Coffee Appreciation - Knowledge of Coffee!

I wouldn't say I am a coffee addict, but with the many of cafe and coffee place mushrooming around the heart of city, plus some easy access to many coffee chain stores around... This made me kind of curious for the taste and aroma of - Coffee!

Most of all, I do have a simple coffee machine to experiment with. Which made me even more hungry for such knowledge.

I signed up for a session with my neighborhood cafe - Grandeur Gallery Cafe some time earlier this year, and the session was conducted by Barista Guild Asia. Learned to identify arabica vs robusta coffee beans, interesting facts were shared. Had a great shot of espresso, it's tiny all black coffee! Tasted slight soury but rich in aroma, it was interesting.

It was great, the session was not as boring as I thought. We had some hands on experiences in brewing and preparing cappuccino with the skillful milk frothier. I learned how to differentiate latte, cappuccino and flat white coffee. Indeed, cappuccino is the richest with milk among all. In such, I prefer flat white if I were to have my coffee goes with milk.

I do appreciate black coffee a.k.a americano (espresso + hot water) more these days, all black without sugar and milk. As much, pure black coffee serves only 2calories :) The most, I would always like my afogato (espresso + vanilla ice cream) when I brew at home.

Coffee Beans

Baristot Tiziano bean

Coffee Bean Grinder

Coffee Machine

Grandeur Gallery's Decor

Explain what's Cappuccino vs Latte

My Cappuccino

This Lemon Cheese Cake was yummy

Great to learn and understand more... but I wouldn't wish to become a barista (any more) as I learned that its such difficult to handle coffee machines in order to brew a nice coffee. It requires lots of patients and 'heart' in serving the customers. Great salutes to those good baristas out there, who serves coffee up right from their heart, have the patient glow in the cuppa they presented to their customer.

Avon Fighting Brest Cancer Walk, Sep 23 2012

This is a dated post. Just realized I have tones of unprocessed photos in my MBP, been lack of time and energy to blog these days. Anyway, this ain't a special event that capturing deep into my memory. I rather blog them out before I washed it away from my memory, at least I knew I have done a 5KM walk before.

The event wasn't a great one, as we waited at the starting point for more than 2 hours! Poor time management, I would say. Overall, the setup was fine and organized. Goodie bag was good, as that was where I've got a bandana, actually quite useful for some outdoor activity (will blog soon).

I like pink! True enough, the t-shirt and baloon were all in pink. It made me felt dizzy, for the 1st time. Capturing my experience that morning... well, it was a slow walk after all the wait, sun was shiny and hot, there's where I felt sunburn and went covering my face with the bandana instead.

Putrajaya Precinct 3 was a nice place. I enjoy the walk and view with nice modern buidings. Wish I have a bike that time, that I could go round and round the place. Taking more time in taking pictures with my DSLR. Oh my camera! He has been in the closet for such a long time, sad. :(

Series of pictures below, self explainable. And, by the way I started to use RunKeeper to trace and capture my walk on my smartphone, it works! (of course it works...)

The free baloon

Starting Point @ Palace of Justice

Baloon off the skies

My NB running shoe

Buildings

the Crowd

Stress Free?

Stretching time

Horse! Thought I would ride on those

Time for food

CNY 2012, The powerful Dragon year :)

Gong Hei Fatt Choy! Another year has past, here comes the year of Dragon. The most powerful creature in the world of Zodiac sign.

I don't have much preparation for the celebration this year. Everything keep simple and less emotion as well. Wishing all prosperity as always & blessed in good health always. Stay safe and be happy.

Happy Chinese New Year ! 恭賀新禧。。。

A Trip to Ulu Langat/Semenyih : Shepherd's Foster Home - Lunch - Tekala Waterfall

It was an uncertain trip for me, I left it to my mood today to decide. Apparently, the sun shined happily today. And so, I thought this is the chance for me to update my blog.. else boring me will have nothing to 'produce'.

Trip started 930AM from Kota Kemuning --> 10AM++ arrived at Shepherd Foster Home, Semenyih --> 1130AM arrived at Broga for Lunch --> 130AM arrived at Tekala Waterfalls. There were 6 cars convoyed us.... it was me and my lovely GPS! Total of 35++ pax were in the trip.

Shepherd Foundation Center
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Very brief visit to their children foster home, we donated lots of stuffs... which was collected from the last PPKK's Treasure Hunt.. these were the treasures we, treasure hunters collected. It was a good idea to seek for treasures like this during a hunt, it had made the hunt more meaningful.

This foster home seems to be an established one, though they don't have a very nice shelter, unlike some very 'rich' ones... but one thing I observed - the children are happy... There are some ill children under their care too, a 10 year old boy by the name of 'ah-sing' who is terminally ill with diabetic... seems to be cheerful and came shakes hand with all of us. Hope he will gain good health soon one day.

In case you would like to pay them a visit.. here's their detail - http://www.shepherd.org.my/

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Lunch @ Broga Recreational Fishing Park - Grilled Tilapia Fish
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Very interesting place where you could fish and eat.. of course, when it is crowded of so, you might not have the chance to do your own fishing. At least during my visit, I see no one was doing that... why not ya? Probably most people were hungry at that time. Well, I wish I could hold a fishing rod one day, it must be sad to say, someone who grew up in an island does not know how to fish? It must be a joke!

