Being Frank

Thanks to the Astro February magazine, I’ve just (re-)discovered how hawt James Franco is. I’ve been reading about him since and my, he doesn’t sound real at times! The more I read, the more I like him. I’m so impressed with his hunger for education. Intelligent guys like that attract me. Not like some stupid sexist moron at Sky Sports. He’s an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, painter, model (Gucci by Gucci pour Homme and now Gucci by Gucci Sport) ... and soon, Oscars presenter. He's good looking too!!! Looks & brains, what a combination! I’m very much impressed!

Gucci by Gucci pour Homme

Gucci by Gucci Sport

James Edward Franco *drools*

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We’re meeting Birmingham City at Wembley. Three goals in the second half ensured BCFC’s passage to the encounter.

The two goal scorers post-match. That’s one mighty smooth chest, B52. Just keep your hands to yourself, OK. Image source: Arseblog

The Road To Wembley

We made it – after 151 minutes of trying to break down Ipswich’s defence. Three goals in 18 minutes from Bendtner, LK6 and hungry Captain Cesc fired the Gunners to Wembley ;’) I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Is that a bracelet I see on your left wrist, Cesc?
Bend it like Bendtner
You don’t see this often – a goal from a corner kick
It’s about time we take advantage of set-pieces
I never noticed that the signboard would display GOAL like that

Captain likes to climb over people (and mock people on Twitter!)

Time for The Cesc Fàbregas goal

My Captain was emotional ;') He really does care for The Arsenal

Among the chants heard at the Emirates:
Tractor Boys (Ipswich supporters): ‘One-nil to the rugby club’ and ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ (in response to Cesc’s jibe of Ipswich’s ‘rugby’ tactics) and ‘You only sing when you’re winning’.
Gooners: We’ve only got one Song (get it?)

For now, just lead us to Wembley

A Good Week At The Office

After the annoying 0-0 draw with Man Sh*tty, followed by the last-minute penalty save by Cesc against Leeds and the uninspired performance at Ipswich, last week turned out to be a good week at the office for the Gunners. First, they hammered West Ham with three goals (and a clean sheet!). Next, they travelled up by train to Leeds (classy Nasri was captain for the night – and even had Rio Ferdinand backing him for Player of the Year) and registered a 1-3 win. Then they hosted bogey team Wigan last Saturday and registered another 3-0 win with RvP scoring his first Arsenal hat-trick. The Flying Dutchman scored six goals in all those three matches and you can’t help thinking and wishing him to continue staying fit. If our excellent front four combination of Theo van Nasregas can continue to stay fit, there’s no stopping us. InsyaAllah.

Flying Dutchman!

David and Romeo Beckham were at the Emirates too. Wonder if Romeo was wearing an Arsenal scarf. It’s red and white

Wigan’s keeper was brilliant and kept his team in the first half with a string of saves. Cesc could have had a hat trick, Nasri and Theo also had missed opportunities

The mid-week was somewhat spoiled by Denilson’s interview with Arsenal Brasil carried out by Arseblog where he said Cesc was not a leader and that he could not see any leader in the team. I saw the interview and read the translation and unless someone screwed up somewhere, he did say something along those lines (and he also said Almunia is a good goalie!). To Denilson’s credit though, he later informed Cesc about it. And while Cesc was very understanding about it all, I think Denilson is wrong. We have Cesc, RvP and Nasri, even Rosický and TV5, and he said there are no leaders? Of course, Cesc is a captain and a leader (and outstanding one too, according to Wenger) and Arsenal’s good luck charm - Arsenal never failed whenever he scores.

And last but not least, there were the sexist remarks made by Richard Keys and Andy Grey, Sky Sports dinosaur presenters about Sian Massey, the female linesman at the Liverpool-Wolves match. Now I don’t claim to know everything about football (then again, I’m not a lines-girl or referee) but please kept your sexist opinions to your bloody selves. And it’s not as if male referees or linesmen get every call right or are consistent with their calls! This piece is an excellent read - if you are open-minded enough.

