A few more vegetarian places

Here are a couple more places around Penang that I tried out during my very short time as a vegetarian.
I should point out, though, that this was a conscious effort to try and find places that offered vegetarian options, but were still as convenient as walking into any 'ol place in the mall, the way I normally would if I weren't confined to vegetarian food only.

At Gurney Plaza

We searched high and low (literally) for any place that offered vegetarian options.While I love, love, love Lily's Vegetarian Kitchen, their stall at the food court in the basement only has a fraction of the options available at their restaurant, and I'm not even sure if it's still there anymore.
Anyways,  I was pretty surprised at what a creature of habit I am. I wasn't even sure if the places I usually frequent had vegetarian options. So, we went through most of the places we thought were likely, and finally ended up all the way at the top floor. And ended up here...

It's your average noodle/fried rice/supposedly Hong Kong style joint, with the typically average-tasting food one has come to expect of places such as this. Nothing particularly remarkable about this one.

At Queensbay Mall

This was another stab in the dark. Accustomed to shopping until we're hungry then just sitting down for a quick meal before shopping some more, we didn't really want to spend too much time looking for a vegetarian joint. So we went for the first one we saw - at the Queens Food Market.

As with many makan places (vegetarian or otherwise), the menus always look so promising...
-Look how extensive the menu is! And OMG finally light pastas or salads? Such a refreshing change to the typical economy rice-style stuff most vegetarian places offer-

        and then your food arrives...

and you wonder why you didn't just go home and whip up an even more awesome version of what's on your plate right now in the first place. 

Or why you don't have Michelin stars yourself. 

*shakes head*

 Random Snack - I have no idea where Mum got this

BUT fret not...the packaging came with a bakery name and a phone number. 

Do note, I didn't do the ordering/buying or whatever, so I have no idea how that bit works,or what other baked goods they have. I just took it out of the fridge and walloped it.

Not exactly the most uh-may-zing cake ever. But if you're one (like myself) who is willing to spend the weekends hanging out at chic cafes, eating some of the crap, uh I mean "cakes" they serve and charge you a bomb for it because they're chic, then you shouldn't have a problem with this, because it's better than some of those. And considering it's vegetarian (ergo, no eggs and whatnot?), I'd say it's pretty awesome! :)

Doesn't anyone sleep in on weekends anymore?

As I write this, there's a host of blaring car horns going around my neighbourhood. I assume they're the kind that announce the arrival of a wedding party. A custom of a community I belong to, but don't really get sometimes.
I've also been up for more than three hours. It's Saturday morning, by the way. And I actually woke up earlier than I do to get to work most days.

Why?

Because there are people who don't seem to know how to appreciate the extra hour or two of sleep one can get on the weekends. Nooo.... instead, they type a million short, sometimes one-word, and unnecessary messages and send, send, send to the Whatsapp group that I have been included in, discussing lunch plans for today.
Why is it the rest of the world doesn't seem to understand that adding an entire series of short, irrelevant and unnecessary crap along with plausibly necessary messages at odd hours is just...rude! You're making a whole bunch of peoples' phones bleep a million unnecessary times.

Lol! 
Okie!
Hey
:p
Zzzzzzz
Haha

Okie going back to sleep now.

Well screw you! Thanks for waking the rest of us up to tell us that!!!!!! 

Journey 2 Life

I was a vegetarian. For about a week. It was easier than I had expected, and by the end of the week, I considered becoming one for good. Needless to say I'm back to my omnivorous ways. Ah, the mention of the word omnivore reminds me of another story...which I should probably write about separately to avoid digressing too far.

Anyways, at the very least, it afforded me the opportunity to seek out a few more vegetarian food places around Penang, aside from the usual ones.

I found this particular one on a Google search. It's at Bay Avenue which, if you're not one who remembers the names of places and roads like myself, is down the street from Queensbay Mall, in the cluster of shops and offices where Berlin's Bier Houz is, not HSBC. 

The menu was pretty normal for any typical restaurant like this, with only one difference: the absence of meat, of course. Rice sets, steaks (that were actually mushroom - what a wonderful alternative to the whatever thing most meat-replacements in vegetarian dishes are made of) and tempting desserts - it really almost felt like any other restaurant.

My only complaint about the menu was that there was an additional pamphlet thingy, which the waitress who very kindly doubled up as translator explained were new dishes, was completely written in Chinese, unlike the actual menu which had an English translation. 

If there's one thing I'd totally recommend from the menu, it would be the hedgehog mushroom rice set. Yum!

And as always, I don't have a photo of this. Here's the thing: I, and all the people I surround myself with, love our food. Our food is typically the focus of our meals. Not photos of the food. 

Another shining example of how stopping to take pictures of our food  before we dig in  does not come naturally to us. The sushi was delicious, though. Cucumber, carrots, cheese, and I think...very thin bits of bread.

Anyways, the details of the place, which I remembered to take down, for once:
Journey 2 Life
C-3-1 Lorong Bayan Indah 3
Bay Avenue, 11900 Bayan Lepas
Penang
+604-6111184
Open 11.30am-10pm, Tuesdays to Sundays

facekara 7 and the punctuality conundrum

The last message read:
Ok guys, I've made the booking for 1pm. Don't be late.

