Saturday with Ben

AhMay wanted to have a look at Ah Ben's shocking hairstyle.. So this is it.. He no longer looks like lion, hahaha..

Ben Siu had sorethroat on Friday with super sexy voice on Friday night - but after some secret remedies (lorenges and ice cream), his voice improved much on Saturday morning.. So we continue on with our food parade on Saturday.

This is our late brunch for the day. Ding Bian Hu/ 鼎邊糊. Wow.. I didn't expect Ben to be so fluent in Foochow (cos mostly only those from Sibu or Sarikei speaks Foochow dialect. (Yours truly can speak foochow also although I'm not foochow)

After brunch, we went jalan-jalan for a while in Kuching Waterfront, snapping photos here and there, looking around in the souvenier shops and later we sat down for a drink at the riverside :)

Later in the late afternoon, we went for another round of food.. This is Sweet Noodle. *Ahem* The noodle is really sweet.. This is the first time I ate such noodle :P

Fruit Rojak. Quite similar to Penang Rojak, unlike the previous sweet Sarawak Rojak that I have many years back (the one that I used to have in the past tasted sweet).

Ais Kacang with Santan/Coconut Milk. I opted for santan instead of evaporated milk cos I never have ais kacang with santan before. :P

After food, we went for a brief walk in Satok Market. Hahaha, wanted to search for the Sago Worms but too bad, we can't find any. Bought lotsa local biscuits, cookies, kuih and local delicacies :P The weather was hot.. Sweating like mad :P We had iced Coconut juice mixed with sugar cane juice and bought few BBQ jagung with honey before heading back home :)

Thursday Night Fever

Yesterday night, I had great fun io ka chng meeting up with ah ben and miracle8. We waited for miracle8 inside Room Two-O-Five in Padungan. While waiting, I showed Ben my photos on my Palm TX (including my family photos, my cute doggy and the bloody operative field photos).

Hahaha, Ah Ben drew something inside my PDA as well.. Cute boh his drawing? ;)

We had a great time chi chatting while waiting for Miracle8 to arrive. The poor gal was busy with her work. We ordered drinks while waiting.. I had mocha while Ben had Iced Green Tea with Lime..but he was given something that looks similar to Iced Lemon Tea instead :P

Oyster with Salsa. Pssss.. tell u something... Ah Ben tak makan oyster. He told me the story how he struggle to swallow the raw oyster in the past :P

Miracle8's Lamb Shank

My BBQ squid with sambal. Didn't manage to take photo of Ben's BBQ beef cos yours truly was busy slurping oyster at that moment :P By the time I finish slurping, Ben was half way eating his food liao.. LOL

That was not the end yet..After hihi haha & making lotsa noise in Room 2-O-5 for almost 3 hours, we went for second round in Hui Sing Garden.. The last time I came here was way back in 1999 (went there together with my ex colleagues when I worked in Sarawak General Hospital in the past).

The delicious and mouth watering sinful Satay Babi aka Pork Satay.

White Lady? - Pineapple juice + Mango juice + evaporated milk + longan + pineapple cubes + whatever lah.. Hahahha... since i never tried this before, I gave that a try :) Miracle8 & Ben, thanks for the nice company and great food.

Greetings from Sarawak

Greetings from Sarawak, the Land of Hornbills. Reached KL around 9 something yesterday. Exchanged few sms with Pink Cotton while I was inside McD, having my breakfast. I told her I will hop to Coffee Bean later to keep myself busy while waiting for my flight from KL to Kuching.. Well, time flies pretty fast..

Saw the winding & tortuous muddy river? Yeah, the plane was going to land soon.. Time to say Hello to Kuching.. Finally....

What I have for late lunch? None other than Sarawak Laksa.. Saw the 4 huge prawns (besides the other normal ingredients ie shredded chicken, eggs, taugeh etc)? Huge servings compared to the hawker food in Penang. Yes... I have bilin jungle fern and few other dishes for dinner yesterday night together with my family...

Balik Kampung

In few hours time.. I will be back home liao.. The last time I went back to Sarawak was in November 2005. Time really flies, everything seems like yesterday...

Hahha, I haven't pack my things yet.. Will do the last minute packing in a short while (as usual).. Won't bring much stuff back home, but I will definitely bring my palm Tx, digicam, handphone & charger etc :P

U notice something? The smiley faces & the aeroplane icons... hahaha.. smiley face cos I'm happy (on leave & no need to wake up early to go to work, of course happy lah...) I keep all my important appointments inside my PDA with Agendus Pro. Lotsa time I put an icon together with the date & time of the appointment, so that it is easier for me to glance on the monthly calendar.

