Penang Starwalk, 2009

It has been a year since last year starwalk, time wait for no one :)

Let's take a look at this year starwalk goodies bag. The goodies bag is usually available for collection 3 days before the event. Compared to previous 3 years, this year goodies bag seems to has more item inside the green colour Eastin hotel recycle bag. A colleague counted, in total 23 items. The recent open Eastin hotel sponsored in both Penang bridge run and this starwalk. Most of my colleague like its recycle bag.



After few years joining competition category, the certificate doesn't mean much to me, then I join non-competition this two years. If I am not mistaken, this year seems to have more participants than past few years! Non-competition reporting venue changed to SMK Raja Tun Uda opposite of Pantai Hospital. It is very closed to my house, so I decided to walk to the reporting point. The number of participants seems to increase from last year, and I do not know why a lot of people still would like to get out from the reporting point after registration. After you present the reporting card, you will get a fluorocent green rubber band as a sign of registration. It was really chaos at the entrance gate to the school's field. Maybe I was still in my dream (I woke up very late since it is so close to my house, AS arrived at 6.35am which I had just woke up), I can't see a lot of friend until they come and say hi to me :p Blur MK ;)

This year non-competition has a shorter route than that of competition category and thus the changes on the reporting venue. It is shortern by around 1-2km. The walk started at 7.30a.m. sharp. If you happen to be in front of the starting point, most probably your face will be captured by the camera and video recorder :D

On our way, PL met us and chit chat a lot. He pointed to us few parents walking with their kid inside stroller. He pointed one stroller which can be detach and hook to bicycle and told us that parent brought their kid for the Penang Merdeka cycling event too. Wow, he really know a lot of people, always say hi to people on his way :D Then he also pointed to few cute doggie who came along and a 2-3 years old princess on her kiddy bicycle. It seems to be more than starwalk, extended to baby-walk, dog-walk. Will someone bring his cat next year for catwalk? :p

SP and I didn't spend much effort in training this year, luckily we still able to complete it in 1.5hours for this shorten route. I would call this leisure walk instead, as it is so crowded that we don't have much mood to really walk in starwalk style :p If you finish earlier, can go to PISA to enjoy some sponsored beverage/snack. There are few games usually available too.

As usual, a group of us will go to nearby hawker center for breakfast, and then passed the lucky draw stub to BH and leave. Both competition and non-competition participants complete the walk in 2 hours will be entitled for lucky draw. This year BH and WP won number 9 and number 5 in men open and women open respectively, thumbs up to them, bravo :D

Sushi Kitchen, Sg Ara, Penang. Counting down...

What is your thought when you first look at the restaurant name Sushi Kitchen? I initially thought it is selling Japanese food Sushi. After my colleague explaination then only we realized it is a restaurant promoting Japanese vegetarian food.

Here is the restaurant interior decoration:





I heard the owner actually concur some country using the bike displayed. Of course diners are not allowed to ride on the bicycle, it is for display purpose only :)



The book rack on the left contains a lot of books. This is the first time I heard of the book 再穷也要去旅行 & 再苦也要去旅行. There are lots more book, how nice if this restaurant is within walking distance from my place, then I will surely visit it always :p Lazy MK.


I surely support this!I am not saying Do not eat meat, but reduce meat instead.

Cutie cup for evergreen.

Simple and nice tissue box wrapper.


Front and back of a toy there. One of my colleague love it very much :D I will never get excited about mashimaro :p

Of course, the food.


Spicy noodle @RM 6.80. Notice the laksa flower on top? This made the taste unique.


Sweet potato noodles @ RM 4. I feel this is special too.


Fried Udon @ RM 7.80.


Sushi platter at RM 28.80. The wasabi is carved in leaf shape. The restaurant owner gave us some hot sauce to try out. He said it is a gift from his friend from US. Wow, it reminded me of the hot sauce I tried in US last time, just a few drop and you tongue will be burnt! The restaurant owner and the waitress are very friendly. They gave us some Wu Long tea to reduce the spicyness of the hot sauce.

On the menu, there are other rice and noodle choices. Brown rice is used here ;) Oh and also they are using garbage enzyme to wash the vegetables, you may see few big bottles of garbage enzyme outside of the kichen.

My colleague told me this restaurant will be closed down by end of Dec 2009. She said the owner would like to find a better way to promote vegetarian food, he think this method is not good enough. Be fast if you would like to try it out.