That sounded pretty serious. Like most people around me, Joan has never been one of those people I considered a stickler for punctuality.
But I'd pulled an "On the way" on her the day before, when I was running 20 minutes late for badminton, and I was the one with the whole tube of shuttlecocks.
So, I didn't want to take the "Don't be late" too lightly.

It was another one of our little Groupon-bought adventures.

None of us had any idea where this place was, other than that it was in Sunway Pyramid. Their Facebook page wasn't very helpful, either. Here's a hint to businesses: you might want to give people easy access to information about how to really get to your doorstep. Directions so simple that people with no sense of direction can use would be good.
Mercifully, I bumped into another one of our little group somewhere along the way, who had also gotten lost. We eventually located it tucked away in a little corner past Italiannes and Teh Tarik Place.

At the top of a short escalator was the reception area which consisted of a fountain/pond thingy that joined the two sides - one with the counter and all the rooms, the other where the kitchen presumably was.
It was a half hour wait before the rest of our party arrived, during which said friend and I stood around the reception area, markedly void of chairs, hearing the muffled wails that were supposed to be renditions of Adele's music.
Note to self: people may hear my very syok sendiri version of Rolling in the Deep, too!

When we were shown to the room, it seemed decent enough. I was also kind of happy that they use a touch screen system - no more fiddling with remote controls that are labeled in Chinese! Even more entertaining was that you could add to your syok sendiri-ness by adding clapping and cheering sound effects. But then we were told that the system lags and we should allow it a couple of seconds each time after we click on something.

Well, it didn't just lag - which was a little annoying, because that meant the music lagged, too. But after a couple of tries, the whole system hung (hanged? I still haven't figured out what's the correct way to express this). We eventually had to move to another room. By this time, we were about half an hour into our three-hour session, which they very kindly let us extend.
During this time, we also had conclusive evidence that the walls were way thinner than they should be. In between songs, we found ourselves having a good laugh joining in on the rather amusing selection the people in the room next door had going on - Abba and Justin Bieber amongst them.

All that aside, we all left pretty satisfied, having spent the afternoon acting out our secret desires to be part of a boyband, a rock band, a diva and an indie songstress.
But I probably won't be rushing back for more lagging backup music, and screechy microphones that took a long time to calibrate or whatever you do with them to make them not screech.

Not my style

I wrote in the last post that  I was really psyched about having found a new dance class. Well, not really anymore. I've since gone for three classes and none have gotten better than the previous one.

While I was waiting for my first class to start, I was chatting with a few of the regulars and one of them told me that she'd been taking this class for about 2 years now and that the instructor is really detailed and really works on one dance until everyone gets it perfect. Promising, I thought.

And then when the class started, I was a little taken aback. This was the beginners class and the choreography was simply full of complicated steps that added no value in learning the basic techniques. They were the kind of things that would be 'nice to have' to make a routine look more interesting. I found myself spending more time trying to remember at which point I was supposed to walk forwards or backwards rather than concentrating on getting my shoulder shimmy perfectly even while walking.

Nevermind, I thought. Every teacher has their own style. Let's stick with this for a bit and see how it goes.

Later that lesson, I found that we had to do a reverse belly roll - something I've yet to learn as my previous instructor was still trying to get us to perfect the belly roll itself. And it was quite apparent that nobody else in the class, including those who have  been with her for a year or two, seemed to know how to do it right. No references to "Remember that time we worked on this. Just suck in here, release there?" or anything of that sort from the instructor either.

At the second lesson, we got to a point in the routine where we then have to do hip drops and she actually encouraged a lack of isolation and thus lots of bouncing about.

And at the third lesson we were doing some kind of formation thing where we ended up in one line that was rather more complicated than necessary. And then when she did spend a lot of time working on a particular move, it was one of the walking ones that required some bending of one knee and pushing the other hip back, it didn't seem like there were any precautions one should take to ensure they're not hurting their knees or back. Well, my lower back was aching (and not in a good "I've had a great workout" way) the next morning.
It just seems like she's just hurrying us along with all sorts of shortcuts to make her routine "look interesting" at the coming recital the studio is having.

A little bit bummed that this didn't turn out to be the kind of class I was looking for. Admittedly she does make us try out a lot more things that my previous instructor did, but trying it out isn't the same as actually learning a technique properly.
Kind of like getting your little beginner pianist to perform super-simplified classical greats on the piano that add no value to technique instead of having the child pwn his John Thompson at the class recital. Okay, that was a seriously random and super old school analogy. But you get what I mean!

Join the self-loathing club!

"So what is it you hope to achieve by joining the gym?" the membership sales guy asks.

M and I look uncertainly at each other. 

"Umm...nothing?" M ventures.

"What?!" he looks incredulous - as if nobody who joins the gym ever has weight loss goals that are anything less than The Biggest Loser proportions.