Oops.. need to wake up at 5 am tomorrow morning....

I want to eat .......

In less than 2 days time, I will be back home, to the Land of HornBills aka Sarawak... My Home Sweet Home :)

I want to eat....
* my mama's home cooked food
* Bilin Jungle Fern (a must !!!!! something not to be missed !!!)
* Kam pua Noodle/干盘面
* Pien Neek/扁肉
* Kompia/光餅
* Ting Bian Hu/ 鼎邊糊
* Sarawak Laksa
* Kueh Chap/粿汁
* Lui Cha (Hakka vegetarian food). Would like to try out this stall recommended by unker :)
* might be Kolo Mee ?? (Not my favourite... but no harm eating).
* the yellow-orange Native Brinjal/Iban Brinjal
* Bamboo Clam aka ambal
* Sarawak Acar (slurp)
* Sarang Semut (don't worry, I am not eating the ants' nest. This is the name of one of the local snacks..)
* what else? MMmmmm....

Hope can eat some of the local Sarawak fruits too - Jungle durians, local Sarawak longans etc.. Dunno available or not.. I haven't eat these fruits for more than 5 years... Aiyks... Nostalgia

Interesting Medical Eponyms

I have mentioned about McDonald Sign recently...

There are several interesting signs or syndromes in Medicine or Medical Eponyms, such as..

Angel's Sign (Angel, syiok boh? Your sign woh.. but what issit about??)
Basically, it refers to performing otoscopic examination while the patient blows against a pinched nose. This increases sensitivity of otoscopy for detection of perforated tympanic membrane by demonstrating fluid or pus in external auditory canal.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome - sounds very comical, huh? Apa tu?
It means disturbance of one's view of onself with disruption of the sense of passage of time - basically means distorted space, time and body image. There is another different syndrome called Chesire Cat syndrome.

PSAS (Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome) - This sydrome always reminds me of "someone", who always has orgasms, hahahha... u know who u are, right? ;)
PSAS results in a spontaneous and persistent genital arousal, with or without orgasm or genital engorgement, unrelated to any feelings of sexual desire. In particular, it is not related to hypersexuality. I read about an article regarding a patient who suffers up to 300 orgasms a day.

Marfan syndrome = sounds like ma fan/麻烦 (troublesome) to me.
This one is an inherited connective tissue disorder, and the one suffering from this disorder has arachnodactyly (long fingers) with armspan more than height, high arched palate and association with Aortic Incompetence, lens dislocation, etc etc etc.

Munchausen's syndrome = ini orang tak ada sakit, cari sakit pulak !! Ini dunia semua pun ada...
A factitious disorder or mental illness whereby a person repeatedly acts as if he or she has a physical or mental disorder. The patient feigns, exaggerates, or creates symptoms of illnesses in himself/herself to gain investigation, treatment, surgery, attention, sympathy and comfort from medical personnel.

Baker's cyst = reminds me of our baker's (ahmay) in the house :) Bila your next baking session?
also known as popliteal cyst; a collection of fluid resulting in swelling at the back of the knee joint, at the popliteal area.

Buerger's disease = sounds like Burger to me ...
The other medical terminology for this disease is endarteritis obliterans - inflammation of arteries, veins and nerves with thrombosis in middle sized arteries which might leads to gangrene, found in male smokers.

And the list continues, but yours truly lazy to type liao, cos sleepy liao ............

Food for the Day - Milk?

Winn hates milk. Angel dislikes milk. Day dreamer cannot take milk cos of lactose intolerance. Adoi.. why like that? Mmmm... but I LIKE milk. See? I'm different from the others. Lain daripada yang lain. I still remember Winn saying this in the past "I dunno why people always assume babies like milk and choke them with milk!! Babies hate milk. That explain why all the babies vomiting or burping milk right after feedings". Although she mentioned this long long time ago, but I still remember it clearly cos I like her so called hypothesis, hahaha....

Anyway, yesterday morning, I noticed I have 3 cartons of Daisy low fat milk (1 litre per carton) inside the fridge, expiry date on 7/8/06.. Err.. that means I need to consume all these milk products within 3 days... or in other words, 1 litre of milk per day. Cos I'm leaving Penang in 3 days time. Wah.. milk for breakfast, dinner & supper for 3 consecutive days ? Shouldn't be a problem since I like milk.