Anyway, back to the place.... I would not sure if the restaurant has a website, as I can't find one from google.... but they have nice namecards, pamphlet designed for them. This is what I got from http://www.alankok.com/?page_id=193

But when you reached the place on a winding and narrow road.. you might missed the place! At least that was what happened to us as the car was less at that time. Usually during peak period, car parked will be limited and it will overflown to the roadside. For those with GPS, you would have to update the latest map from MFM, and search under POI of 'Ikan Bakar'. Else, you would need to make sure you don't miss the little signboard at the gate, stated "郭石水鱼塘" instead.

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The interior of the restaurant is rather a simple 'atap house'. Dishes prepare were all simple, you won't see a single wok out there (but may be in the kitchen)... all you can see are aluminum foils and the charcoal. All dishes including the vegetable are grilled with the foils.

Indeed an interesting restaurant worth paying a visit...

GPS coordinate : N2 55.834 E101 55.721


Tekala Waterfall, Ulu Langat
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Mind you, there may be Waterfalls enthusiastic out there!! If you do, do visit http://www.waterfallsofmalaysia.com/... They kept updating new waterfall sites in this website... best part is some even have GPS POI...

Tekala Waterfall, again a new discovered place for me. However, I didn't get down to the water as I thought it is gonna be messy afterwards...with cloths changing and shower not available nearby. But overall, the facilities around, i.e. changing rooms are well available at major spots.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy myself with my toys!!... both my cameras, my BenQ netbook, my DiGi Broadband, and my iPod Shuffle.... Hehe, a friend said I looked like 'a city gal going into the jungle'... I agree :), as I always joked to my friends - I don't mind staying in the jungle.... provided I am given internet access... haha!

Besides the tech stuffs, I do enjoyed the foods too...apparently our friends did bring along lots of food to share... includes nicely chilled (in a cooler box) many many mini fruit tarts, egg and sardine sandwiches, watermelon, 3-in-1 coffee, and I did contributed a pamelo too!!!

Here are some pictures to share... I gotta consolidate them since I am lazy uploading them one by one to Blogspot.

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A place call Home? It's time to 'warm' it up!

It's pretty hard for me to start my blog post lately. Things had been 'out of sight, out of mind'. Guess something might had gone missing somewhere. Anyway, I had a fulfilling 2-days weekend over a long Hari Raya holidays to prepare for a Garden BBQ party for my close friends and their family members.

A preparation of the event was started with an invitation list, I have an event coordinator whom will ask around the group if everyone will be coming..., good job! I then have a 2 pager list of spreadsheet for my things to buy and things to source/borrow.

Let's see what I had...

Started with coffee time... sorry I had missing photo of the Scones contributed by a friend, and freshly baked Oreo Cheesecake!

Besides BBQ, I had some 'instant' home cooked food served...

My curry chicken, Cintan Mee Noodle and fried mixed vegetables...

Lastly, I personally like this handmade AngPao specially made for me.. thank you friends, you all are so thoughtful.

There were some great entertainment organized over the night too... unfortunately my camera wasn't quick enough to capture the 'first-time, first-nite' moment well enough. Therefore, I am unable to share them here. There is this other blog has it much detailed cam-corded :P

Zheng Xin Buddhist Association's Bodhi Nite 2009

It has been a tiring weekend... having very limited time for blogging, somehow I managed to update several blogs of mine. Being a blogger cum writer for some other blog owners is not an easy job, somewhat, I can feel the fulfillment while writing, when I am able to share something with more and more friends. I might not be a good writer... working hard towards that. In case you are curious to know, click here and here for the updates. I even uploaded some photos to Multiply.com, my abandoned blog site.

What are the activities I had this week? Well, I was offered a free-ticket. Not to say its free, but it was some how a charity dinner ticket where someone had donated the ticket but not able to attend. I some what was offered to attend on behalf. Anyway, since I have no other plans that nite, might as well joined along. Though, I know its gonna boring.

It was Zheng Xin Buddhist Association in Puchong, organized a charity dinner for their association. This reminded me of a similar offer given by a friend last year, in which we attended a similar kind of charity dinner for a Buddhist Association charity dinner at One World Hotel (organized for different organization). This time, the event was held at Sime Darby Convention Center.

Location of the event was nice, there were ample car park at its multistory building, most importantly parking was free. The building seems new, as this was my first time visit. The convention hall ambiance was great. That's when I spend most of my time, entertaining myself with my camera, while sitting & waiting at the dinning table.

The dinner was a Chinese Vegetarian 8 coursed dinner. Since it was Vegetarian, don't expect much. And true enough, it was way below my expectation. Guess the only good food served was during the cocktail event.

The theme of the nite was "Brighten Up the Heart" or "Lighting Up the Mind and Soul" (点亮心灵之灯). Thus, you have seen candles of light on the dinning table. There's great meaning of this, guess I may not be able to explain it in detail.... unless you understand Buddhism and its thoughts. The below show be able to explain better.

Here's the door gift - a key chain. Added one more for my key chain collection ;)

Series of performance was lined up... below was the "Thousand Hands" & Violin Performance by Yvonne (Ops, can't remember her last name).. she has a sexy back yeah!!