Business Hour:
11am - 3om (last order 2.15pm)
6.30pm - 11pm (last order 10.15pm)
Close on Tuesday.
Tel: 017-4656821
Address : 2A-1 , Jalan Sungai Ara , Desa Ara, Sungai Ara , 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang.
Email: sushi.kitchen.penang@gmail.com
URL: http://sushi-kitchen-cafe.blogspot.com/

Hj. Samuri Satay, Kajang, Malaysia

If you heard of famous Kajang satay, Hj. Samuri at Kajang, Malaysia is probably one of them. I'd visited this restaurant few times and was disappointed during last month visit.

Anyway, let's take a look at the restaurant. It was around 11.30pm, and the ground floor were still full. As usual, click on respective picture to see a clearer one :)



Order your food and pay at the counter. Only satay was and nasi still in service, the rest of meal item like fried rice, fried noodle were all sold out as told.



The first floor was closed, as it was really late, closed to mid night.


After you paid, they will give you the satay gravy (In Malaysia, we called gravy as Kuah in Malay language) before you leave the counter. If no cucumber and onion are provided, please request from any of the officer.


Not too long waiting, the chicken satay were served.


Satay gravy plays very important role when eating satay. The gravy is not as good as last visit, less taste and more watery. The satay meat in my opinion is still quite good. The most disappointing are as show in two pictures below:





You will probably asked, "What's wrong with the drinks? It looks fine". Well, if you notice the cutlery set, all are plastic! Plastic spoon and plastic fork. Maybe this is convenient for the restaurant, save their cleaning work. But for satay dining, the folk is too soft to pick the cucumber and onion; the plastic spoon is too soft to scrape the coconut flesh. Furthermore, it is not environment friendly.

I guess not so likely for me to visit this restaurant again, there are other restaurant with good satay too. But if you would like to dine there, here is the address.

Bangunan Dato’ Nazir, Jalan Kelab, Kajang, Selangor
Restoran Sate Kajang Hj. Samuri
Lot 1,2 & 3 Tingkat Bawah & Tingkat 1,
Bangunan Dato’ Nazir, Jalan Kelab,
43000 Kajang,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.

UMHB: Chapter 2 - Resource management system (3)

Please refer to Disclaimer for some information.

Due to changes in human living habit and the way we treat disease, it makes human body energy supply reduced for long term, which stem the chronic diseases.

For example, Hyperthyroidism in TCM is a symptom of "Yin Xu (insufficient) Huo (Fire) Zhong (Heavy) "阴虚火重, which caused by long period withdrawing stored energy. Diabetics in TCM is a symptom of "Yin Yang Both Xu (insufficient)" 阴阳两虚, both daily produced energy and stored energy are depleting, human body getting muscle as energy sources. A lot of chronic diseases can be explained using energy supply system, thus a better way to improve the disease condition.

A good TCM practitioner will be able to diagnose a patient energy level using his symptom, where this is considered most important in TCM treatment. Although the term energy supply system was not specifically mentioned in TCM books, but this is practical in TCM concepts.

After some treatment, a patient Blood Qi will increased, and thus organ has more ability to improve its condition, and thus more treatment will be reflected at human body at this stage.

For example, when more new blood flow into muscle which does not has enough blood, there will be some muscle pain; when new blood go to lungh to clear the Cold Qi 寒气, there will be flu symptom; when new blood go to liver, urine will be more yellowish, there will be more garbage e.g. cholesterol inside blood also. when new blood go into kidney, the urine will maybe not so clear which looks like has more protein in it.

These symptoms are very similar to those of human body energy falling stage. Only good TCM practitioner is able to differentiate, while western medication treat all those symptoms as diseases. Since those symptoms is actually a sign of human body working to improve health condition, appropriate treatment should be use on human body to speed up the process. But in western medication, most treatment method is to correct those symptoms, which is stopping human body recovering action. Oh yes then the symptoms are gone, but human body recovery action will be stopped, although all kind of western test e.g. blood test result looks good. These treatment are actually harmful, if you think about it in deep.

[Finish]

UMHB: Chapter 2 - Resource management system (2)

Please refer to Disclaimer for some information.

