is a proud auntie

my first nephew was born 2 days ago!
I got the news a bit late because everyone was so busy with the preparation, hospital and all.
Even the proud daddy, my brother missed the birth experience when taking his breakfast, a bowl of porridge. LOL!


I have been calling him "petit mbe" a mix of french and slang bahasa language which means "small goat". Why? Because there were times when his daddy stank like goat!

I browsed for a flight ticket back the moment I got the news only to realize that my passport is still in process for schengen visa in Phnom Penh's France embassy! ARGH! well, it's life, I'll just have to wait until everything's settle by itself.

Those who knows me, know well enough that I DON'T LIKE BABY or KIDS but that's all what i will write down about them, otherwise it will be too gory and even offensive.

but this creature, this 1 particular baby who are hundreds of miles from me, oddly touch my heart ... It's soo weird that I feel an attachment and affection for this magical creature. weird, odd, strange and a bit creepy ... well, after all, we human are weird and follows our instinct

super bike in hanoi

Finally got some time to dig my messy photo filling and look what I found!
The super motorbike in Hanoi. I remember the risk I took for this picture, see the silver car on the right? That car almost hit me while I took this picture but really, that was daily risk for each and every pedestrian lives in Hanoi (or whoever take a walk on the street). I'm not exaggerating, just look at the size of whatever red thing on the back of the bike (it's a drum by the way).

Angkor re-visited

The famous Angkor Vat, a hindu temple complex at Angkor, about 5 km away from our house.
Built on the 12th century by Suryavarman II . As a representation of mount meru, home of the gods, this temple moat and outer wall is 3.6 Km long, encloses a space of 820.000 square metres.

Dry season is the best time to visit the temple complex as stairs and stones can be slippery (and well, really, you don't want to get caught on the rain storm here). The best way is to cycle around the temple with a rented bike and finish the day by loading the bicycle to a tuk-tuk as the hot daytime could really wore you off (or turn you into a living walking red lobster).

For those who has made a visit to Borobudur or whatever candi in Indonesia. I would kindly warn that those candi, are like a tiny spot compares to the size of this humongous structure.


This is the 4th visit for me and the 1st for bouh's
His first comment was : ah, oui, I feel small ...
well, as a 2 meters tall ogre, that's really something.


This picture taken on the 3rd level of 1 of the temple in angkor complex.
I thought that would be the last stairs, but hell I was wrong there was 1 more level after this climb!

Next move is Siam Reap

Another move, we packed and ready for 1 year in Siam Reap.
A picnic in angkor temple on sunday evening awaits us!

This time's a bit overweight >..< with my new scanner and stack of books from Kinokuniya.
Perhaps it is time to consider Ipad?

How to eat in Bangkok

Starving ... as usual, I'm all stomach ...

*found a food stalls with a plate of some fried balls for 30 baht ...




*took a look closer on what's gonna be on the plate, looks fine, some fried rice balls and perhaps slices of onion and sausages.



*ordered a plate and the lady rustled it up ...




*Bon appetit ! It was a bit sour, but still edible ...




*Hmm, curious of what I ate ... I went to the stalls and looked up on the sign ...

.......... HOLY COW!!!!

so, yeah how to eat in bangkok, never see the sign beforehand, otherwise you'd end up with starvation .... merde, I just swallowed some red ants eggs (hopefully it's a silly literal translation and not the real thing)

a day in the park

away from the madness and away from the noise ...
escaping reality that includes grenades and dead people.


Apart from the BTS got closed after 7pm, it's amazing how the other part of bangkok are not in the slightest affected by the political turmoil, life go on as usual ... (sans siam paragon,argh!)

what's in the middle?

one day, one of these day, curiosity will kill the dog ...

You want democracy? I just want the malls to be open!
I need to stock up on some art supplies from that bleeding malls!

pineapple fried rice

The classic touristy restaurant. Pineapple fried rice topped with raisins and decorated with orchid flower , fresh cold coconut juice, spring rolls with salads and slices of chillies, fried prawn balls with sweet lemony sauce.

crispy chicken skin

crispy fried chicken skin! oily oily oily and spicy!
the vendor open her stalls every evening in front of our apartment complex, I had been bracing myself for a try and actually .. it tasted good, quite similar with Indo style crispy chicken skin, just a bit spicy on the sauce.

ah, bouh couldn't stand it .. its stink and too oily for him.

la la land

me totally absorbed in my own world with my imaginary friends
some call it woofyworld or la la land but Bouh call it "in need of mental doctor"

back and forth

Found this photos in my messy photo folders and couldn't resist posting it.
This are some (not even half) of the tickets I collected back in the day when I had to fly back n forth, hundreds of miles, on d weekend, to meet up with Bouh.

It was one of the toughest ride, after the bleeding long hours
of working days and had to spend hours of waiting in d airport.

Khlong Thoey - river taxi

Khlong Thoey - river taxi

The cheapest way to get around when compared to BTS/MRT but at your own risk and it stinks!
It is also a bit tricky to know the exact price to get from one point to the other.


