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| Sunday, 10-Feb-2008 21:42 |
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Macaroni & Cheese..
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Macaroni & Cheese nie masak malam tadi.. Memang sedap tapi rupanya taklah se-lawa macam MamaFami buat.. hehe..
Siang tadi we went to Cheryl's house at Putney. She & husband organised some small gathering for Chinese New Year celebration..
This photo was taken after we came back from Cheryl's house.. Style Qistinna pakai hairband.. Mamanya pakaikan elok2 dia tak nak, kononnya nak pakai sendiri. 
| Quote: | MACARONI & CHEESE
recipe from MamaFami
Ingredients :
110 g macaroni
1.25 litre water
50 g butter
40 g flour
425 ml fresh milk
175 g Cheddar cheese ~ grated
4 pieces chicken fillet ~ grilled and chop finely
50 g mushroom ~ sliced
1 onion ~ chopped
butter
salt
black pepper ~ crushed
2 tomatoes ~ cut to small pieces (I sliced it)
Method :
1. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to water and bring to boil.
2. Pour in the macaroni and boil for about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and strain.
3. In another pot, melt 50g butter and add in flour. Stir for about 1 to 2 minutes and pour in the milk, bit by bit. Cook for about 6 minutes.
4. Add in half the grated cheese and let it melt in the sauce.
5. Add in salt and black pepper to taste.
6. In a small pan, melt a bit of butter and saute chopped onion and mushroom till soft.
7. Mix well macaroni, sauce, onion, mushroom and chicken.
8. Pour into a well greased 1.25 liter casserole. Sprinkle the balance cheese and arrange the tomatoes on top.
9. Grill in the oven till golden brown on top. |
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| Sunday, 3-Feb-2008 20:15 |
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Celebrating Qistinna's 2nd Birthday Again..
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As promised, we celebrate Qistinna's 2nd birthday again yesterday. We bought her a nice birthday cake and celebrate just d 3 of us. Sorry darling, tak dapat nak buat birthday party this time. Mama tak larat. 
Time nak blow candle tue mama & baba nyanyila lagu 'Happy Birthday', menangisla pulak si kenit nie.. apadaaa... 
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| Monday, 28-Jan-2008 15:30 |
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More Visitors
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A week has goneby after our beautiful holiday to Los Angeles. Me & Qistinna had a jet lag for quite a few days, maklumlah duduk kat rumah and takde benda nak buat. Layan ajerla jet lag tue. Unlike Baba he had to adjust the time, since he had to go to work the coming Monday after we got back from L.A.
Supposedly Baba had to continue his audit work in Cambridge for another 2 weeks after L.A and of course me & Qistinna will be tagging along as well. Luckily Baba was pulled out from the job. He was given another assignment in London. Thinking of staying in a hotel for another 2 weeks and have to eat out again, it does de-motivate me. Yela 4 weeks straight (L.A & Cambridge) kena duduk kat hotel & makan kat luar.. Mana tahan woo.  Hehe.. Kalau break kejap, then I wouldn't mind..
Last week, we had visitors again. Best betul ramai orang datang rumah nie..  Before we went to L.A my cousin Kak Long & family from Birm came to stay at our place with her parents for 2 days. This time it was Cipoi, his wife and his in-laws who came and stay with us for 5 days. Cipoi used to study in the same university (UNITEN) as both of us only taking different courses. He's now doing masters in Manchester.
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| Monday, 21-Jan-2008 15:30 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Final Part
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Wednesday 16/1/08
We will be going home in 2 days time.  I had to start packing our stuff. Wouldn't know whether all the stuff that we bought will fit into our bags (byk giler barang.. haha). Well that's why I need to start packing today, so that can decide whether we need to buy an extra bag. Packed half of our stuff. Stress fikir macam mana nak masukkan semua barang nie, so I decided to take a break and go out to buy some chocolates to bring back home. Off we go to Ralphs and bought some hersheys  , reese, cadbury and not forgetting twinkies for baba.. We had instant Brahims again for dinner.. Rasa muak la pulak makan Brahims 3 days in a row..
