My Very First Blog

On Christmas Day last week, I was invited to a Christmas dinner gathering by my friend.

I had a great time there because besides the delicious food, I was treated to real ghost stories by a retiree there.

More on the ghost stories later. First, let's take a look at the food I ate that night.

We had turkey. What Christmas dinner would it be without turkey right?



Although honestly, I prefer chickens! Haha! I feel chicken meat is more tender and juicy!

But I learnt that if I scoop some sauce underneath that huge turkey and spread it on my turkey meat, it tasted much better. Add in some cranberry sauce and voila, you have a delicious tasting turkey! Yummy!!

Besides turkey, we had salad which was full of fresh strawberries, grapes and carrots!



Spread some mayonnaise sauce on top of the salad and you would be drooling in no time! In fact, I am drooling even as I write this! Haha!

We had two different types of spaghetti.



Which one looks more appetizing to you?



My host asked me which I preferred and I had a hard time deciding as they were both nice!

Ooh! Feels like having spaghetti for dinner tonight! Hmmm....

I am not a fan of shepherd's pie, but this one was scrumptious!



Maybe because all the food I ate here was home cooked. Somehow, home cooked food always taste better! Don't you all agree?

Oh, by the time I took the photo of this shepherd's pie, it was already half eaten! And I have not started eating yet! Gosh!!! I guess that's the sacrifice I had to make as a blogger! Haha!

We had an assortment of cakes for desserts.



Oh! They were so yummy I had a hard time stopping myself from making a complete sweep of these cakes!



Luckily I managed to control myself and left some cakes for others! LOL! I was actually wondering if the host would allow me to take home some. Haha!

And of course there were the usual "junk food".



All calorie laden cookies and sweets! I tried not to touch them but I eventually succumbed to the pineapple tarts and the chocolate cookies!

Well, I promised myself to jog round the park five times the next day, which I unfortunately did not do due to waking up late! LOL!

Now, as I was enjoying my dinner with friends, an old retiree came up to us and told us his encounters with ghosts! Being a fan of ghost stories, I was all ears!

I am not going to go into details, but very briefly, this man had worked in Filem Negara (located in Section 14, PJ) for close to 40 years and during his work there, he had experienced a lot of chilling hauntings in the darkroom and the surrounding area there.

I was freaked out when he told us about how he almost got strangled a few times by a ruthless ghost and how men and women would ran out of toilets completely naked after being disturbed by ghosts inside the toilets!

One very spooky encounter was in the toilet when a man felt his buttock was being pinched! He was so scared he ran out of the toilet without bothering to wear his pants!

Another was the retiree's own experience of how he could feel someone or something following him around inside the darkroom while he was processing photos. This happened many times and he was mostly alone at that time! Sometimes, that thing would poke at him, at other times, it would try to strangle him!

Luckily the retiree was brave or perhaps he was so used to the hauntings, he actually shouted at the ghost to leave him alone! And it did, for a while, before attacking him again.

Anyone of you currently works in Filem Negara? Haha!

By the way, the retiree told us that you better not be the last one to leave the building, as you would need to switch off all lights before leaving and the thing was, the switch was located far inside the building. After switching off the lights, you would need to walk quite a distance in complete darkness before reaching the exit. Horrors!

OK, enough about ghost stories! I hope I spooked you a little. Haha! Getting back to the dinner, I took photo of one of my friends cutting the turkey to the last bit.



And another friend digging out whatever fillings inside the turkey for our consumption.



This is the photo of the fillings. Does not look too appetizing, but trust me, it's yummy!



I would really be missing this nice dinner gathering. I hope to get invited again next Christmas!

Continuing from my previous post Merry Christmas 2009, here are more shots of Christmas decorations at The Gardens Mall in KL.





I think it's just OK to me, nothing outstanding that would make me go "wow!"

At least Pavilion KL was more interesting with their flying reindeers!



OK, let me magnify the flying reindeers a little for you.



The main concourse was filled with tall Christmas trees.



There were performances every night, if I am not mistaken.



Outside the main entrance of Pavilion, there were brightly lit reindeers pulling a carriage.



And brightly lit Christmas trees too.



