22. work crazy.

I am currently working on a project that is under wraps. All I can tell you is that it will be launched in November :) You would never guess what it is. It's a little out of my comfort zone, so I'm trying my best not to be intimidated or scared shitless (it's a daunting task sometimes).

Here's me with Hafiz, one of my staff who will be working under me. He reads me blog so hellooooo. Work your ass off, ya! Hehe.

Here's me with Nazrin & D, post consultation and discussion for the project launch. I get asked a lot if it's weird working with my ex. Alhamdulillah, I think I've come to terms with the past and the best thing for me would be just to move on with my life. It's a bit weird at times but to me, business is business and you have to separate your personal life and professional life. You have to build a really thick skin and be strong-willed.

At the end of the day, for me it's about finding rezeki. It didn't just fall into my lap; I've always been self-sufficient and independent since I was 17, and for me it doesn't matter where the source is from, as long as it's legit and I'm earning from this. Who can say, at the age of 24, that they've launched two successful projects, both completely different from the core? Who says no to money and success? It works out different for different people, I guess :)

Here's a picture of me being completely silly at work :) I'm daydreaming on Doof beanbags about Brad Pitt or someone hunky, heh. Most likely.

19. a clash of cultures

Indonesian cuisine leaves one tastebuds miffed. It is always brimful of spices, salty, and most of the times, you can taste sugar in every dish. But all the food I've tasted thus far are delicious. Although it assaults your tongue in all ways delectable, so you can't really consume much of it, only a little.

This is kelapa susu manis. It's essentially the coconut flesh in fresh coconut juice, mixed with bendera kental manis (condensed milk) and gula Melaka (palm tree syrup sugar). In my humble opinion, this drink was so delicious, much better than jus alpukat (avocado juice). Just thinking about this refreshing drink is making me salivating. Drool!

This is pisang karamel (caramelized banana). Oh my God, this dessert was absolutely delicious. It's essentially banana fried in a crispy, crunchy batter, and topped with grated cheese and drizzled with caramel and chocolate syrup. It should be eaten piping hot. 

This is one of Indonesia's signature dish, bakso. This was from a restaurant called Bakso Malang (unlucky bakso). It's essentially meaty beefballs served in a delicious broth, sometimes with noodles, tofu pieces and so forth. Topped with their spicy chilli-soya-sauce, you could be enjoying a tantalizing mix of fiery, wholesome beef in your mouth. 

As the saying goes, When In Rome, Do As The Romans Do. In this case, when in Palembang, eat as the locals do. The top dish is a popular Indonesian dish called ikan terbang or "flying fish". My god, it was cooked perfectly; crispy on the outside, moist chunks of fish on the inside (you can see my father's impatient fingers in the picture). The bottom is kepiting masak lada hitam (crab in black pepper sauce). You know it's good spicy when you're gasping for water but you're still holding onto the crab. These dishes are from a popular restaurant, Riverside Restaurant.

The gorgeous view from Riverside Restaurant. Clear, sunny skies. What a beautiful sight to see.

18. a little change of air never hurt anyone.

For the first time in almost a year of working, I applied leave for almost a week *gasps*. Work is fun, but it was time for me to reconnect with my family, and finish off those to-do-lists after procrastinating for so long. The perfect opportunity came when my mom told me that my brother and sis-in-law, along with their 6 month old son, would be doing an aqiqah-cum-cukur-jambul ceremony in my sis-in-law's hometown at Palembang, Indonesia. I was lucky my leave was approved, as I would be leaving during a very hectic and time hurrahh!

I haven't been on an aircraft for a year (the last was Langkawi in September 2011... eww bad memories) and for my journey, I hoped to seek some inner peace, tranquility, serenity boring blahness.

When I was on the plane, there was a few seconds of turbulence where the plane kind of swooped down for a few seconds, and in that few seconds, a face immediately came to my mind. I don't know if I'll see that face again but that person means a lot to me. If it's up to Him above, God willing, it will happen. Or not, haha!

The beauty of the world from high above was breathtaking. It reminded me that we are all just tiny pieces in the scheme of the universe. That the only constant in our lives are change and our period of mortality, coming to a stop sooner or later. It's up to us to roll the dices of happiness in our hands. Though, we are all mere mortals and our temper, jealousy, and impatience are our shortcomings that will eventually lead us to our inevitable self-creation of unhappiness. 

So try to chip away those negativity, and live life with no regrets. If today was your last, what would you have done differently? Slept less? Say "I love you" to the one who matters? Eat whatever? Pray on your knees, forever? Everybody has their own keys to unlock being happy :)

17. rainbow sweetness.

I talk a bit too much about work sometimes. So here's a blog post for Sue :) I used to work at Nuffnang - great place, and I still keep in touch with some of my ex-colleagues, meeting up with them for dinners and such things from time to time.