Thursday 17/1/08
It is our 2nd last day here in LA, and baba rushed off early morning over to his client's place so that he could finish up his work and leave early. Since we missed Universal City Walk on Saturday due to shopping fever, we decided today was going to be the day that we head out there. Baba got back to the hotel around 2pm, and immediately drove out to Universal City 
Once we got there we were greeted by these amazing stores with lots and lots of interesting deco to liven up the place  . Universal studios is just next door, but we decided to give it a miss since Qistinna is too young to appreciate it anyway. We made a pact that we will be back to go for the studios tour.
The shops that are really interesting and fascinating like we never seen before  . There was the Harley Davidson, LA Raiders store and even Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant which was conceptualised by the Forrest Gump movie. Mind you that the restaurant actually sells shrimp and even has a replica of Forrest Gump's shoes and the bench from the movie scene. "I'm Forrest, Forrest Gump, people call me Forrest Gump"....
We toured around the Citywalk and took some pictures there. No shopping was done apart from the Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt which is a must buy for every city that we visited. After touring for about 1 1/2 hours, we head back to our hotel to begin packing, which I admit seems like a mountain to climb now. Owh, we had dinner at I-Hop.. Bosan makan Brahims..
Friday 18/1/08
The day finally dawned on us that we have to head back to London...it was kind of sad leaving Los Angeles as it has been our home for the last 2 weeks...would you believe it??..  We came, we saw and we shopped!!... This trip will always be a memorable one, as there wasn't a single day that I didn't enjoy our stay here... In fact I woke up every single morning embracing the ray of sunshine that god has to offer on this beautiful earth..To think that we have to get back to London where dark clouds reign the sky didn't exactly help liven up our moods... patutla mat salleh kat London moody jer, and all of the people in LA ceria jer...tgk weather pun dah tahu.. Anyway after saying our goodbye to our hotel room.. (well we didn't exactly know anyone in LA, i guess there was only 1 object that we could say goodbye to was our hotel room) we head off to LAX... 
Finally after frantically trying to check in our bags, we waited our around the airport lobby before heading out to the departure lounge. Wouldn't you know it we had another celebrity sighting and it was Michael Clark Duncan (the big guy from the movie The Green Mile) and Terry Crews (the big guy as well from the movie White Chicks). To refresh your mind here's the video clip from White Chicks movie --> Click here We were initially quite hesitant to take a picture with them, but we thought, bukan tiap2 hari jumpa Hollywood actors, kena amek gambo nie...So I pun selamba pegi ke Terry Crews and took a picture with him. So did Baba, and boy were we delighted  . Next up was Michael Clark Duncan, but we were too late as he had already moved upstairs to the departure lounge... ah dang!!....  Should have made our move earlier, then it will be another collection of famous people that I have taken a picture with... This is Baba's second picture with a celebrity, the first being with Ronan Keating, the main singer from Boyzone and he sang the theme for the movie Notting Hill. After clearing the security check point (which took ages by the way as we had 2 laptops that needed to be screened as well as the prem) we headed out to the departure lounge. Then we saw another celebrity and this time it was Turk from the sitcom Scrubs.. I didn't see him but it was baba who spotted him. From that point on as we waited for our plane, semua pak itam pakai topi jer kitaorang usha kut2 celebrity..
We arrived home safely in Gatwick airport after a gruelling 13 hour journey..pergh macam balik M'sia. The 3 of us were pretty much jet lag as we slept the whole of Saturday and was wide awake till Sunday morning again as our body clock was still in LA time. I guess this is the end of a beautiful odyssey and am glad to have shared our experiences with all of you. I hope that you have enjoyed reading and viewing our photoblog as much as we enjoyed taking the pictures and uploading it for all of you to view. 
THE END OF A BEAUTIFUL AND MEMORABLE JOURNEY
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| Thursday, 17-Jan-2008 09:00 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 7
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Monday 14/1/08
Still exhausted from yesterday's day out, so I decided to stay in our room. Did some unpacking of all stuff that we bought yesterday. Qistinna jadi model of the day.  Trying out all her new clothes & accessories.
She's so excited with all her new clothes. This year dapat banyak birthday present.
Kebetulan kat tv ada live news about Britney Spears. So, layan jerla. She was on her way to the court (which is only about 15 mins walking from our hotel). The court is near to the Walt Disney Concert Hall (I did took a photo of the court when I visited the concert hall - Part 1). If only there was no hill to the court, I'm sure I've already walked there. Mana la tau kot2 bleh nampak Britney ke.  From our hotel room, I can see the helly that was doing the live telecast on the news.