In TCM, terms like Yin阴, Yang阳, Xu虚 (insufficient), Shi实 (excessive) are used to describe human body energy level. For example, Yin represents stored energy, Yang means Blood Qi produced daily, Yang Xu (insufficient of Yang)阳虚 indicates insufficient of daily energy supply, which means insufficient of Blood Qi, Yin Xu 阴虚means insufficient of stored energy.

Blood Qi 血气 is energy produced daily, while withdrawn energy is called Huo (Fire)火. Yin Xu (insufficient) Huo (Fire) Zhong (Heavy)阴虚火重 mean we are withdrawing a lot of energy from the body stored energy. Yin Yang Both Xu (insufficient) 阴阳两虚 means insufficient of daily produced energy and also the same for stored energy, our body will need to find 3rd way to get energy. Depletion of Blood Qi气血枯竭 means the depletion of both Blood Qi and stored energy. I hope these term explanation clear some of your doubts about TCM.

Energy supply adjustment is similar to a company financial adjustment. When a company financial status is good, its exterior renovation design always looks good. Every department operating in good condition as well. But if the company is running out of money, there will be budget control, down sizing some department. At the worst case, the company might need to sell off some asset.

Analogously, when human body is lack of Blood Qi, less important functionality will get less energy supply. At this stage, there will be few changes on human body. For example, when cleaning system doesn't get enough energy supply, human skin will get darker and darker, or more dark spot， or fatter. This is similar to the case where a company looks older.

If energy supplied to spleen is reduced, human body maintenane system will reduce its work, it will only response to critical illness. For people whose energy are exhausted for long run, they will not get sick when they are busy. These people will usually fall sick when they relax. This is because when body is relax, the Blood Qi usually will increased as well, and thus the energy supplied to spleen, thus spleen will response to all kind of illness. There is a Chinese ancient idiom, "Continuous small illness, critical illness will never come; If one never ill, one will at danger when fall sick 小病不断，大病不患；从来不生病，一病就要命"

If for liver, the blood cleansing frequency will be reduced, thus the blood will be getting more and more dirty. Gingival and lip color will become darker, blood volume inside liver will decreased, and thus cirrhosis.

If for kidney, urine color will become lighter in gradual, finally looks like water, became uremia. For most of the uremia patient, their kidney could be still functioning, the problem is there is not enough blood supplied to kidney.

If for lung, human organ water supply will be impacted, so skin color will be darker. Human body will become more dry as well, and thinner.

When the situation getting worsen, where the human body cannot reduce energy supply to organs, it will convert muscle to became energy source for human body consumption. This is then called diabetics. Re-use the company example just now, imagine a company is selling its asset to get more cash flow.

[To be continue]

UMHB: Chapter 2 - Resource management system (1)

Please refer to Disclaimer for some information.

Nowadays, a lot of people used to have experience of 'exhausted', because of lack of sleep, or insufficient nutrient input and etc. During the exhausted period, some people might feel their condition is good, some may feel getting worsen, but they can still live their living without any disease symptom.

Inside human body, there could be a resource management system similar to that of calculator software, although we are not sure which organ does it talk to. When human body is lack of energy, the system will get the stored energy, convert it for consumption. If human body continue to be exhausted for long, the system will still try to get energy from other part of human body for living, for even few tenth of years.

When the energy conversion is going on, there will be certain chemical operation going on inside human body. In this time, human body substance e.g. blood protein and glucose level will vary. In this time of point, the blood test result might looks bad. In we can understand how the system works, then maybe we can interpret the blood test result to reflect human body actual health status.

[To be continue]

Ang Pow from Magnum

I attended a friend wedding lunch at Ipoh few weeks ago. I will share more on the food few weeks later as I will be going to the same restaurant again soon! In the wedding lunch, one new thing to me is that some Magnum officer were there and giving away 'ang pow' :O Provide your IC number, name and contact number to them, and you will get this.


Front view


Interior view

You can purchase RM 2 value of magnum number using that ang pow. If you would like to read the words, click on the image.

During the wedding lunch, the bride and bridegroom will draw four number also, if that number win that night, there will be prices for them, and I heard also for the registered attendees. Well, there are children and teenagers in the ceremony. Probably you will say this is 'promoting gambling culture' is not good. My brain still has not come out with any comment about this, but in my inner heart, I think there could be other way to make the wedding lunch/dinner more memorable and merrier beside this :)