Nine matches for Arsenal this month, seven down and two to go. We have three more games at the Emirates in nine days before we travel north. Let the good day of the office last please. Amen.

Back To December

UPDATED: Allow me, in this post, to go Back To December.

Dreams
I dreamt of Mummy and the dreams were so real and felt as if she was still around with us.

I dreamt (or had nightmares) of Tommy twice and both times, he woke me up immediately.

I dreamt I went on a solo trip to Uzbekistan, well I think it was Uzbekistan anyway. The people in my dreams had that Central Asian features. I hope to make this dream a reality one fine day, insyaAllah.

Football
As usual, Arsenal continued to excite and frustrate me. Nasri, player of the month of December, struck a brace - I can watch the second goal again and again ;’) – against Fulham. The team didn’t turn up against ManUre but played very well to win 3-0 over Chelshit; this was, however, followed by an away draw at Wigan. (I just realised most of the photos below are of Arsenal against teams in blue; am also including the photos from the match on New Year’s Day at Birmingham).

Nanananananananana Samir Nasri, Nasri, Samir Nasri!!!

He can be good but he can be equally shite like he was on Saturday against Leeds

He can score goals but I was screaming at him on Saturday ‘You dare call yourself a striker?!’

Malaysia did well and won the AFF Suzuki Cup for the first time.

Hong Kong
I was asked a few times if my niece and I were sisters. Hello? Thanks if you think I looked that young ;) but we don’t look similar at all to pass as sisters.

And despite the scarf, I had a lot of people talking to me in Mandarin and Cantonese. Wonder if they’ll talk Korean if I make a return visit there?

Missing Mummy
I continued to miss Mummy badly and even more acutely when I was on trips.

Reality Shows
Winners of The Amazing Race Asia 3 and The Biggest Loser Asia were revealed (I missed the final episode of TARA). As much as I like TARA 3 winners, Richard & Richard, I don’t understand why the organisers for both programmes allowed non-Asians in. Was it on the basis that they resided in Asia? But don’t you think that non-Asians would have a distinct advantage over Asians in feats and challenges? I’m not stereotyping here; look at the Olympics or the IAAF World Championship in Athletics? The track event winners are usually either Africans or Caucasians. Hardly any Asian won track events. And yes, I do know some Asian Americans who did very well in the US edition of The Amazing Race but that’s the US edition and they have participants representative of the country. Participants of TARA and TBLA are not representative of the continent at all.

Oh and one more thing. Why put Asia in the name when most participants are from South East Asia or East Asia? Why don’t we have participants from, say, Iran or Nepal or Myanmar too? That would better reflect the Asian-ness of the shows, no?

Trips
One of the trips I did in December had me wondering if I should just continue travelling solo and save myself from the stress, anger and irritation I felt in that trip.

Eeeppss!!! Switch!

Bloody hell. We lost at Ipswich in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-finals. What the ****. I was so pissed I even switched to watch the match at Blackpool and you know what, I found watching Blackpool play was way entertaining than watching Arsenal. We could have finished the tie but being the Arsenal, we like to make things difficult for ourselves, don’t we! We didn’t look like we were up for it, we were sloppy and careless, some players were just crap and not worthy of donning the Arsenal colours. How could we lose to a team that was spanked by Chelshit by seven goals only a few days ago? Yes, even winning the World Coach of the Decade means you get the tactics right sometimes. I can’t believe we were so excited at the thought of getting Shava only two short years ago. He’s such a shadow of himself and he looks like he can’t be arsed at all.

Nicked from here

No, we are not amused. Will the REAL Arsenal players PLEASE stand up already??!!!

Jakarta – December 2010

Anita and I had planned to go to Jakarta since August 2010 and we bought KLM tickets online (it costs RM10 if you pay by credit card. You can pick the ticket up at the KLM office at Park Royal Hotel but must pay in cash; if you pick up your ticket at the office but opt to use your credit card to pay for it, you’re still charged the RM10 fee). It cost us RM293 before the RM10 charge. So affordable and cost less than even AirAsia!