In the afternoon, we went down to lobby, kesian tengok qistinna terperap dalam bilik. Lepaskan dia kat lobby tue kejap. Then we walked around Macy's and bought nasi from a Chinese restaurant for dinner and ate it with Brahims instant beef rendang....rasa sintetik bayeeknya... Oh, btw today is my sister's birthday.. Yong, Happy Birthday!! 
Tuesday 15/1/08
I found out that there is a metro station nearby our hotel and decided to go to Hollywood with Qistinna while baba went to work. Since I've explored pretty much of downtown LA, I decided to go Hollywood again to explore it during the day. It only took about 10 mins to reached there. Dekat jer sebenarnya. We revisited Hollywood Boulevard again to see the people during daytime and see what else did I miss out from our first visit there.
Revisited the Hollywood walk of fame and took some more pics of the stars that I missed out. The Grauman's Chinese Theatre was also revisited again as I just wanted to see what other hand prints that I missed out. Its not everyday that we get a chance to visit Hollywood so I'm trying to make every second count. During my visit there, we saw a couple of movie characters. No not the actual characters from the movies, but guys wearing costumes trying to raise money for charity. The characters that we saw were Shrek, Supergirl, Marilyn Monroe, and baba's fav tongue twisting Captain Jack Sparrow.
Click below to watch some of Qistinna's videos. Enjoy!
Qistinna dalam closet
Posing depan cermin
END OF PART 7
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| Wednesday, 16-Jan-2008 22:30 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 6
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Sunday 13/1/08
The air of Sunday morning in LA smelled different than London. It was like the winds were carrying whispers of Camarillo outlet calling out to us “Come and get me, come and get me” and the sweet aroma of a leather handbag caressing my scent of smell  Indeed, we woke up that morning without wanting to go back to sleep again as we knew this would be a shopping experience like no other. We headed out to Camarillo factory outlet at about 9am as the distant from of the outlet was about 50 miles and it took us about 1 hour to get there. We arrived at about 10am and caught our first glimpse of the “Shopping Heaven”. There were about 100 plus stores and couldn’t decide which store to stop first. 
Finally after much contemplating, we decided that our first stop was going to be Levi’s jeans. We could not believe the price difference between what they were selling in LA as compared to London. The last time we checked at York outlet, the price of a pair of Levi’s jeans cost 35 pounds whereas the same jeans that we bought in LA cost 27 dollars which is equivalent to 13 pounds. Next stop was Osh Kosh B Gosh, oh my god I think I spent like 1 hour just in that store alone looking for qistinna’s clothes and the baby’s clothes as well. Murah giler, okay!  Everything was so cheap that i just grab almost every nice clothes that i saw (thinking that 'oh, its only 3 dollars', 'oh, buy 1 free 1', 'oh, 10 dollars for 2 jeans'). Sedar tak sedar I already grabbed more than 200 dollars worth of clothes. Tak boleh jadi nie, baru masuk 2 kedai and banyak lagi tak masuk. Sadly, i have to put back some of the clothes to the rack, and chose the one that I really like (part nie yg susah  ). Well, i managed to reduced a few dollars.. Meanwhile Baba was going out of his mind waiting for me to come out…  hehehe....
Then we headed to a part of the outlet called fashion court. Me and qistinna went straight into Coach while baba stopped by the Tommy Hilfiger boutique. When baba came in to see us at Coach, he told me that he wanted to buy a pair of jeans. So I told him to go for it and he went back and bought himself a pair of Tommy jeans and a shirt. Much to our surprise that the jeans cost only 35 dollars whereas in the UK the same pair of jeans cost 60 pounds..wooh talk about a bargain. As I’m a bit picky about handbags, it took me about 45 minutes to decide which handbags I wanted to buy as well as consulting with Baba which handbags looked good. Not to be outdone, Baba decided to buy a Coach wallet for himself as the wallet he’s using now is about 4 years old which I bought for him before we got married. We ended up hauling 2 Coach handbags and 1 wallet, and the total of our purchase did not even exceed 150 pounds.
