's analyst reports or Hedge fund managers' picks on CNBC. Just do your homework, and more importantly, stick to your guns.

4) Again, an iteration here, but in this interconnected world, one has to keep track of what's going on. You might have missed out on buying Apple at $21 (oh, and read about NY Times' readers' financial mistakes here - very interesting indeed. It made me feel somewhat less of a failure). And you might never want to see the APPL ticker ever again. That's what I felt. But there could be another crisis opportunity (and we have seen a few), another false alarm. But you wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't keep track. Opportunities knock more often than we think. We just have to be ready to answer the door.

Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama

The US Election Race.
Since 2008 - 2009, those euphoric days when Obama was elected, I have always been utterly enthralled by the US Elections. My parents and AK wonder why I, who skip over the local news section, who is sickened by Malaysian politics, who cannot name her own country's cabinet ministers, obsessively follow what is going on in the US. I can spend hours glued to CNN, watching the Convention speeches (have to resort to YouTube this year, given the "squatting" situation), Presidential Debates, and reading dozens of NYT articles and columns on the Republicans and Democrats. I have to say though, the 2008 elections was particularly unique and almost legendary what with the Barack Obama, first-black-president hype and of course, the comic relief of Sarah Palin. But as I listened, and I mean really really listened (and not just to laugh at Ms. Palin's gaffes), the issues they talk(ed) about, that they try to address or avoid, really affect us all. The sad thing is with all this listening and reading, the result is a deep cynism for politics in general. Lobbyists, "special interests", all prevail, and all too well in Washington. Check out the Republicans' blatant declaration that their top priority was to "make President Obama a one-term President". Really? What about creating jobs, improving the economy, all in the backseat, eh?

The 2012 Democratic National Convention happenned recently, and two speeches stood out like shining stars. Other than their content, they also serve as amazing lessons in authenticity and how spoken words can move thousands (or millions, I hope). Michelle Obama's speech was heartfelt, warm and painted the picture of President Obama's sometimes-missing personal side. I shall not be petty and compare it Ann Romney's, which was - to put it the most polite terms possible - insincere to say the least, almost childish and sets the movement for the emanciapation of women back by another 100 years.

Bill Clinton's speech was the killer. I listened to it twice, never noticing how long it was (almost an hour). He dissected the Republican agenda and what it would mean in plain, simple terms. He highlighted what was so wrong with the right wing these days - that hate and fear are prevailing, that the Republicans blocked President Obama attempts at job creation in Congress at every turn. After watching this, and reading some fact checking sites, I just don't get how any average American would vote for Governer Romney's bill.

Oh, and let me just stay this - even if you are not the slightest bit interested in politics or world affairs, just watch these as they are - Masterclasses in oration.