I told Mummy about it during Eid and as I was successful in getting a two-bedroom apartment, she was keen to come along so I bought tickets for her and my nephew, el niño. Ticket prices had gone up slightly by then but at least still managed to get child fare for el niño.

But of course Mummy didn’t go in the end and I was very sad when I visited her on the morning of my departure.

Saturday, 25 December 2010

Met up with el niño at Putrajaya KLIA Transit station and together we boarded the train to KLIA. I had done prior online check-in so it was just a matter of dropping our bags. I had planned to get to the satellite building anyway to shop and was happy that the flight would depart from the satellite building (I had thought it would depart from the main terminal as it was an ASEAN-bound flight).

We went to the gate at 4.30 pm and met up with Anita there. The flight was a bit bumpy – too many clouds – but the in-flight entertainment kept us quite occupied.

We landed at 7 pm local time and were out by 7.30 pm. Anita had pre-arranged a limo with the hotel at only Rp190,000 (taxies from the airport to downtown charge around Rp200,000 on average). The traffic was kind to us, probably as it was Christmas Day and we reached the hotel after 8 pm. There were only a few towers at the hotel apartment complex and only two lifts that service our floor at Block A.

Our two-bedroom apartment had a kitchen/dining area (complete with stove and microwave besides the refrigerator) and living room (with flat-screen TV and cable network. Having said that, while there were ESPN and StarSports, the stations didn’t show any Premier League matches at all – I had to wait for Sports News on CNN and BBC and later Internet to find out the scores and drama against Chelshit and Wigan. Grrr...).

We went out to explore the area for a bit before returning to hotel to relax.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Anita went on a city tour today, joining other tourists on Grayline. I decided to check out the antique market at Jalan Surabaya and then stop at Gambir station to buy tickets for the next day before checking out the museums in the Old City.

We took the bajaj to the antique market and spent about half an hour there. We then took another bajaj to Gambir station but were told that we couldn’t buy tickets in advance so we left. It rained when we were at Gambir but had slowed down to a drizzle when we left. We took another bajaj to Fatahillah Square and there were lovely buildings and already a lot of people there!

After taking photos at Fatahillah Square, we headed to the Puppet Museum (Museum Wayang). This museum is dedicated to puppetry with shadow puppets and three-dimensional wooden puppets on display. The building was once the Old Dutch Church (De Oude Hollandsche Kerk) before being converted into a museum in 1975. Entrance fee is dirt-cheap at IDR2000 for adults and a mere IDR600 for children below 12.

Next we headed to Jakarta History Museum aka Fatahillah Museum. Housed in the former Stadhuys (Town Hall), the museum features memorabilia depicting the historical developments of the city. The entrance fee is similar to that charged by the Puppet Museum. I was amazed at the crowd; Indonesians really value their own history and culture.

It was almost noon when we emerged back into the sun. We took photos of the Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics, Post Office and Café Batavia before leaving the Old City.

We took a bajaj to Sarinah Department Store where we performed prayers, had lunch and did a bit of shopping. Then we headed to Plaza Indonesia – spent a longgg time there (who ever knew my nephew could shop? And took a much longer time than me? I’m a quick shopper. Serious.). Our last pit-stop was Grand Indonesia where we had dinner.
We returned back to the hotel by taxi and turned the TV on in time to see Malaysia score their first goal against Indonesia in the first leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup!!! Malaysia went on to win the match 3-0.

Monday, 27 December 2010

We woke up early today as our destination today was the Safari Park near Bogor. Anita joined a tour while I decided it was something I could do on my own. Besides, I read that the traffic jam heading to the highlands where the park is could be horrible. So el niño and I took a cab to Gambir station and bought Pakuan Express tickets to Bogor. The train was late in arriving though; we waited more than half an hour but once it came, we managed to get good seats and the train ride was comfortable. It took only 55 minutes to reach Bogor. We also met a few Malaysian students doing their medical degree in Jakarta who were also heading to Bogor for their term break.