Okie, I have enough milk for the day.. Eat something nice in return.. The sinful Duck Egg Char Koay Teow bought from one of the popular smoking CKT hawker stall in Burmah Road (The CKT was fried along the five foot way in front of the coffee shop). Can't remember what is the name of the coffee shop, which serves nice laksa too. I opted for duck egg cos it made the CKT taste much nicer, and not forgetting the nice aroma... (hahah, of course more expensive too!!) The CKT was fried together with the sinful traditional lard, which made it much tastier, compared to using vegetable oil... And not forgetting the prawn, sotong aka squid, cockles, bean sprout etc... all for RM 3.50.

Clothes Tag

Pink Cotton really has NBTD (Nothing Better To Do)... Hahhaa, Cos she syiok-syiok went & created this ma huan clothes tag, hahahha... asking the victims lucky ones who kena tagged to post up the photos of the clothes he/she is wearing as he/she answers the tag.. Sounds easy, but at the same time.. consider difficult & leceh as well. Taking photos of the clothes that I'm wearing is not an easy task leh...

Since I have NBTD tonight, so I decided to do this tag :P These are the clothes I'm wearing right now..

My Dark Blue Cheetah T Shirt

Black Cheetah Shorts

Who to tag? I syiok-syiok juga nak tengok pakaian apa ni orang pakai... Nak jawab keh atau tak nak jawab pun tak apa... Remember, I tag you all cos I sayang you :P
1) Angel
2) Carcar
3) May
4) Cynthia (She knows I tag her cos I sayang her..)
5) Zeroimpact (The Ducky Lips Boiboi yang tengah merajuk)

My Bundle of Jewels

While I was taking photos of the beautiful sceneries, I noticed the bundle of jewels keys on the table - something which I carry together with me all the times when I'm outdoors. Since I was taking photo, I took a snap shot of the keys as well. Yeah, I know I carry lotsa keys together with me - Apartment door & gate keys, Office keys, Car keys, Locker key, Mailbox keys etc etc... 15 altogether :P Might be I should weigh all these keys... Wanna guess how heavy are all those keys (together with my mini torchlight key chain) ?

**Updated on 21/7/06 @ 11 am**
The weight is 170 grams (all the 15 keys + car remote control + mini torchlight key chain )

Will You?

I still remember during my intern or housemanship time in Orthopaedic Department (that was way back in 1998).. I was on call that day. (On call means I have to work and stay inside the hospital for 24 hours for that particular day & night followed by normal working hours the next day, which means working continuously for 34 to 36 hours. If lucky, then I can catch some rest or sleep in between).

I had a middle aged Malay patient in the Orthopaedic ward with diabetic foot and severe sepsis staying inside one of the isolation room. Normally if that isolation room was not occupied by any patients, I will use that room to rest at night time during my on call since I didn't have any other place to rest for the night. The patient succumbed one night cos of severe sepsis. Two days later I was on call in that ward. I was thinking... Should I or should not I slept on that bed in the isolation room? Hah, since there was someone who just passed away on that bed less than 48 hours ago. Mmm... If I didn't sleep or rest on that bed, then I had to either sleep on the chair or sleep at the counter (which was very uncomfortable) and I need to continue working the next day.

At last cos I was too tired, so I opted to sleep inside that isolation room- the same room, on the same bed, and the same pillow whereby there was someone who just passed away within 48 hours ago. Don't bother so much liao cos I was too tired to think of anythings... Well, I get called or paged on & off that night to see patients (new admissions) or to review cases, but no "disturbance" from the "uninvited guest" :)

I'm just wondering.. Will you sleep on the same bed in the same isolation room if you were in my position?

The Cute Prawn

Superior View or Cranial View : What the heck is this weird looking creature? Looks like an alien with 2 huge protruding eyeballs.. Definitely a good example of proptosis !! Let's have an anatomy class for this cute creature aka prawn or udang or hay or whatever u call it..

Lateral View : Big round eyes. I presume all living creatures with big round eyes are cute :)

Dorsal View or Posterior View : Mmmm... nothing interesting..

Ventral View or Anterior View : I wonder... does this little creature has any brain substance? or issit anencephaly? (which means tidak ada otak)...

