OvaFest-Desert Safari

We had a long weekend last week because it was New Year on Thursday (10 Jan) on Islamic Calender.
Our colleagues from different offices in the Gulf region (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha) all met up for Ovafest, a company event. This year we did the Desert Safari.

Colleagues and their families from our Doha office had to fly all the way from Doha to Dubai for this event. It was great to meet some of the family members of our colleagues finally.









The Desert Safari is composed of:
Sand Dune Bashing in 4 wheel drive. This was the vehicle I did sand dune bashing in
This shows how steep the slope was
Other sand dune bashing vehicles..
Motor bikes
Flashy Mobile
Camel Ride

Falcon performance

The hand mask was said to protect the falcon because its eyesight covers 800m radius and the presence of us would scare the falcon to death
Belly Dancing

Buffet Dinner

Costume wearing. I was in the male costume in this pic...
and female in this
Smoking Arabic Shisha (or bubbly hubbly). It was not nice at all. I coughed like hell after one sip.

Henna painting


I had a great time. We stayed until late night and were fetched back to Dubai in the very same 4 by 4 we used in the sand dune bashing.

Domestic Goddess 2-馬豆糕 (Yellow-split Bean Cake)

This is my popo (grandmother)'s favourite dessert. She used to make this for us when we were young. Now she is too weak to make anything for us. I hope she gets well soon.
The cooked yellow split bean
Ingredients include milk, coconut milk and corn flour
The smooth mixture of the milk and sugar
Keep mixing the pot after adding corn flour
Put the mixture in a cake mold and place it in a fridge overnight
If you are interested in making one, google for 馬豆糕. You should be able to locate a recipe.
I am such a domestic goddess. Ha.

Domestic Goddess

Because my laptop was not working properly, I had so much free time that I kicked up a big storm in the kitchen.

First, I decided to make dumplings. There was no ready-made dumpling skin available in Dubai supermarkets. I have to make it from scratch.
The dough
The skin
The stuffing/filling which is made up of ground pork, vegetable and seasoning
The raw dumplings
Dumplings in soup style
Brilliantly handmade dumpling in chicken soup

Pan-fried style dumplings

Served together with vinegar

Not your typical vinegar, but Italian Balsamic Vinegar! *love*

Desperado

Well, given the current situation of my laptop, I did the unthinkable. I DISASSEMBLED my Macbook.

Taking out the key one by one

The scissors mechanism that holds the key

The dirty keyboard (the yellow powder is the soup residue, ARGH)

The keyboard keys, kinda look like scrabbles...

Lifting up the keyboard cover

The back of the keyboard cover

The inside of my Macbook.

I could not find any liquid or anything loose or rusty. So I put the cover back.

I gave out a loud sigh when the laptop still operates, though the problem is still there.

My poor fingers. The bolts and nuts are screwed damn tight.

Close up on fingers.

The bottom line, I opened my laptop up and I saw lotsa cat fur, not much soup powder debris in the circuit board though. I cleaned up the keyboard so if I send my macbook to the repair shop eventually, hopefully the soup accident is not obvious.

Yes, I have no shame. I do not intend to report the whole truth to the repair guy.

Liquid Spill

There was an unfortunate accident on my macbook. It suffered a liquid spill and now some of the keys are not working, mainly the keys on the middle row (the a/s/d row) and most of the number keys. Btw, I am typing this using my office keyboard.

Just googled and learnt that this is not going to be covered by Applecare. *smack head*. And there are numerous ways to tackle this situation according to the experts.

1. Get an external keyboard and hopefully this works
2. Dismantle the keyboard and dry it with compressed cool air
3. Give it a distilled water bath
4. or an alcohol bath

Anyone has any better ideas?

I am really feeling very bad now. I hope the water will just evaporate in these few days and hopefully the keyboard will work again. It was soup from noodles actually, not just plain water. In the mean time, my mouse pad and other keys are still working fine. So please understand if I do not talk to you on facebook/msn/gmail chat but you see me feeding your fluffy pets/online/logged on. I am not ignoring you, I am just unable to speak to you in coherent sentences. *sulk*

Poem-白居易燕詩

I learnt this poem in secondary school back in Hong Kong. It has made an impression on me ever since. I especially love the last six lines.

樑上有雙燕，翩翩雄與雌，
銜泥兩椽間，一巢生四兒，
四兒日夜長，索食聲孜孜，
青蟲不易捕，黃口無飽期，
嘴爪雖欲弊，心力不知疲，
須臾千來往，猶恐巢中飢，
辛勤三十日，母瘦雛漸肥，
喃喃教言語，一一刷羽衣，
一旦羽翼成，引上庭樹枝，
舉翅不回顧，隨風四散飛，
雌雄空中鳴，聲盡呼不歸，
卻入空巢裡，啁啾整夜悲。

燕燕爾勿悲，爾當反自思，
思己為雛日，高飛背母時，
當時父母念，今日爾應知

The Odds

It all started in November, 2007.

It was a Saturday. I was shopping in the supermarket near my place and was lining up for bread when I saw a Chinese man in the line. He looked familiar to me and actually reminded me of someone I met in Bath in 2002. But I thought to myself, how possible could that be? By the time I could do anything, he had already left the supermarket.

I went back home, searched the back of my memory and finally remembered his name. Although I was not 100% sure that the guy I saw was him nor that it was his name, I thought, wth, next time if I saw him again I should check with him.

And ZOOM to 2008. I saw him yesterday in the supermarket again. This time I worked up the courage and tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he had studied in Bath before. And to my surprise, he had and he straight away told me his name. And YES! He is the person I thought he is! Sadly though, he could not remember me or my name.

So I refreshed his memory a bit and we chatted and exchanged name cards. He started working in an UK firm after he graduated from Bath and was transferred to Dubai in April. He is now staying in the Marina too.

It is a very very small world after all.

I am still totally shocked that I actually reunited with a Hong Konger who I met in Bath when I was doing an exchange from Singapore, right here in Dubai! What are the odds?!?!

We are going to meet up tomorrow for lunch for a quick chat. This is an amazing encounter. I should totally go and get 4D or mark 6!!!