Oh also, nowadays, it's probably the easiest way to get around with all those red shirt around because BTS are now randomly closed, depends on the red shirts mood.
BTS line : hi red shirt people, how do you do today?
red shirts : fine, we are happy with the heat and sitting down all day
BTS line : oh excellent, we don't need to close down the BTS today

pfftt ...

no pity on songkran

no running, no pity and no tolerance whether you are carrying a map/camera ...
you'd get wet either way.

Poor bouh, he got chased by a bunch of giggling Thai girls with a bucket of water, seriously, a BUCKET of water!

In "the bruges" movie, you call those kind of girls, dangerous girls with weapon, a slightly different specimen and you are are entitled to punch them.

Chatuchak on week days

the famous chatuchak market on weekdays is converted into a plants market, really great for garden enthusiast. I was wondering though, where did they put all those trees on the weekend when the market sells souvenirs, clothes, trinkets and any other thing imaginable. Perhaps I didn't browse thoroughly enough to find their trees hidden spot.

Wat Phra Kaew

honestly, i don't remember the name, the only word that sticks is the Wat (temple). It was my second time there but I still was fascinated by those murals. It's amazingly detailed and constantly renovated (hm, is that supposed to be a good thing?)



here's a picture of a monster looking at an ancient monster:

Thailand declared State of Emergency

hmm, back in Bangkok and found out that the BTS and shopping malls has been closed.


The political rally has turned violent with 18 death, a reuters cameraman was shot death in a violent clash between the Thai troops and anti-goverment protesters.

Thai troops fired rubber bullets, tear gas and allowed to fire live round into air.
Bouh stop me from going out to take some pictures, I got a Bouh's travel warning, the same as those 43 countries that issue a travel warning for Thailand.

umm, yep, those are the protester's guns, although without the bullets it is still not the tools for a negotiation.

I wonder what's going to happen next week during the "supposed to be fun" songkran festival (water festival, when people on the street splash water to each other).

"moto'bike miss?"

I arrived yesterdday in Phnom Penh, cambodia to apply for a 1 year cambodian visa.
In no less tha 24 hours here, I already got hundreds of tuk-tuk/moto'bike driver offering their service wherever I walk. "moto'bike miss?" " where you want go miss?" "miss?" "miss?".
A constant hassle in every step I took, every minute I spent without my ipod and it really gets me, it's just extremely annoyed me to the point of, I have to spit this out.

I also realized that I had unconciously browsed for flight ticket out, a try to find an escape port (if there's any ..). I was here 2 years ago, stopping by for a couple of days and I remember that it was too much to take. I simply can't stand the place.

The good news is, I'll be out from this madness in the next 2 days (gee, still 2 days!). I probably going to spend those 2 days, coop in the room and loathe every minutes of it.

The bad news is, next month we'll be moving to Siam Reap, Cambodia for 1 year.
I faintly hope it will be a better place.. faintly. we'll see ... perhaps, I overworked and tired, one too many to handle.

potentially explosive

I can say that I'm not an explosive girlfriend, I've done my time being one of that kind of monster. Well, to bad for my ex, they did have the best of my monstrous side when only with a little spark, I could cause a nuclear explosion sans mushroom cloud.

This evening, I found my other explosive potential.

First of all, It's amazing how I can still stubbornly try to cook with a tiny kitchen, that is if you still call a microwave and a sink as a kitchen.
However, I still want a nice breakfast with eggs and make some good, proper salad for dinner. After the umpteenth time of going back and forth to 7-11 to buy a cold boiled egg, I decide to cook my own and buy a tiny equipment for microwave boiled an egg. I bought "the thing" because microwaved boiled an egg can be risky as it can easily explode.


I swore that I followed the direction, 5min on 350watt microwave setting for a hard boiled egg, filled the water on the bottom and so on ... but perhaps, I missed out on something, after all, I didn't really believe that "the thing" would work. It did magically work for the first and second time .. but not this evening.

This evening, I explode the egg, it went off with a loud KABOOM!
and really, I wouldn't be happy if I was the neighbour.


Shocked as I was, I instantly tweeted about the explosion and to make it worse, in less than 2 minutes, Bouh called from his office just to check on me. He was worried that I got an injury from the explosion (or perhaps worried for the microwave and the room).

At that very moment, I can see the dark smoky cloud on the horizon,
my upcoming faith, to be labeled as a potentially-microwave-explosive girlfriend.

how to train your baby dragon

The last time we watched 3D movie was Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton. It was okeyish but not impressive, I felt that he failed to bring us into the realm of Wonderland. I think the point of paying more and tiring my brain with 3D movie is to experience another world, a world that used to only exist in a dream. As dream is the only time when fairies, mad hatter and dragon are real.

After a lot of persuasion, Bouh succeed in dragging me to watch another 3D movie. I was merely bored and need to watch a good movie because it's been a month that we live without a DVD player and hardly survive with the star movies program which has been playing the same "Paris Hilton movie" over and over.

We were skeptical with "how to train your dragon" by dreamworks but sure that it worth more than watching "Green Zone" in 3D.

