service cleaning complaint

Have you met my favourite sailor jumper?


A few days ago, I took it for a deep clean at a supposedly high-quality service shop. Took it back earlier tonight on my way out to town. I checked for tears and frays on the spot - the most serious of professional cleaning sins (as done by Aqualis on two of my dad's batik shirts) - and there were none. So I went out, came back home and hung it on my wardrobe door. That was, until I noticed something was amiss. The jumper went slightly pink, and its pilling had spread from primarily at the sleeve hems to all around the bust area.

So OK, in a badly lit distribution outlet (i.e. the one near home) it's difficult to discern whether there were any unwanted cleaning-triggered changes. But this jumper in my room? Of course I've seen it many times before. Being someone who has two crates of nearly-white fabrics in all sort of shades, and under constant lighting condition, of course I know there was some red-tone bleeding my jumper had picked up during the wash. To make it worse, the jumper's yarn is primarily cotton: colours only set into cotton when it's wash-treated at temperatures above 40 degrees, so it must have been chucked into the washing drum along with some other suspect-coloured garments. Knitted garments are not meant to be agitated when they are washed to prevent surface lint from forming; it happens more obviously on wool than cotton ceteris paribus... meaning it was agitated pretty bad while wet. To make it even worse, it wasn't supposed to even be washed in the first place - the care label says bloody dry clean it!

I think I will give the head office a call on this matter. If people in there are ashamed enough with the way they do business, they would compensate me. The supposed tenfold-of-cost compensation (as written on their bill) is not high enough as a deterrent for the company to do its work dilligently, nor will it get me any good replacement for the damage done. What I could do with it, though, is to pay for a nice dinner with my peer group and spread the word about the [unpleasant] experience.

Moral of the story: do NOT use Londré to clean any of your expensive knitwear.

(There, I've said it.)

Point #2: must get more cute Sonia Rykiel items to placate anger.

hark the herald angels sing

I went for a midnight mass here. Funny isn't it, how I only got around to doing this after four years... (it's actually my second Christmas up north here.) I went with my camera in hand. It was packed!


So I snooped around for a seat and found one spot on the bench, which has the obstructive view of a pillar. Ah, it was either an obstruction of sights, or an obstruction of concentration, and I chose the former. Plus I was way too unmotivated - not to go in the first place, but to change seats.

The sermon referred a contemporary tendency to celebrate Christmas the consumptive way, with people struggling to pay off their bills because they have overspent on their Christmas celebrations. Like new clothes, excessive food, gesture-gift toys. And he mentioned a few ironic catchphrases like "happy X-mas" [read: ex-mas] and "the glory of God on the high-street". (Well when one listens to spoken words one can't always work out what the proper lettering is like, that's my stance.)

Another thing that I learned was there was this carved wooden platform/balcony where the preacher stood. I saw two of them in the Cathedral in Jakarta, but never really knew what it was for because I had never seen anyone use them. When I was a kid, I used to think that they would be used for people who would then be 'enraptured' to the skies. Really.


Anyhow, needless to say I enjoyed the service very much, plenty of singing and phone-ignoring and geeky photographing after all was done. I had the pleasure of company of a dear old English man (in the they-exist-in-picturebooks sense), in a camel wool coat and wearing a tweed suit, as Next-Sitter-on-the-Pew who said some kind words about my singing. You're welcome to speculate on what he says and what he originally meant to express, but I'm not even going to read into what he said... I'll just take it as a compliment ;))


Facts about St Martin-in-the-Fields:
It's the Royal church (huh?) and church of the homeless (also 'huh')
It was recently reopened after a lengthy refurbishment
It has a crypt!It's 10 minutes' walk away from mine.

Have a happy and joyous Christmas everyone.

featuring: my local pest controller

On Monday, I met this lovely man-and-bird team traipsing about my local rink this place. Meet Mr I-didn't-ask-for-his-name and his hawk Hera, working as pest controller. (it's a she.)


So, the deal was, Mr IDAFHN brings hungry Hera (and Hera's snacks) to work sites. Hera then spots errant pest and ideally scare them away. Pigeons being plentiful here, they form the bulk of Hera's target, although Mr IDAFHN mentioned that she had gone for rodents and that her favourite hunt-victim are rabbits. Over time, there are less and less for her to hunt/scare away, and that's where the snacks come in. It's a nice way of getting rid of open-air pests without having to resort to poisons and without the risk of accidentally poisoning pets that happened to be around. But yeah, if your pet is a hamster, I wouldn't walk it on a leash when Hera's around...