I read that we could ride an angkot to the Safari Park but little did I know the park was quite far from Bogor town itself. So we hopped on ojek (motorbike taxies) and rode to the park. One advantage is you beat the traffic jam of course. Parts of the road were closed in sequence to allow traffic to flow – you could travel for some miles before being stopped and the traffic from the opposite direction be allowed to move. Then they get stopped and you resume your journey. Motorbikes, however, are allowed to continue and not subjected to this partial ‘road closure’. Despite this, it still took us an hour to get to the park. If we had taken an angkot or a car, it probably would have taken us two hours to get there and I’d be nursing a headache after being stuck in a vehicle that long in the heat.

We bought tickets and walked in to the bus area. If you come to the park by public transportation, you can ride the park bus around the park. Animals are left free to wander around the park (except for the carnivores – tigers, lions and even bears, which are left in their own gated area) and you can feed the animals from your car. The tour ended maybe 45 minutes later and we were free to roam the park.

It started to drizzle shortly after but I came prepared with raincoats so we were not too bothered by the rain. We went to the baby zoo where we took pictures with some animals (each visitor needs to pay only IDR10,000 for each animal they want to take pictures with). El niño was so excited and wanted to try out some rides (*sigh*); thank God it was raining or he’d ride even more than those he eventually did.

I read quite a few reviews saying that the safari park is wayyy better than the zoo in Singapore and the crowd was a good indication of the popularity of the park. We caught glimpses of the dolphin show (there were just too many people!!!) and after exploring a bit more of the grounds, reluctantly found our way back to the ojek drivers for our ride back to Bogor.

We reached Bogor train station just in time to pay the ojek drivers, buy train tickets back to Jakarta and board the train. The train left the station at 3.35 pm and we reached Gambir station at 4.30 pm. We hailed a cab back to the hotel and rested.

Dinner was had at the nearby Pasar Festival.

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Anita joined another tour to Bandung today so we agreed to do our shopping together the next day. So today, el niño and I took a cab to Plaza Senayan (it was shopping day today!). We passed Gelora Bung Karno Stadium (where the second leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup Final between Indonesia and Malaysia would be held) and saw a lot of vendors selling Indonesian football jerseys etc outside the stadium. We also saw a lot of people queuing – I’m not sure if they were queuing for tickets because surely the tickets had been long sold out? We shopped, performed prayers, window shopped and had lunch at Plaza Senayan. I was quite please as I finally managed to get my Cesc t-shirt - it cost more than the one I saw in Isetan earlier (I didn’t get it then as it was in L-size) but had a 30% discount. Then we crossed over to Senayan City. It has more or less the stores at Plaza Indonesia anyway so we left before long and headed to Plaza Indonesia.

Wednesday, 29 December 2010

All three of us shared a bajaj this morning and headed for Tanah Abang. I was only planning to get simple prayer attires for myself and Akak. Anita managed to find good deals (she really bought a lot!) and we ended up at Tanah Abang for more than two hours. After that, we headed to – yup, you guess it – Plaza Indonesia to continue our shopping. El niño and I crossed over to Grand Indonesia before returning to Plaza Indonesia for our late lunch.

We left before 5 pm and were stuck for more than an hour in the crawl. I suspect the cabbie was not familiar with our hotel location as he took a different route and as a result, we got caught in the after-office traffic jam. On the other side of the road, we could see vans and buses and even trucks ferrying Indonesian supporters to the stadium in Senayan.

Malaysia lost 1-2 after leading but won the Cup on aggregate. Congratulations Team Malaysia!!! I’m so proud of you. I didn’t realise we actually have young players who could play football well ;')

Thursday, 30 December 2010

Well, our stay had come to an end today. I woke up missing Mummy terribly. Anita left early bringing her bags down to the luggage room as she joined another city tour today. El niño and I checked out at 10.30 am and took the bajaj to Plaza Indonesia. There was an area called Miniapolis at Level 3 and el niño wanted to ride the train (what is it about boys and trains??!!). We had lunch at Grand Indonesia before heading back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we went for a massage (we had earlier scouted for spas in Plaza Indonesia. I could get two massage sessions at the hotel for the price charged at the spa in Plaza Indonesia!).