Aiks.. forget to take photo from Caudal view aka Inferior view. What a waste !! So in conclusion, don't look at things only from one particular angle. You won't realise what you missed out in life if you have tunnel vision. LOL

Among all the different views, this one is the best... cos this is edible !! :D

Phobia

Lynxx left a comment saying the "Golden Chicken Plant" is the last thing on her mind if she ever wanted to plant something in the future cos she is alektorophobic. (Alektorophobia means fear of chicken).. Talking about phobia reminds me of another phobia, named hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Anyone knows what is Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia? Sounds canggih though.. It means irrational fear of long words.. Seeing this long word already made me phobia pening,.. LOL, Altogether, there are 36 alphabets in this super-duper canggih-manggih word. Don't ask me how to pronounce the word; it sounds like a tongue twister to me. :P

Basically, there is a long list of officially recognised phobia.. It is possible to develop fear toward almost anything under the sun. One thing for sure is... Those who are reading this now surely won't have Cyberphobia (which means irrational fear of computers or technology) or else you won't sit in front of the computer staring at the monitor !!!

What Plant is This?

Maymay, this is the weird plant I told u earlier on :)

This is the only plant that I have in da house. This plant that doesn't looks like a plant. No green element... No chlorophyll.. Frankly speaking, it looks more like an animal to me.. LOL The "leaves" indeed looks like fur... Not only it looks like fur.... It gives me the feeling that I was petting the animal's coat of fur when I touched it.. Mmmm...

Anyone knows what is the name of this plant? I dunno what is the actual name or the identity of this weird plant but I call it as Golden Chicken Plant, hahaha.. Cos to me, it looks like ayam from afar with gold-coloured feather... Hahaha... So far, I have seen this plant two or three times only.. I bought this in Cameron Highland in 2005.

My PDA, Palm TX

In medicine, PDA = Patent Ductus Arteriosus = persistence of a normal fetal structure between the left pulmonary artery and the descending aorta beyond 10 days of life. To others, PDA is the abbreviation for Personal Digital Assistant. I carry my PDA with me wherever I go :) Angeliu wants to have a look at my new toy new PDA, so here it is...

I just get myself a new toy gadget few days ago - Palm TX for RM 1120 with free gift - 512 MB SD card. I guess this is a good deal? I know PC fair is coming soon but I won't be in town at that moment.. This PDA has 128 MB of nonvolatile memory, of which 114.8 MB is user accessible. Just one thing I don't like is the start button. Well, it has integrated built-in bluetooth & wifi, but I have yet to explore these functions. I like the silver, elegant looking stylus. Earlier on, I was thinking whether or not to get the LifeDrive .. At last I didn't cos it is much more bulky, heavier & lag in startup.. Although it has a 4GB microdrive, but the internal RAM is only 64 MB.

My PDA serves as a faithful medical reference tool to me, besides keeping important appointments, contacts etc... I have installed several medical applications and handbooks. Some of the useful programmes I have inside there are Medical Eponyms, MedCalc, Epocrates, drug reference, Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine etc. It's my play station - I used to play games with it too (Bejeweled, BigMoney, BookWorm, CandyCrunch, Fruit Frolic, Insaniquarium, Solitare, SuperBounce, TextTwist, WhatWord, Reversi etc etc). Hahha, I sketch & draw inside my PDA too at times... It serves as my calculator, clock and MP3 player as well ...

Palm TX is my third PDA. The first one I have was Palm Vx (bought in year 2000) followed by Palm Zire 71 (bought in May 2003). My previous Palm Zire 71 (with built in camera) is still functioning well, after using it without fail for the past 3 years... just that it has very limited internal RAM (16 MB & only 13.8 MB is user accessible). Not all softwares or applications can be installed inside the memory card, especially some of the medical programmes.. Previously I used 256 MB SD card for Palm Zire 71. I'm still keeping all these gadgets... Not for sale & Not for give away too :P

I am now busy beaming and installing new programmes, applications and softwares in my PDA & the 512 MB SD card...

p/s: Angeliu.. Don't feel so sad over the missing jacket.. the thief very jahat, steal your jacket in split of seconds...

Happy Birthday, Ben

15th July is our Ben Siu's Cow One (牛一) aka Birthday. Wah.. Ah Ben big boy liao.. 19 years old liao..

A modified birthday song specially composed for the birthday boy..