Some of us who happened to be there had the treat of watching Hera the Harris hawk in action. She swooped and grabbed a pigeon, which fell onto the pavement with a thud, and which she plucked clean 'for lunch'. Later we found out that her lunch, instead of being freshly hunter-earned, was actually a pigeon that had died due to cold weather... in other words it was cold lunch.


Hawkie facts:
Harris hawks can live up to 25-30 years in captivity
Harris hawks mature 18 weeks after hatching
Hera is 4 years old
It took two weeks to train Hera to come back to Mr IDAFHN
Hera and Mr IDAFHN comes to Somerset House once a week
They travel in a car (Hera in a cage)

Cool stuff.

domesticity spurring

Today being Sunday (one of my assigned day offs), I bothered to cook dinner from scratch. The menu was oxtail and carrot stew with a serving of rice, steamed broccoli and steamed egg. I used a rice cooker to cook rice and steam at the same time... yea I know it sounds pedantic but it saves me some washing-up and the added health benefit (less oil) isn't too bad.

Being hungry, I was pretty impatient with the beef and all, and barely put up with the leisurely rice cooker. A few minutes before the cooker said 'bing!', I scooped out some rice, fished out a few cuts of tail, poured some sauce on the rice, and dumped the sides on the plate. And I ate.

Gnawing oxtail meat isn't pleasant.
(Lesson #1: cook it before getting out of the house. Rice, oxtail and all.)

A while later, I did some dental work. Some rogue stringy meat had made its way in between my teeth, making me feel as if my gums had multiplied and suffocated my teeth overnight. A few metres of floss were employed, as did a variety of other, ahem, homely devices. After cleaning the mess inside my mouth and realising it had all transferred onto the sink, I cleaned the sink and all (my flatmate would later be wondering what had gone so wrong whilst she was away.) Which brought me to a realisation...

Lesson #2: Cif (a.k.a. Jif) had just found a new cleaning role.
Whilst cleaning the sink, I accidentally found out that:
Cif + hot water + stainless steel watch = one very clean watch
I was very nervous when I decided to sink my watch (excuse the pun) into the solution. But an hour later my watch still runs good. So, it looks like cleaning my watch is similar to cleaning the sink. Albeit more gentle.

One more thing, I am endearing myself to the mammoth that is the cycle hire bike. The weight itself isn't much of a problem, but cycling uphill is a gruesome task. I prefer downhill with a good set of brakes.


Oh well, that's all for today.

it doesn't really make sense

Why do I still blog?


Thread cops run out...


Stocks of pencil lead are drained...


Because sometimes, I try to look sullen (sleepy?) in the tube...


...and college work drives me mad I wish money and time grows on flowers free to be picked - by me, that is!


Well, this was the third needle I broke in the week. Maybe it's the near-prodigious amount of sewing, or simply I was being too rude whilst tugging and manipulating fabric at the machine.

Anyhoo.
Have a nice day for you, and a productive (21-hour-long-awake) one for me.

parboiling

Boiling an egg (amongst preparing other things) for dinner.

Whilst standing near the stove, a story came to mind. Back in the days of kiddyhood, my mother used to tell me 'papa kamu' (i.e. my dad - her speak) was a very thrifty student when the country sent him to study overseas. It was apparent from the way he prepared his breakfast: pop an egg into a pot of water, heat it up until it boils, pick up the egg and use the water to brew his coffee (and I presume he'd have some toast on the side? for carbs? It'd be a hard sell to believe he had no morning dose of carbs.)


A breakfast that remains largely unchanged as he gets on with life. I still have a love-hate relationship with parboiled egg to this day.

And, apparently, one that is fading as mod-cons come specifically for boiling water and poaching eggs.

Take care.

Miss-ing some hairs

The newly crowned Miss England is an athlete, her runner-up a soldier commended for bravery in Iraq (excerpts here and there). This year's Miss Indonesia's list of achievements (sourced from e-very-where) sounded like a shrinking violet next to what her MW competitors are up to.

Don't get me wrong; I like multilinguists, especially those who can communicate their ideas in their non-native languages. But when the comparison game is on (and it happens in full force in pageants), six homeschooled diplomas seem somewhat insubstantial to root up claims of the Olympics training and war soldier types. There isn't much information as to why Karenina wanted to do MI09, but... I've long felt as if beauty pageant contestants in Indonesia are more of the 'careerist' types: set off and do modelling, then do beauty pageants, then find film work or something in the entertainment industry.

My dad once joked that if I had not been callously fed to formula milk on the day of my birth, I would have been taller than my sister and would've won the contest. To which I replied, "but then I would become an artis" (note the italicised spelling and context-specific meaning.) And I wouldn't be doing something I believe in, the way I am now. So never mind the smaller frame, I quite like it.