We met up with Anita at the lobby at 4.10 pm and went to the pre-arranged vehicle for our ride to the airport. We reached the airport an hour later and dropped off our bags. The flight was bound for Amsterdam with a transit and cabin crew change in KL. We landed 20 minutes before schedule and yet our bags only appeared at 10.46 pm so el niño and I had to run, run, run to the KLIA transit station for our 10.52 pm train. I dropped off el niño at Putrajaya station where he waited for his family to come and continued on alone to KL Sentral. Abah came to pick me up and I was home by midnight.

So that was my year-end trip. I hope you had a great holiday too!

One fine day, I hope I can go on a safari in Africa like these lads Where you can practically reach out to pet the jungle cats

And have giants like these tailing behind. One fine day, insyaAllah

The Year That Was - 2010

2010 was another mixed year for me. There were great and not-so-great moments, happy and sad times, journeys made and trips cancelled, friends made and re-acquainted with… all the things that make up the year that was. I lost two family members during the year and this sort of makes the year looked a bit bleak to me.

I managed to continue travelling to new and re-visiting have-been-to cities, a recap of which is as follows:

January
1) Went to Kota Bharu for a short weekend trip with my parents
2) Re-visited Saigon during the FT Day weekend and came back on FT Day

February
1) Celebrated Chinese New Year in Langkawi with my parents
2) Met up with Delia in Brunei for a short weekend at the end of the month

March
A short weekend trip to Krabi

April
Had to cancel a trip with my parents as Mummy was not feeling well. As luck turned out, Big Brother passed away too and had we gone on the trip, we may not have returned in time for the funeral.

May
Lin and I flew to Paris and flew out on the same day to Rīga where we met up with Fifi. The three of us then flew to Moscow where we stayed for two nights. We then took a night train to St Petersburg for another two nights before flying back to Europe via Cologne-Bonn. We parted ways at CGN and Lin and I continued on to Morocco.

June
Lin and I flew out of Casablanca to Paris and stayed for three nights before flying back home.

July
1) Met up with Audrey and Andrea on the fourth of July weekend. Stayed on and celebrated my birthday in Manila
2) Made a day-trip to Singapore to check out the Great Singapore Sale. Wasn’t expecting much but still managed to spend.
3) Flew to Jogjakarta with Mummy; Abah decided not to come as he was not feeling well. This turned out to be my last trip with Mummy ;’(

August
Celebrated Merdeka weekend in Jakarta and Jogjakarta with Andrea

September
Headed back to Vietnam and this time visited Central Vietnam (Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue) before flying back to Saigon

October
No travel plans this month as I was busy preparing for an event

November
Cancelled my north-bound train trip due to the floods in the northern states and because it was too soon after Mummy’s departure ;’(

December
1) Set foot in North Sumatera (Medan, Parapat, Samosir Island, Brastagi)
2) Took my niece to Hong Kong as part of her UPSR reward
3) Took my nephew to Jakarta

I watched less movies last year and tried to catch up on DVDs I borrowed from Audrey but failed.

I managed to up my reading to 52 books, averaging a book a week. This despite taking only a novel to Europe in May/June and three weeks to finish a novel after Mummy left. Alhamdulillah. I hope to keep reading a book a week this year. i would love to read more but can’t promise I can do it what with work commitments and household chores.

One sick leave this year, alhamdulillah, although I have been feeling some discomfort in my neck area. Probably some stressed neck muscles. Hopefully. I must remember to visit the dentist earlier this year and do it again after six months. Must continue eating healthy food, shunning processed food and taking supplements. Must, must, must take good care of myself, my health and my skin.

And of course, as I’ve mentioned, I lost two family members, my Big Brother and my dearest Mummy. I miss her more and more each day and sometimes so acutely.

It’s a whole new decade, a whole new year, a whole new week and a brand new day awaits each day. It’s hard for me to get enthusiastic when I think of a whole new stretched out before me, this time without Mummy in it ;’( Oh Mummy, I miss you terribly.

Anyway, I hope we’ll all have a happy, prosperous, successful and happier new year.