Humourous Vegetables

These came from the email thread a few months ago. Can't help but smile when I read the puns and looked closely at the details of the images. Surreal!

Bangkok's Rubbery Restaurant

Four weeks ago, I was in Bangkok for back-to-back meetings. Every day presented with the customary full day meeting held at the Sheraton Sukhumvit followed by arranged dinners with different groups every night. Suffice to say, I didn't have much chance to explore the city except for a quick adventure with my boss on the first night.

It was over the satisfying seafood dinner when one of the participants suggested that my boss and I take a post-meal stroll to visit a nearby joint called Cabbages and Condoms. He had arrived much earlier in the day, gone out to explore and chanced upon this unique place. "Not to be missed" was his conclusion.

So with the mouth-watering tomyumgoong, delectable soft-shell crab in coconut marinade and other yummy dishes midway digested in our tummies, we both happily flowed with the nocturnal Sukhumvit pedestrian traffic and before long found ourselves greeted by this homely signage:

Still not quite fathoming how cabbages and condoms can co-exist, we stepped into a hallway and were greeted by condom-themed posters lining parts of the wall and lampshades made with real and colourful condoms decorating other parts of the hallway. On our left was a handicraft shop offering more creative products such as:

As we went further down the hallway, the restaurant came into view but what literally stood out was a gigantic Christmas tree at the reception area bedecked with um, yes, more condoms! Papa Christmas standing a few feet away was not to be left out with red and white rubbers completing his outfit.

The restaurant was a pretty magical place. Very tastefully done up and cosy enough to while away your time. But too bad we were still heavy from dinner or else we would have sat right down for supper!

According to its website, it's basically a restaurant but it's also a place that "promotes the health and safety aspects of condom use in a fun and amusing manner." The proceeds from the restaurant is used to fund programs by the Population and Community Development Association (PDA).

Indeed, this is a novel approach to spread the message of safe sex and of condom use.

If you happen to be in Bangkok, do check this place out at Sukhumvit Soi, 200 metres off Sukhumvit Road. Or if you just wanna play it safe (hehe, pun intended), visit their website at http://www.pda.or.th/restaurant/default.asp.

All pictures here are taken from the Cabbages and Condoms website as I didn't bring out my camera on that night (darn).

A Taxing e-Experience

I am feeling both relieved and frustrated. I had just filed my first income tax via https://e.hasil.org.my/ (yes, this is my inaugural e-submission). Am relieved because after 2.5 hours of intense self-assessment interspersed with the frequent need to re-login into the system and re-clicking through all the pages to get to the latest page I was working on, I finally completed the e-form.

I have no idea why the system was so intent in force-logging me out, like, after only ~2 minutes of idling. Perhaps it had something to do with security and the need to achieve one-third of what it promises (selamat = safe):

So was it also mudah and tepat (easy and precise)? I made sure that the auto-generated calculations were tepat for I will not in anyway allow the system to overtax me. But mudah it wasn't, due to the above-mentioned hitch and that I wasn't allowed to make payment online. There was a link to apparently do so but when I accessed it, filled in the details and clicked "agree", it just said (translated) "transaction limit exceeded... your transaction is unsuccessful", and ended with a chirpy "thank you for using our service."

Whoa, it's not like I had that much to pay up. My 2007 PCB (Potongan Cukai Berjadual, or monthly Scheduled Tax Deduction) had already taken away more than half the taxes for which I eventually was due to pay.

So what did this good citizen do next? I logged out of the site (voluntarily this time) , whipped out my cheque book and despite the evening drizzle, proceeded to march to the nearest CIMB Bank self-service outlet which is just a stone's throw from my place to pay my taxes. This bank is one of the two commercial banks which also functions as a payment centre on behalf of the Internal Revenue Board.

But alas, when I got there, I couldn't dispose of my cheque. There was supposed to be a special form for me to fill for tax payment but they ran out of it. The bank was also closed by then so I couldn't do anything but to brisk walk another 300 metres to Public Bank (the other payment centre) to try my luck. Well, no luck as there was also no special form in sight. And no form meant I couldn't fill it up and slip the cheque with it into the ATM.

I will have to either go again to either bank during transaction hours to get the human teller to pass me the slip or rely on POS Malaysia to deliver my cheque to the Pengarah Hasil Dalam Negeri (Internal Revenue Director). So much for wanting to fully complete my submission by today.

Positive Thoughts about Work

It is now Sunday evening, with another 12 hours or so to go before the work week begins in ernest. Drurry, drurry. But as much as I'm tempted to mope about the looming Monday blues and the heap of endless tasks awaiting me at the big-O (O for Office, that is), I won't. I shall channel my chi to reinforce all the good stuff there is about my job. Yes, call it "psyching myself up good till I lose sight of what's not so good."

To start, the company that I work for had moved to a new building complex in Oct 2007, which, in my opinion, is an improvement from the run-down environment I called office for the past 6+ years.

We are now based in PJ's Jaya 33 which houses some spiffy restaurants, a supermart and other convenient retail outlets. There is even a gym but that's the subject of another possible blog altogether. Across this building are more restaurants (with cheaper offerings), the post office, banks, bookstores, etc. It is certainly a plus point to have these amenities a short walk away so that I can have lunch or run errands (if any) and be able to get back to work in a jiffy.

What bout within the big-O itself? Well, I like the fact that all the furniture's new. Woohoo, the little joys in life! There are more windows, brightening up the place and affording me a generous view of the traffic and weather; that is, whenever I have the chance to look away from my laptop. We have a nursing room for breastfeeding moms, a surau and plenty of discussion/tele-conference rooms. I like where I sit too - in a very open concept system, I still have some privacy as I sit with my back facing the wall-window-pillar in a quasi corner, unlike some colleagues who are smack in the middle of the room with human traffic behind them.

It's a good thing I at least like the big-O set-up because goodness, I do spend about 12 hours a day, 5 days a week holed up in this place. So typing this up reinforces one good stuff about my job.

And may I have a productive work week ahead!

Welcoming YOU to My Realm

Dear Friend or Stranger,

Let it be known that although I hardly take myself seriously, I do take your visit to this blog very seriously... Hence, welcome and hope your time here will be worthwhile. But let it be known that as with thousands of existing bloggers, this space is created with ME in mind. It will be a monologue of rants, gushings, and what-nots which could bore you to an untimely death. You have been forewarned.

Welcoming Myself to the Realm of Blogging

Hello Audrey. Whadya know, you are now a proud owner of a humble little blog spot within the vast, unlimitless cyberspace. You would want this medium to be an avenue to store your written thoughts in the hope that when you revisit the contents and muse the context whence you had expressed them, you will be encouraged and stimulated (and hopefully not too embarrassed) that that had indeed been your journey of experiences. Welcome and happy blogging!