"Just to stay healthy lah!" I say, a little bit annoyed by the seemingly stupid and useless question. Why does a gym need to know that on my bloody application form which the stupid fella isn't letting us fill in ourselves, but is filling it in for us by playing 20 bloody questions with us instead? 

More importantly, why does it seem like this guy has never met someone who loves their own body and is at peace with themselves? Okay, let me clarify that a little bit. I obviously wish I were a little less jiggly in all the usual places, and a little more jiggly at the one or two more where it counts.

But judging from the way he seems so horrified, he either tries to sell memberships by making you feel bad about your body, or is just so used to being surrounded by people who do.

A couple of my new colleagues appear to be the norm that he's exposed to -and are probably people he successfully sold memberships to. Or at least, his colleagues did since they do go to this gym.

One of them is this very petite girl with perfect porcelain skin that has a rosy glow. Yet every time you talk to her, the fact that she thinks "she's so fat" and "hates her fat face" comes up. EVERY TIME.
Another one obsesses over her flabby arms while her friend constantly shows off her toned arms but constantly hates on her thighs. I once overheard a conversation between the two of them where one said "You know no matter how late I get home, even if it's like 12am and I'm damn tired, I still do a couple of squats before bed." WTF? Get home late, sleep liao lah! Or, you know, do something that will help wind down. 

Anyways, we finally got through the the process of signing up for our 7 day pass. Yes! All that just for a bloody 7 day trial that we were supposedly already entitled to according to some freebie card they hand out. Children, this is like seeing a house made of candy.
By then, we're exhausted and just want to go home. That was Day 1 of the pass.

On Day 2 we went for some yoga class which was pretty okay except for the fact that they seem to not only not have air-conditioning but instead it almost feels as if the room is heated. And no, it wasn't supposed to be that kind of yoga that's supposed to be in a heated room, whatever that's called. Anyways, the class was pretty enjoyable right up until the last bit, savasana. This bit typically entails lying on your back and freeing your mind - sort of meditation-like. Except that I'd been working out under a lamp. And the lights were turned off for this portion. And all I could think about was how creepy the instructor sounded as she talked us through it, and how I was going to prevent my eyes from hurting when the lights came back on.
Also, the floor was kind of pulsating with the music coming from the rest of the gym just outside the door.

The next day, we both had after-work plans.

On Day 4, I had a shit load of work to do but wanted to try out the Pilates class. I eventually managed to tear myself away from my desk just a couple of minutes before the class was due to start.
When M and I finally got in, we saw everyone by their mats, so we figured we'd just made it in time - the class hadn't started yet. We roll out our mats and stand around for a minute like everyone else, who hasn't said anything. And then this woman, presumably the instructor, comes in with a bunch of Pilates rings and obviously we head over to take one for ourselves. She doesn't say anything at first even though she's seen us and then as I'm about to get one, she says, "Oh actually we don't have enough." So I look at her thinking, "So, why are you just standing there? Aren't you going to go get some more?"
Next thing I know she's saying quite loudly so that everyone can hear, in this high and mighty voice,"I don't normally allow people to come in to my class any later than 10 minutes." Again, I look at her wondering where she's going with this and thinking, "So? Has your class even actually started? Or are you stiffing all these people by making them stand around while you get the Pilates rings IN THE MIDDLE of your class?"
"So, I'm afraid you can't join my class," she says, not at all in a very nice way.
Okay lor. M and I roll up our mats and head out.
Stuff it bitch. I don't need to leave my hectic day at work to dance to your stupid little tune. Coming to the gym was supposed to help me stretch out and relieve me of my stress, not give me another deadline to meet.
Okay, to be fair, I totally know these things take some discipline. But she was just not nice about it at all.

After that, I just said screw the gym, and their bloody stupid 7 day pass which is really just ruse to get your contact information for them to spam you. I don't need this attitude from anyone. To be fair, that doesn't necessarily apply to all gyms. Just this particularly stupid one.
I've since gone back to dancing. Yes, I finally found a class! Yay!
More about that next time.

Work-life balance

Someone once told me that there's no such thing. You've just gotta love what you do because that's where you're going to spend most of your adult life. Not with your lover/spouse/kids/best friend; but at work (although come to think of it, sometimes work may not be mutually exclusive to some of the aforementioned alternatives).

"Well screw that," I thought. I'll work 9-5 (or, you know 8-7 if I have to), and nothing more than that. My evenings and my weekends are for my loved ones and my hobbies.

Well, you know that the balance is tipping toward work when you forgot one of your best friends' birthdays (forgot one of your best friend's birthday?), haven't shopped for anything for your granny even though you're going over for a visit really soon, still haven't bought the aforementioned bestie a present, and are in real danger of forgetting to renew your season parking/pay bills/shit daily.

Also, you know you're working to much when all you want to do once you get back (way past 7pm), is share random shit from 9gag and Pinterest.

And also have started using the word shit a lot on your blog even though you've tried to avoid any language that's about there or harsher on your blog. You know, because you've spent all day trying to avoid saying anything super duper mean to anyone, even if they're the ones whose incompetence is screwing up your workday and hence, screwing up your work-life balance.