Back to the beauty queen talks...
If these Misses give a good representation of the countries and societies they hail from, I'm pretty sure Indonesians score pretty high on the thy-image-is-of-primary-importance column. Which is what would probably come in handy in the long run, since I'll be funding my livelihood from some sort of sartorial vanity fulfillment.

Ah well, so there went commentaries on current affairs.

Also, a friend commented on the chain picture I posted here. She asked me whether I was "really as chubby as the picture showed." Well, to that query I respond with the latest picture taken yesterday (along with online image distribution of the new haircut, albeit three weeks old):


Voilà. I believe I've done my blogging duties.
Have a good day!

me and my group mates

Lookin' good... or at least feigning to.

dine and dine

The festive season is just one excuse to, well...


...eat more. (Sometimes.)

There are unpleasantries happening as well, but we will get onto that topic once I've made it safely back to L-town.

(heater watcher)

I just have to repost this picture to see how it works against the background:


Original post is located here.
Hee hee hee ^__^

(por·cu·pine)

This was my birthday cake ;))

(eggy goodness)

I love good food.

However, one of the last things I would do is to slave away for one-and-a-half hours in the kitchen to prepare a meal at the end of a long day. I'd like to share a nifty recipe for a quick and quite nutritionally balanced dish, one that I learnt on my first few days studying away from home... thanks to dad (I modified it, though.) It's suitable for vegetarians - sorry vegans, haven't quite worked out how it'd be for you folks. The best thing about it is: it doesn't involve any cooking pans' washing-up afterwards.
So let's get started!

One-bowl egg wonder

1 decent-sized egg (chicken, duck's, geese... but not quail's!)
A handful of thinly sliced/chopped soft vegetables
Salt, pepper, seasonings...
Optional frankfurter or sausages, finely sliced or chopped
Steamed rice or noodles, to serve


Get yourself a microwave-proof bowl or deep (but small) dish
Something made out of ceramic or pyrex works wonders; try not to use melamine or plastic and steer clear from metal dishes.

Layer/arrange the vegetables on bottom of bowl
Season lightly, as you will season the dish again towards the end.

Crack the egg open
If preferred, the egg can be beaten up prior to being poured into the bowl, but I usually find it unjustified to soil a perfectly fine and clean bowl. Try to distribute the egg evenly. Season lightly. If you choose the sunny-side-up method, remember to prick the yolk... I will not be held responsible for protein time-bombs in microwaves! ;)

Layer/sprinkle the optional meaty stuff
Arrange it as well as you can... this is the stuff you will see sitting on your table (or served to guests), so at least it looked like you made some effort to prepare it. Plus, it saves you from having to clean any accidental spatters from the microwave later on.

Microwave time!
Microwave on high for 60-90 seconds. Check, then continue heating for another minute if you like your egg well-done. Don't be tempted to do the microwaving in one shot. The break is important for two things: to prevent heat build-up and to check how your dish is cooking.

In the meantime...
Serve rice or noodles in another bowl, top with any fancy toppings you want, wash the knife and cutting board, wait till microwave says 'ding' (the bowl can be very hot.) Enjoy!


Notes:
- you can be truly lazy and pop your rice on the bottom of bowl (before veg)
- if you decide to pop your rice in with everything else, make sure you coat your dish in clean water to prevent rice from sticking and giving you a hard time at washing-up... since your aim would be to cut down on prep/clean-up time
- use sliced shiitake mushrooms, beat the egg(s) and steam the dish... you'll end up with a chawan mushi
- stick to soft vegetables... this means things like tomatoes, onions, peppers/capsicums, mushrooms, cucumbers, broccoli, mange-touts and leafy greens. Stay clear from root vegetables as they are prone to undercooking and you'll have to peel them too!
- topping tips: nori, spring onions, pickles, cheese...?
- I don't coat/spray my microwaving bowl with oil, but you can do so if that's your fancy
- experiment with different seasonings to achieve different flavours... yes, it can be fun :)) (my basic ones are good-quality salt and pepper)


Anyway, that's all... I've enjoyed today's experiment with duck's eggs. I only have had the green salted ones before... and I've never expected them to be so big and with such translucent shells!


Have a nice day, and bon appetit ^__^

(daun kelor)

It was a pleasant suprise to find out this girl is merely one degree of separation away (alert thanks to qunang).

Well then, I've been enjoying anonimity to a point of indifference. To many people I meet everyday, I am oddly average... or am I ordinarily odd?