Of course, not forgetting the snow! Read my post about the snow in Pavilion if you haven't already.



Over at Berjaya Times Square, I was at first a little awed by their tall rotating Christmas tree!



Although the tree does not look that tall in my photo.

I was however more attracted to their Santa's snow cottage.







Does this look like snow falling?



I could feel as if the snow were falling on me from this angle looking up.



There seemed to be a lot of snowmen around, so I just captured a few photos of them.



Not too bad, in my opinion. But still not enough to impress me. Haha!

I went to Suria KLCC half expecting to see their giant tall Christmas tree which they put up year after year after year. But, surprise! The tall Christmas tree was nowhere in sight and was replaced by this!



Is that supposed to be a gingerbread house or something? What do you think?



Nice, vibrant colours of lollipops or candies!



And are these supposed to be cute? I guess children would find them cute!



Talking about cute, KLCC should take the cue from Bangsar Shopping Centre. Take a look!



Now is that a gigantic lamp and table or what!



A giant drawer, mirror and book! I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland!

Can you read what was written in the book?



Santa Claus in a giant bubble. Nice!



Ooh! Cute giant teddy bear on a cute blue stool!



Let me magnify the bear : )



OK, I liked this cute bear a lot so I took it from two different angles. Haha!



Did you notice someone sitting right behind that bear?



Now who is he? Do you know?



You see those giant bubbles at the top?



Looks like there are tiny figurines inside them! I am glad it was not an empty bubble!



I think this is by far the most interesting Christmas decoration I have seen this year. What do you think? I just had to take a few more shots of the place!





Pardon me for the numerous bear pictures - I really like the bear although I think my panda avatar is cuter. Haha!







Each shopping mall has its own Christmas theme. I actually only learnt about them after I visited the malls! Haha! So let me state the theme for each mall I visited.

1Utama - White lyrical Christmas. It's all white!! Too bad no snow!
The Curve - Bedazzled Christmas. Medieval times with angels and fairies galore!
Sunway Pyramid - A Magnifique Christmas (inspired by Moulin Rouge) This explains the mannequin wearing cabaret costumes in the cage which I did not have a clue in my previous post!
Mid Valley Megamall - A Magical Christmas. Also medieval times with castles and candles and maybe some magic!
The Gardens - Not sure of the theme! I think there is no theme. But it's more of a classic decor.
Pavilion KL - A Royale Christmas. The title 'Royale' suggests grand Christmas!
Berjaya Times Square - Santa's Snowy Cottage.
Suria KLCC - The Sweetest Christmas. No wonder colourful candies and sweets took centrestage!
Bangsar Shopping Centre - Not sure of the theme, but sure looks like Alice In Wonderland to me!

Wow! Didn't realize I had visited 9 malls the past two weeks just to snap photos of Christmas decorations! So, after looking at these photos, which mall do you think, has the best Christmas decoration in 2009?

Finally the day has arrived. Today is 25th December and it is Christmas Day! Merry Christmas, everyone!

For the past two weeks, I have been going around shopping malls in PJ and KL to capture all those Christmas decorations. I did not have the time to cover all the malls of course, but I think I covered the major ones at least.

Since today is Christmas Day, I thought why not post the photos I took in all the malls I visited.

So let us begin with 1Utama.



I was dreaming of a White Christmas......at 1Utama!







It's a White, white, white Christmas! They should have snow falling to complete the mood!





Next, let us go to The Curve!



The Curve's Christmas decorations at The Walk reminds me of medieval times complete with fairies and angels!









Besides The Walk area, I could feel the Christmas mood at The Street area too especially at night!







Surprisingly, I could not find any nice Christmas decorations next door at Ikano and Ikea so no photos of those two places.

I was quite disappointed with Sunway Pyramid. Take a look.



I am not sure what to make out of it.

High up on the ceiling, hangs a cage with a female figurine inside. I thought it just looks a bit weird!



In contrast, Mid Valley Megamall did a superb job this year although it was not as good as last year.



The many suspended candles is a sight to behold!







Next door, The Gardens Mall was not too bad.



Coming up next : More Christmas decos at The Gardens Mall, Pavilion, KLCC, Bangsar Shopping Centre and Berjaya Times Square!