My next stop was Carter’s (not Cartier eh..sigh) and shopped around for more qistinna’s and baby clothing while baba headed out to Calvin Klein. Much to my surprise when baba came back to see us at Carter’s, he bought another pair of jeans and this time it was Calvin Klein!!...I was quite surprised as baba had caught the shopping fever  To be fair to him, the last time he said that he wanted to buy a pair of jeans was 3 years ago in Malaysia and he has never gone on a shopping spree. He never bought the jeans that he wanted in Malaysia as it was too expensive and had his old Levi’s jeans repatched again. Now after only about 2 ½ hours of shopping, he has managed to buy 3 pairs of jeans, probably to compensate each year he missed out on buying them..hehhehe… 
After shopping at Carter’s we headed out together to Calvin Klein because I wanted to see for myself how cheap are the prices there. Wouldn’t you believe it, I ended up buying a handbag, wallet, sunglasses, and a baby t while baba got himself a belt. Everything was so cheap there that it would be a shame if we didn’t buy it. We keep telling ourselves, “nanti kang kalo tak beli menyesal pulak”..
Then we headed off to Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss, to look around if there is anything we could buy there. Much to my surprise, the prices are not much different than UK so we didn’t buy anything there. After that we went to Liz Claiborne and bought myself 2 more handbags. The price was much more cheaper as compared to Malaysia. Guess was our next stop and manage to haul off a couple of baby t for myself and a couple of blouses for qistinna. Then me and qistinna headed off to Skechers (bought each pair of shoes - me & qistinna) while baba went to Oakley vault. That was his first item in his shopping list and was glad to he finally manage to bought a pair of sunglasses that he’s been wanting to buy since his last Oakley’s were broken back in 1998.  The model that he bought was cheaper by almost 40 pounds in the US. He immediately wore the sunglasses after trying them on and didn’t put it back into the casing until we got back to our hotel later that nite. Even then back at the hotel, he was still wearing and only put it away when we were about to go to sleep..hehehhe…..
We did stop a few other shops i.e Banana Republic, Adidas, Gap, Giorgio Armani, Gymboree, etc.. But we didn't buy anything from those shops (either its rather expensive there or takde yg berkenan)..
Thus after 8 hours of shopping, (we arrived at 10am and left 5.30pm when the outlet closed) we headed back to our hotel. We had to cancel our stop to Universal Citywalk as we had originally planned to there at 3pm that day. As we were too engulfed in shopping we only realized that it was already too late when we saw what time it was. Not too mention that our feet were worn out from all the walking we did that day. We didn't even have lunch!!
END OF PART 6
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| Wednesday, 16-Jan-2008 19:05 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 5
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Saturday 12/1/08
Next we headed out to The Grove Drive and Farmers Market. The place is basically like a shopping area and there were a lot of shops to choose ie from Apple to Coach is easily available there. Baba was tempted to buy the Ipod but resisted the temptation as it was not his main item on the shopping list. I had to tahan the urge to shop as well as we knew we were going to Camarillo factory outlet the next day. We had lunch there (pizza)  and started touring the Farmer’s Market after our hearty meal.
Wouldn’t you know it, our first celebrity sighting of our trip, and guess who it was? Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. We tried to take pictures with her but there were so many people around to take pictures with her, plus the secret service guys wasn’t much help either. The close that we ever got was about 6 feet away from her.
After taking some pictures of the place, we decided to head out to our next destination, Beverly Hills baby!!  The drive was not as long as we thought as it turns out, its only about 2 miles away from The Grove Drive. After finding a parking space, we headed out to the famous Rodeo Drive. The shops looked beautiful and expensive as it had all of the famous brand names there from Hermes, Ferragamo, Fendi and Chanel.  After a few snaps we head off to our next destination, the Dodgers stadium. It took us about ½ hour to get there only to find out that the stadium was closed, and it only opens during the baseball season.  Since it was already dark, we headed back to our hotel room after a long and tiring day running around here and there. On our back to hotel, we stopped by at Domino's to buy our dinner (pizza again).
END OF PART 5
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| Sunday, 13-Jan-2008 23:38 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 4
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Saturday 12/1/08
Saturday morning we woke up early as Uncle Zaki had to take his flight out to Hawaii. We had breakfast with him and said our farewell. After Uncle Zaki had left, we went upstairs again to prepare for our sightseeing event for the day.