Well .. how can I describe how it was ... humm ...
The dragon are extremely cute, the story flows really well, cute character design and the 3D experience was impressive!
I screamed, shrieked and laughed on my seat. I was so absorbed in the movie and forgot to behave and keep a straight face. I was still giggling when we Walked out from the studio, toothless is over-cute!

... and yeah, since then, I've been playing with my imaginary baby dragon.
I keep my toothless under the bed and we fly out when Bouh is out working.

My baby toothless, I drew this last night with tablet.

Here is the concept art of How to train your dragon :

pattern and colours

look at the beautiful pattern and colours, it's my new fabric collection!
I'm going to make some plushies, pouch and ... I don't know, I'm not sure what else, I"m too excited .. any idea?

Pad thai on the street

Pad Thai is a dish of stir fried rice noodles with fish sauce, tamarind juice, combined with bean sprouts, chicken/eggs/shrimp and garnished with crushed peanuts, coriander and lime.

As one of Thailand's national dishes,
it's fairly easy to spot a Pad Thai vendor on Bangkok's street
and a portion of street Pad Thai is around 20-35 THB (less than a dollar).

I spotted this vendor on soi Ram Buttri and he cooked the Pad Thai in less than 5 minutes, amazingly fast but was also left me clicking madly on my camera.



almost as fast as the lighting speed!


et voila ...
a 5 minutes Pad Thai topped with crushed peanuts and spicy dried shrimp.

which drawers?

have anyone ever ask you, in which drawer did you put this or that?

I can say that sometimes, I'm a bit too organized in storing stuff, every tit bits are stored in separate zip lock and labeled (do I start to sound psychotic?)

On the contrary, Bouh .. is a bit of a mess, he basically throw stuff into a drawer and dare to claim that he is decently organized.
Bouh : where did you put my sock?
Me : on the dresser next to the entrance d0or, second drawer ...
Bouh: huuuh ... ? which -what - where ?

I came across this brilliant yet artful dresser from Anthropologie


hmmm .. but then, I'm sure Bouh will ask .. which dresser?
They probably should invent another series with colour code

2nd Sunday - Bangkok street food

Most of Asian street food are fried something,
it's not just Thailand but also back in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Fried banana, crab stick, pork cake, spring rolls, tofu, sausages ...
oh really, the list of all-things-fried can go on and on ..

When fried, some taste really good but others are just plain horrible.

This one, is horribly fried with lots of oil
and it took me a while to recognize that it's a crab stick.

Fried crab stick with sweet and spicy sauce

What's that noise out there?

Last week we've been avoiding places where the red demonstrator gathered, also having our passport with us whenever we went out - as recommended by our embassy and in my case, got scolded by a worried Bouh who knew my being happy-go-lucky attitude.

Living in the middle of Bangkok, how long and how far can we avoid the red?

This morning, there was an awful noise outside and here's what we found, right in front of our apartment.

lots of heart ...

Loud music and shouting ...


and look ..
Bouh got caught by one of them and politely wore the red scarf ...

New header

Finally finished my new header, it's a more colourful Woofy day.

I spent the whole morning drawing it with a Wacom tablet
but hasn't yet figure out how to edit some part,
I don't speak "HTML" ... pffft, another language barrier.

Polka dot snacks

I saw this bite sized crispy snacks on the street stalls and suddenly thought about patterns and polka dots. I just have .. have to channel "my cute-syndrome" out and draw this polka-polka pattern.


Oh aside the cuteness, it also tasted good, crispy with a hint of pepper and cuteeeeeee ... (Eww, my cute-syndrome is not yet healed)

Bangkok, Sukhumvit - Gallery 11

On a lazy Sunday evening, we found a nice restaurant in Sukhumvit soi 11 street.

The place was really nice for a quick getaway in sukhumvit area, it felt like a hidden tiny green space tucked on the corner and away from the touts and noise. There, we ordered a green curry and a tamarind paste soup-the red one. We're curious on how tamed it will taste, considering that sukhumvit is "the expat area" and because the last curry we had was on Khao San street (the backpackers ghetto), which wasn't a curry at all ... faux curry, sweet and tamed from it's original spicy curry taste .yuck!

here are what we ate,

Toong Thong,
minced shrimp in crispy wonton wrap served with sweet plum sauce
*crispy and a bit oily


Kaeng Kiew Waan Gai,
chicken green curry with devil's fig (solanum torvum) and sweet basil
*the tiny green balls which looks like peas are the solanum torvum, it doesn't taste like peas at all, it's a bit bitter and crunchy. People usually love it or hate it.

Kaeng Som Pak Ruam Goong,
tamarind paste soup with shrimps
*SPICY and a bit sour, next time we'll cut down the chillies.
and the plain rice .. (I can't help posting this, it's sooo cute ..)

Well, being a good Asian, the green curry wasn't that spicy for me but the red one surprised me, it burned my mouth, it burned Bouh alive ...


It was a real spicy soup and gee, maybe they should "tamed" it a bit ...
(did I wrote "yuck!" for the tamed curry? Oups ... )

here's my plate, look at those red chillies!


Eleven Gallery - thai cuisine
1/34 soi 11 Sukhumvit road
Bangkok - Thailand