Happy birthday to Ben,
You live in a Den,
You look like a Lion
And you act like one too.

Happy 19th Birthday Ben
生日快樂

Ah Ben, I wish u many happy returns...
And hope u have a successful performance in the coming international "ocipala" conference (No io ka chng though, LOL)

Food Sign in Medicine

I guess not many (with exception of those working in medical field) realise there are several signs or diseases with food related name in medicine . There are certain pathological conditions which resemble various types of food, hence that is how the name arise.

Conditions which resemble :
1) meat dishes -
*sausage finger,
*hamburger sign,
*anchovy pus,
*egg shell calcification.

2) fruits -
*berry aneurysm,
*apple core lesion,
*nutmeg liver,
*strawberry naevi,
*pear shaped bladder,
*banana sign,
*lemon sign.

3) vegetable -
*hyperplastic onion skin,
*cauliflower ear,
*celery stalk metaphysis.

4) drinks -
*port wine stain or hemangioma.

5) dessert, cake, bread etc -
*chocolate cyst,
*honeycomb lung,
*swiss cheese endometrium,
* bread and butter pericarditis,
*donut sign,
*omental cake,
*popcorn calcification,
*rice grain calcification,
*cottage loaf sign,
*pancake vertebra,
*licked candy stick appearance.

6) condiments, cutlery etc -
*coffee bean sign,
*dinner fork deformity,
*champagne bottle deformity,
*salt & pepper calvaria,
*champagne glass pelvis.

And the list continues.... Hope you enjoyed the Buffet of Food Signs and I hope nobody is salivating... Google if you are interested to know more about the sign or the associated disease... I am lazy to write the details here, and furthermore, the details are hypnotizing...

Btw, there is one medical condition by the name McDonald sign - whereby the uterine corpus and the cervix can be be easily flexed on each other due to softening of the uterus at the junction between the cervix and the fundus during the first trimester of pregnancy.

My buffet of food for the night : McDonald Sign McDonald fastfood !!

French Fries

Coke

Spicy Beef Foldover

Ahmay said I should get some real food for dinner instead of McD.. Never mind lah, I only take fastfood once in a blue moon.. The last time I visited McD is few months back liao ;)

Jewish Cemetery, Penang

I visited the Jewish Cemetery few weeks ago. Perhaps the Jewish Cemetery in Penang is the only known Jewish Cemetery in Malaysia. Strong cast iron gates marked with the words "Jewish Cemetery" guard one's entrance to the cemetery. The gates are closed but will be opened upon request.

The magnificient tall building in the background is none other than KOMTAR.

The Jewish Cemetery is very well taken care off by the caretakers. There are tombs of different interesting shapes and sizes. The tombs have been shaped to resemble ossuaries.

The Triangular-shaped Tombs. There are houses and shoplots next to the cemetery.

Broken stones with partially visible inscriptions..

At first glance, these tombs look like cows (I mean the wet cement patches on the tomb).

One of the older tomb, dated back to 7 March 1876.

The photo shooting session ended prematurely cos of the sudden heavy downpour. AFAIK, the earliest grave dated back to 1835, but too bad I didn't manage to take a snapshot of that grave cos of the heavy rain.

Chicken Wing

This is what I had for dinner tonight - Chicken Wings (or should I call it as late dinner? or more appropriately to call it as early supper? Cos by the time I finished cooking, it was already late at night)..

Taiping Zoo (13) : Elephant

One of the animals that I love to spend time looking at inside the zoo are the elephants... Notice the little baby elephant and the toddler elephant?

What caught my attention is the pair of the lovely mother elephant & baby elephant..

Mother & baby elephant standing side by side.. Eating grass?

The baby elephant was thirsty.. He bent down & sucked the water from the pool with his little baby trunk.

The baby elephant blowed the water sucked with his trunk into the mouth ( Well, well... elephant's trunk is not a drinking straw. The elephant will fill the trunk with water and then use it as a hose to pour the water into the mouth).

Mummy Elephant playing with baby elephant.. teasing the baby elephant with her trunk.

Baby elephant manja back with his mother.. touching the mother elephant with his baby trunk.

Loving and affectionate elephants..

Mmmmm... on closer view... Aiyak, the baby elephant even though still young, has so much wrinkles liao :P Kulit berkedut-kedut... Definitely need to apply lotsa lotsa body lotion, hahhaa.... Anyone want to sponsor body lotion for this cute little baby elephant? ;)