Maybe the extent of 'the world' I circulate myself in is comparatively small, and hence it's easier to find links between random people and those I know. If one works in applied quantum physics, then his or her 'world' is highly specialised to an extent one may personally know each other. However, looking at how people on my Facebook friends' list relate, It's also possible to conclude my 'world' consists of a few separate spheres which occasionally intersect.

Then, maybe after all... dunia selebar daun kelor.
Who knows?

Now off on a tangent: here are pictures from today's hair modeling session. Sixty-five years ago, it would've been unimaginable to have a Japanese guy (with the help of a translator and a Caribbean-descent supervisor) cut an Indonesian girl's hair. What a dramatic change the past few decades has experienced, and to the existence of us all... vive la diversité!

(Next thing I know I might be crying out le roi est mort, vive le roi etcetera... xD )



Seize the day.

(bowl-painting)

As previously mentioned, here are the painted ceramic bowl's pictures!



(The drip is intentional.)
Right now, I'm just killing time in KLIA and will be catching the connecting flight in about an hour. Have a nice day! ^__^

The Sun, the Stars and the Moon

In relation to mentioning my attendance at two friends' wedding a couple of days back, I oblige myself to give a visual report of the reception to ensure that it wasn't my sister who got married :D



Top photo: groom and bride.
Bottom photo: what my sister looks like (in approximate)

It was a good party, and I managed to bring home a loot of white cymbidium orchids and calla lilies. Thanks to a flatmate's ingenious/scrimp-some-money advice, there was no need to buy fancy or minimalistic flower vases. Instead, I relied on what was left out of their 'wine-tasting event' (which I conveniently opted out from due to alcohol intolerance and dislike of red wine.) Pictures of said loot and corresponding makeshift flower display units are posted on myesight.

As I was walking to Learning Zone earlier today, Anne mentioned that we have lived without internet connection at home for nearly half a year. Whew! Now it is still possible to live without the internet, although it isn't the most convenient type of contemporary lifestyle.

Have I mentioned I broke my SE mobile's headphone jack cable? Well, I did (rather stupidly) a few weeks back, and have currently been forcing myself to adopt the Nokia phone for more diverse uses other than for calls and texts. I do so begrudgingly - not too good an attitude - because I don't want to spend money yet on purchasing a new jack cable (note the decision to delay consumption.) Sky pictures taken on the Nokia mobile, oddly enough, appear to have a more purplish tint compared to SE ones... another reason I nitpicked to stake against embracing the Nokia.

Anyway, enough faffing around... it's time to work.

(sumo suits)

This post may come across as 'totally random' to you, but anyway...

On Saturday, I was walking across the Paternoster Square when I came across a group of young men and women doing something that resembles a race. The notable difference was they were getting themselves into sumo suits only to be rolled away by their teammates to a certain line.

As hilarious as it was, here are the pictures:








Have a good day :))

White Cat Waltz

Things to Try Before You Die in UK #9: afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea is an extension of leisure eating and hence one of my favourite things to do... when there's time to kill and chat-worthy topics to go through.

Tissa and Nat are my sister's friends from high school. Since they are in London as part of their tour of Europe, I managed to get a booking for the three of us in an attempt to be a good/helpful/hospitable host. Since afternoon tea tends to be quite pricey, good experience is as indispensible as the edible consummables are, so the venue choice was quite narrow: Dorchester or Berkeley. I couldn't get a timely booking at the Dorchester, so Berkeley had to do... and off we went to Berkeley.

I am used to having my own 'afternoon tea time' at Liberty or Partridges accompanied with scones and jam... but this afternoon tea is in a league of its own.



We were booked for 2PM and stayed all the way till the end. We had such a good time chatting and catching up, and we practically sampled everything that was provided. We also watched the Caramel Room scenery changed as customers came and went and waiters changed their work shifts - it started off with ladies and ended up with lads. I'm trying to list down the things I learnt about proper afternoon tea today.

First, there were no scones in sight.
(Ouch!)

Second, afternoon tea at Berkeley is basically like a lunch buffet. You get bite-sized servings of sandwiches and savoury bits, and you get the fancy-looking, nice-tasting, fashion-emblazoned sweet little creations. Aaaaaand... the plates are refilled when they run low.
(Just come early and skip lunch altogether.)

Third, you can stay till the service ends at 6PM.
(Stay back and pig out on the refill service.)

Fourth, drink all you like... as long as it's tea.
(Anything else are charged. Steep.)