Our first stop for today was the Griffith Park Observatory. The park was built back in the early 20th century for astronomy purposes. It situated on top of Mount Hollywood just above the Los Feliz neighbourhood at 1,134 feet above sea level. At the observatory you could basically see the whole of Los Angeles and its surrounding area. The view is spectacular and magnificent and should you guys get the opportunity to go to LA, the park should be your first port of call. Inside the planetarium holds the exhibit of many interesting facts about our earth as well as the other planet within our solar system.
After about 1 ½ hours there we decided to go to our next destination as stated on our sat nav..hehe we didn’t know where to go  so we used the local attraction listed on our sat nav. We stopped by Paramount Pictures studios and Warner Bros studios next. Since those are not open to the public, we only took pictures from the outside. 
END OF PART 4
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| Friday, 11-Jan-2008 23:50 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 3 (Qistinna's 2nd Birthday!!)
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Friday, January 11 2008, it has been exactly 2 years now since Qistinna was born. Happy Birthday darling Qistinna!!  Since it was her birthday, I decided to take her out to a nearby park (kasi chan dia enjoy ).  There she made a fren with a Hispanic gurl who was about the same age. After playing at the park for about an hour so, we went back to the hotel. Upon our arrival Uncle Zaki dropped by and got her a lovely dress for her present. Yippie!!
At nite we headed out to Redondo Beach to celebrate Qistinna’s birthday at a famous Malaysian restaurant called Belacan Grill. Uncle Zaki and Hafiz had already got tickets to go to the Lakers game, so couldn’t join us. We ordered kangkung masak belacan, ayam masak pedas and sotong masak pedas. Since we hadn’t eaten rice for about 1 week now, we really ate as if there was no tomorrow plus the lauk was the very the sedap..yum yum..  (haha, Baba Mama yang melantak).. Baba had a good chit chat with the restaurant owner, Mr Kean (chinese malaysian from Penang) - he's really friendly btw.
Birthday girl was not in a good mood.. I guess she was tired from playing this evening. We didn't get her birthday cake this time, but definitely will celebrate her birthday again when we are back in London. 
END OF PART 3
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| Friday, 11-Jan-2008 10:35 |
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Three Angels in Los Angeles - Part 2
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Wednesday 9/1/08
On Wednesday nite, Zaki (Joe’s fren from Subang) and his colleague Hafiz arrived from Washington D.C. It was by chance that he had to stopover to LA first before continuing his journey to Hawaii for a conference. Wouldn’t you know it, his supplier booked him in the same hotel where we staying as well!!. Joe had supper with him that nite, I would have joined but Qistinna was already asleep by then as we were tired from our excursions during the day.
Thursday 10/1/08
Thursday morning, I went out with Qistinna to explore downtown city center. Downtown was divided into various districts i.e. Jewelry District, Fashion District, Toy District, Flower District. The one nearest to our hotel was Jewelry District which is only 1 block away. There's lots and lots of jewelry shops there (about 4 blocks stretch). Then I turn into Fashion District. I was hoping to find some branded shops here, but to my surprise there's none of it. Most of the shops are for wholesellers and was handled by the locals (mostly by mexicans). Its more like kedai2 kat jalan masjid india or petaling street. I was quite dissappointed since I was planning to do some shopping today  . After touring the area for about half an hour, I decided to return back to hotels. The area are mostly populated by chicanos and it gives me creeps as they like to pandang2 at me & Qistinna. 
Later at night I met up with Zaki with Joe where we had dinner at IHOP, don’t know what it stands for, but I’ll tell u that the dinner portions were so huge that 1 person’s portion could actually feed 2 asian people. Boy do these americans’ eat really well.
After dinner we head out to Hollywood, to tour around the Graumann’s Chinese theater, the Kodak theatre, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame  . We managed to find a parking spot at the Kodak Theatre and took some pictures there. We walked out from the theatre and there it was the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. U can find famous artist 'star' on the pavement both side of the road along the Hollywood Boulevard. We walked up to the Graumann’s Chinese theater.
We practically took pictures of all the stars on the pavement as well as the foot and handprints of the movie stars there. Examples of the stars that had imprinted their prints on the pavement were John Wayne, Harry Potter cast, and the Star Wars cast as well.
END OF PART 2
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