We all met at Frontera, Jaya One to celebrate Sue's birthday :) I finally met her significant other. They both seemed very sweet together, sharing food together and all. Then I received a surprising news. :0 What is it? If you're still following my blog next year... you'll know :)

The rainbow cake from Lola was very very cute, can I have one for my birthday? I want to blow out candles to rainbow layers of wishing this and that.

It's always great to meet these girlies (plus Victor, ex-Nuffnanger I met after I left). It's always great to meet Anne and Thara (hot mama-to-be) whenever I can. Nowadays I'm super busy, cos I'm doing my full-time job and I'm handling two side projects. So yep, it's a little hectic! But I'm gonna try and stick to blogging daily (*snorts*).

That's me and boredom whilst waiting for a super long traffic light on the way to work. Nothing to do with driving recklessly; I've timed this traffic light to perfection every day on the way to work (3 minutes of doing nothing).

16. lights, camera, action

This week, the Bajugraphy team have been thrusted under the spotlight. We had a shoot for TV3's Nona on Monday, a team photoshoot on Tuesday, and on Friday we will be appearing in a newspaper :) We are also running a competition with friendlyfashion.my, which is super awesome.

Outtakes from team photoshoot.

When people ask us about what we think about our competitors, honestly, to me, there's no such thing as competitors, only that there are other fashion businesses run by people who are passionate about it, just like us, and doing what they love. It's also healthy, because it forces you to continuously improve yourself and is a gentle reminder that hey, people will always have options.

Wacky, whimsical, crazy, that's who we are.

It's ultimately the people behind the business who makes it different. I don't think of any other fashion ventures as competitors, only as similar businesses. If everybody had that kind of selfish mindset then no businesses would not be able to thrive because every business would be monopolized by one entity.

BTW, the Bajugraphy team wants to give back to the community, so in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, from 19 - 31 October, we will be giving out homemade pink ribbons and donating RM 1 for every item purchased to National Cancer Society Malaysia. Join us in the fight against cancer :)

Say NO to Breast Cancer!

12. a little slice of heaven @ awan mulan

it was friday night; me and a group of friends had decided to visit a place in the middle of nowhere in seremban called awan mulan. following the directions of google maps, which took us everywhere through kampung roads, we finally ended up in said place. after 10 phone calls to friends who arrived there first, and 5 u-turns after realizing gps coordinates were a bit slow, we finally arrived to a quaint little bungalow on top a hill.

imagine a secluded little place to call your own, up in the hills. it's so perfect and cool. would you believe it, the above said picture was taken around 4 pm? (stolen from sha's camera). the featured star, the hammock, was later broken by big nas :(

the kitchen, living room and balcony/patio co-existed peacefully. we spent 70% of our time here. most of us even ended up bunking here.

the breathtaking scene because it really is that beautiful. the pictures don't do it enough justice. imagine this, just 180 degrees from left to right.

if you looked towards the right of the patio, you can see the top two floors of the bungalow. we occupied two rooms for fourteen people (eventually only 10 came).

amir, sarah and me. on our last day :( none of us wanted to go back. amir wanted to wake up at 7 to pick rambutans (succulent delicious fruits) but he ended up waking at 11 plus, fail.

with may and ikhsan, the awesome people that planned this trip. there was a lot of setbacks but thank you to these two for introducing us to this beautiful place ♥

with hawa in one of the toilets. see how beautiful it is? you shower under the open skies! hawa likes to photobomb people's photos idgi.

this is pup, the guy that broke our lovely hammock :( i didn't even get to sit on it, booo.

this is judge. thank god for his carton of cigs. the weekend was filled with just chilling, smoking, eating, laughing, drinking, eating, smoking and more smoking.

the dog that underwent so many name changes. eventually, the group decided on dobby. she's so adorable and friendly. she doesn't bark and is trained to sit outside the house.

i suppose the house is built on an 'organic', environment friendly concept. the materials we used was "raw:" (ok honestly idk wtf raw is supposed to mean but cemented floors, cemented sinks); recycle bins; no air cons (we didn't even turn on the fan - it was that cooling); lots of recycled materials used for decorations (like bottles as wall dividers), yanoe, that sort of thing.

part of the girl's bedroom (i didn't take the picture of the double bed). on friday night, i crashed in this bed for four hours. on saturday night, i ended up sleeping "fifteen" minutes (which eventually turned into 5 hours WTF) on the couch in the living room.

one of the beds overlooking the scenery in the guy's bedroom downstairs. can you imagine waking up to this every morning? perfect.