At the end, we got offered to bring home the remaining little cakes and biscuits in our plate. Tissa's plan to get more 'of that smoked salmon' failed miserably; we quickly finished up anything they put on the lower trays so that they are refilled with savoury nibbles. Well, towards the end we had nothing but sweet, and had to be content bringing them home ^__^ Probably we should've asked the kitchen... nevermind :q

Recounting the experience, afternoon tea left me with these things: frivolous little sweets, precious moments, an injured bank account and allergic rashes on my back. Probably I should've stayed clear of the bubbly ^^;


Special mention goes to Gincu, who suggested me to try Pret-a-Portea sometime last year. Thanks for the info, we had a good time ^^

Anyway, have a nice day! :D

(mugicha)

I might have mentioned somewhere that my preferences for food tend to sway according to the seasons. I first came across mugicha at Abeno Too (possibly the only proper okonomiyaki place in London.) The drink can be served hot or cold, and it surprisingly tastes like... coffee. For a former coffee addict, mugicha is a welcome dairy-free alternative to the beloved iced coffee.


I could only find the sachet version in central London - it's definitely sold at Japan Centre on Piccadilly and a Japanese grocery store off Putney Bridge, and I bet I have seen these in a Korean grocery in Chinatown. The loose roasted barley version should yield a stronger flavour, but unfortunately I haven't come across them >__<

Why I like it:
- tastes like coffee without the caffeine
- unnecessary to add sugar or milk
- doesn't stain teeth as badly as coffee or tea
- can be prepared with hot or cold water (options, options! ^__^ )

Why I don't like it:
- costs more than tea and instant coffee
- mugicha pitcher takes up my 'liquid drinks' fridge space (normally reserved for milk and juice)

I was somehow craving for rozen syrup too (that notorious deep rose-coloured sugar concentrate in green glass bottles), but since sweet soya sauce is somewhat non-existent... I shouldn't expect to come across rozen syrup easily. I guess I'll stick to mugicha for now...

Any ideas for cold summer drinks? :D

Konna Ni Chikaku De

I have decided to learn and master more languages, as previously mentioned... and I'm committing myself to it. I'm taking on Japanese since last weekend. The romantic idea of doing compulsory work experience in Japan (and extending it over summer holiday) is appealing. Visa-wise, I only have a faint idea of the necessary evil that is to come. I believe things will work out somehow... let's see how they turn out.

The main hurdle why I hadn't started earlier (with learning Japanese) is that there are four writing systems that are used interchangeably... sounds like linguistic torture to me. I'm tackling down hiragana and katakana, extending on kanji as my vocab grows. Nevermind the unglorious time register of this post, I did my part of writing J-pop song lyrics from latin alphabet to hiragana. I shall repeat this exercise tomorrow morning...


This is... my fifth attempt to write Konna Ni Chikaku De in hiragana. I tried not to consult to the characters' list, and wrote characters that I were not even planning to write! Such are silly mistakes I tend to make when my brain is half-alive.

(Just to be trivial, the hiragana/katakana/kanji writing system the fourth one I attempt to master, numbers 2 and 3 being Greek and Cyrillic... which honestly are not very different to Latin letters IMO.)

On the lighter side, I wonder how diplomats dream. They are [supposed to be] fluently multilingual, and with an average of three languages mastered, ..........in what languages do they think and speak in their dreams? Do people in their dreams talk back in languages they understand? Would it get spooky or nerve-racking?

Still a long way to go... =^.^= ♥

Koi ga setsunai to sugu soba de kizuita ano yoru
Datte hoka no dare yori anata no koto wo shiiteru kara
Itsumo no karigenai yasashisa sae
Kono mune wo shimetsuketeku

Konna ni, konna ni, chikaku de mitsumete mo
Doushite, doushite, tada no komodachi na no
Donna ni, donna ni, tsuyoku omotteitemo
Tsutae rarenai
You don't understand, I'm so in love with you

Aishiteru to tsugetai ii to
Mou nido to egao ni ha modorenai kamashirenai
Keredo tomodachi no mama tsugeri wa nai wo koi ijou
Watashi dekinai kara

Hontou wa, hontou wa, zutto suki datta no
Itsutemo, itsutemo, aishitsuzugete ta mo
Anata ni, anata ni, todoketai kimochi wo
Aoi sora e to sasayaku
I'm so in love with you!

(fingers against steel pins and wooden blocks)

Here are a few pictures of my hat-making class today. More to come tomorrow - yay! ^__^


Millinery is demanding on fingers, as steamed materials need to be stretched into place with a multitude of metal pins against a wooden base. Some of my classmates' hats are covered with pins they start to look like hedgehogs.


Long nails turn out to be some sort of a blessing in disguise, as they either act as pliers or are callously wedged against thimbles. Pliers are useful to pull pins out, and we do have metal pliers in class so... I'm trimming mine off tonight.

Alright then, another long day is ahead of me tomorrow! Have a good day :))