The Princess will be off soon for an island holiday and only will be back next year. Here's wishing all a happy and prosperous New Year (She could use the prosperous bit). Till then, be good and try not to get too naughty at the party, a'ight.

Whoot! You know you're so back in KL when the Maxis billboard greets you at the airport. And also the many touts hanging around KLIA lar.

It's so great to be home. The Princess was chatting to Ken Lee just now when it started to rain. While everyone was rushing to close the windows, she was opening the windows. The smell of rain wafted in. The mixture of heat evaporating from the tar road and the earthy smell of soil with a hint of grass (and some smog lar) was so familliar and therefore, comforting. Before, she would have been turned off by the smell but now, she actually wished the rain could last longer. As Ken Lee said, "Travel all over the world, but it's the rain that amazes you. Sakai". No Ken Lee, not the rain that amazed her, but the place where it took place that made all the difference.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Actually, just trying out some CS2 brushes The Princess just found. How, chun bo?

Please allow The Princess to rant for awhile. She's not a racist, but there's something about Tau Si Yu aka Fried Black Dace (Indians lar) that makes you just want to hate them. Now, before you start firing on all cylinders, please note she's talking about those Indians from Mother India working in The Sandpit. Now she knows she's going to get extremely unpopular for this, but these Tau Si Yu really have attitude problem. Mind you, she has met a few very nice Indians (as rare as you and I striking 4D). However, the majority are just plain lazy, inconsiderate and satu macam. The worst is, The Sandpit seems to be infested with the worst kind!

They will NEVER answer your questions in a straight forward manner. For example, a taxi driver:

"My friend, do you know the way to Nirvana?"

"Keleng keleng keleng *shake head* keleng *shake head* keleng...."

"Huh? Do you know or do you don't?"

"No problem. Keleng keleng *shake head*"

And once you get on the taxi, he would take you a for ride, finally dropping the bomb saying he didn't know the way. Come on, if you don't know something, just say it. Do not give out the wrong information, or beat around the bush.

And the way they work. Oh my, they're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter jam. Like today, The Princess was mightily pissed off. She was at the office to buy tickets. Pressing the queue number dispenser, she found it not working. And so she asked the worker (majority are Indians) and he answered somewhere along the line the machine was switched off as it's near to closing time (Hello? Office closes at 4pm, that time was only 2.30pm?). And so The Princess waited patiently for those with a number to finish their business first before going ahead and buy her tickets. But, more people came (for sure you dumbass, as it was still too early to close) and like The Princess, loitered around the area waiting. And these Indians without number, cut queue! Look, you can get all chummy just because you have the same skin colour, but you still need to line-up.

God forbid if you're Indian AND holding EU/UK/US passport. They would announce to everyone and anyone who care to listen. Poor crew is asking for your meal preference, not what passport you hold (The Princess once talked about this here).

Enought rant. Now don't hate her, OK?

Something unusual is happening in The Sandpit. It bloody rains everyday. Continuosly for some days, even. As a result, the temperature plunges, sometimes to 14°C. Pardon her ignorance, The Princess knew the desert can get pretty cold (especially at night) in winter, but not THIS cold. And what with all the rains (it rained a grand total of 3 times last year), but this year it's crazy. Good luck to The Sandpit for coping with the irrigation system, because the last she checked, there was not one drain that's fit to be called, well, a drain.

On another thought, The Princess can't wait for Christmas to come, because she'll be going home on the 25th for 15 days. Yay! She has been working so hard it's time for some well-deserved break and teh tarik sessions. And a round or two of drinking thrown in for good measure, of course.

The Princess and Ken Lee could do and talk about the most nonsensical stuff, as if they're the most natural thing in the world. Take yesterday, for example. They were watching some Chinese MTVs (on DVD, the TV is spoilt, again) at around 3am-ish. Out of the blue, The Princess decided to sing along to the MTV, but in English instead. Ken Lee found it so amusing she forced poor Princess to sing the ENTIRE song. The trouble is, The Princess is Chinese-illiterate, so Ken Lee would read out the lyrics and The Princess had to translate them into English. It was no easy task, OK. Her brain was racing trying to find the suitable words so that in the end, the same line in English has the same number of syllables in Chinese, before the singer starts singing the next line!

And this is what they did in Manila.

On one of those rare occasions where you get to fly with your housemate, something MUST happen to put a thwart to it. First, the aircraft went all hysterically technical. Then crewing went hysterically incompetent (not that they were ever competent). How else do you explain telling your crew to operate SIN at 9.00 am and NOT telling them of their roster changes until 10 mins before pick-up time? And Princess MoMo was way faster in informing The Princess of the roster changes while she was busy preparing herself for the supposedly SIN flight.

As they say, let bygone be bygone, at the least crewing gave her a long Manila instead. The was the second time she was in the capital of The Phillipines. Manila was not a pretty city, but what it lacks in look it makes up in character. Filipinos are such a bunch of friendly and hospitable host. Everywhere you go, you're greeted with "Good morning, Ma'am" or "Thank you' Ma'am" with such enthusiasm The Princess felt like lifting their blouses to check whether they're running on Duracell.

There's not much sighseeing to do in Manila, but the shopping is quite good. And oh boy, on this trip it was even better as Christmas sale was going on. The Princess gets her supply of wrappers, gift cards, and gift boxes from Manila (as fated, she always get sent to Manila in Dec). Mind you, these wrappers and cards are from Hallmark and they only cost a fraction of what you'd get in Malaysia.

Food wise, some food taste similar to Chinese food (as there are a percentage of Filipino of Chinese origin). On the first day itself, Ken Lee couldn't wait to grab hold of Crispy Patha (whole pork knuckle deep-fried till crispy). Suffice to say Mama Tju would have a heart attack just looking at this plate of cholesterol-laden dish. Filipino food tend to be on the sweet side. The Princess once asked her Pinoy friend why is it so. Her reply: Because of all the tastes, sweet is the most pleasant one, so Filipinos simply love it. Don't know how true is that or she simply made it up.

At night, they Ken Lee decided to go for seafood dinner. A main course was ordered to be shared with 2 side dishes.






The red circle is used to highlight the stupidity of Ken Lee in displaying the date, AND the WRONG date at that.