BBQ on a lazy saturday afternoon. the bbq-ed chicken teriyaki was awesome. the owners of this place were awesome; they gave us fresh papayas (which was mouthwateringly delicious - that's saying something cos I HATE papayas) and salad dressing.

the perfect pool. we spent saturday night swimming after the BBQ staring and gazing into the night sky. it was brilliant, you could see all the stars, a satellite (according to Sarah wtf) and maybe a planet.

lovely picture destroyed by amir's finger.

the sunset. you can't really see a spectacular sunset, especially with the mosquitoes biting you. but it was still nice to see the gradients of pink, blue and white mingle and crash into black.

our rented bungalow was called "teratak bonda". for fourteen people, two nights, each of us paid around rm 200++ which was quite okaylah considering the amount of serenity, peace and calm you'll get during this trip.

if you're interested, visit:

official web-site: http://www.awanmulan.com/wp/

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/awanmulan

e-mail: serenity@awanmulan.com

phone number: +60187020021 / +60122712260

PLEASE BEAR IN MIND:

1. try try try to travel by daytime. most of us travelled after work on friday night; the place is quite hard to find in daytime because of how deep it is located in the jungle, let alone nighttime. most of the roads are narrow, unlit and dangerous to travel by nighttime.

2. you can travel via GPS whatever, but the best route would be to just set your gps to kampung bharu pantai, ask where's the balai polis, go to the police station and ask them or the locals where is the chinese schools and malay schools. there's a road there that leads directly to awan mulan.

3. the couple, mr and mrs teng, recommended us to visit between april - june, as that's when autumn is, and all the trees will be yellow and beautiful. there's also durian season, i forgot when WTF. mr and mrs teng (and their son) are extremely lovely, gracious and patient people btw - thank you thank you for the sack of rambutans!

4. get all your bbq stuff/snacks/whatever before you enter this place. seriously. the nearest town for atm machines and stuff is like 30 minutes drive away. that's not counting the winding road all the way from awan mulan back to civilization.

5. please leave the place as you found it; spick and span. do consider others who will be staying there. there were other guests staying around us that night, but we put on soft music, so apologies if we did sound a bit crazy that night.

6. it's a place of serenity so yes. think book, cards, chilling, swimming. think of an escapade away from the city. i brought along one of george r.r. martin's books, a storm of swords, the 3rd book from a song of ice and fire collection but ended up reading only 3 pages -__-

7. there's an optional hiking expedition if you want to go. it's rm 70 per group and yes, you'll get bitten by leeches. a local will take you around the forest reserve and even the waterfalls. we opted for this option, but it was raining heavily so we decided to paddle around in a nearer and shallow pool/waterfall like a boss.

8. be aware of the fact that there are plenty of stray dogs around this area. i'm no dog expert but this trip was really perked up by the fact that the dogs were there. they're just so calming to pat and play with. i think these strays have already been trained not to attack you and not to enter the house. they're really friendly, and they don't bark or make noise.

i would not mind visiting this place again, simply for it's sheer simplicity, tranquility and serenity. god, i miss it already.

other blogger's take on awanmulan:

1. kinkybluefairy.net - nice instagrams and stories on the place.

2. crustz.blogspot.com - lots of pictures; you can see how the place is.

3. the-kins.blogspot.com - pictures of pool and hammock T__T

10. omelette du fromage?

i have always wanted to travel to paris. one of my wishes. many friends have sojourned to the romantic city of paris, only to return with the comment "yeah, it's beautiful, but it stinks!". like, literally stinks. i would not know.

i visited paris once when i was 10 years old. a kid. i remember visiting disneyland paris and the haunted house was really scary, with the eerily orange pumpkins grinning at you.

at least i get to visit a mini version of the eiffel tower. cardboard version. in malaysia, no less! i hope i'll see paris again. before i'm 30. need to start my own travel piggy bank!

p.s. if you want to visit this little homage to paris, the statue belongs to a quaint cafe called "allo paris!" in damansara perdana. opposite the street heading upwards to metropolitan square.

Just a glimpse

My awesome bro rocking his fake afro wig.

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4. from the getgo til the sundown.

Before I start my full-time, permanent job (and save up for that Eurotrip), I love the little things in life that makes you smile just for a second.

1. The beautiful sunset from my balcony.

It is breathtaking. And I get to see this every evening :)

2. Meeting up with people who have been away overseas studying

... and eating bbq chicken noodles that win at life. Welcome back Mayyyy!

3. Focusing more on the amazing bbq chicken wantan noodles.

I had more chicken than May's plate, hee. Yes, there will be plenty of food picture spam on my blog. Malaysian food is super-delicious. Mindblowing.

4. Witnessing my friends porking out.

Sarah and her pepperoni pizza. If she had told me she was too stuffed to eat it earlier instead of forcing it all away, I would have gladly eaten it.

5. Trying to be more original/eclectic with my style/dressing.

This is my casual day look. Top + leggings is F21, bag is H&M and thongs are from Vincci. Crazy frizzy hair optional (my hair straightener was vibing away electrical shocks). Sorry for the bad quality of the image, my phone is acting up :(

6. Poking Mazeltov endlessly and trying to feed it carrots/sunflower seeds.

Mazeltov bids you goodbye! Jumpa lagi!