Manchester United - EPL Champions 3 Years In A Row!

A goalless draw with Arsenal yesterday was enough to ensure Manchester United completed a hat-trick of Premier League title triumphs. The celebrations were held after the match at Old Trafford.








A win over rivals Arsenal at home would be better but United's attack was toothless. Credit to their defence for soaking up the attacks from Arsenal. Perhaps this draw also helped eased Arsene Wenger's pressure after succumbed to Chelsea 1-4 last week and the humiliated by United in the Champions League semis 1-5 on aggregate.

After Manchester United's coach Sir Alex Ferguson first took over the team in 1986, he vowed to "knock Liverpool off their perch'. The team is now just one league championship away from doing just that. Currently 18 titles were bagged by Liverpool and United respectively throughout the history of the EPL (English Premier League). The target will be a 19th title next year.



After securing the 3rd straight EPL title, the immediate focus now is to retain the UEFA Champions League title by beating Barcelona in Rome on May 28, 2009. May the best team in Europe win!

What Do You Eat When There's Nobody Cooking For You?

It has been almost a week since my wife and kid left for Malaysia. I am home alone again for 2 weeks here in Palembang before joining them. We have been living without a maid for more than 1 month and my wife has been cooking all my meals before she left for Malaysia.

After my wife's departure, I have been buying "nasi bungkus" (packaged rice). The people who do not bring their own food to work normally order these nasi bungkus. The rice normally comes with nangka fruit (as vegetables), curry and either fish, beef or chicken. They are being delivered via motorbikes to the work place. Each pack costs about Rp8,000 (RM2.80). Not very nutritious but it still fills up a person because of the abundance of the rice.

The photos of these nasi ayam (chicken rice, left) and nasi daging (beef) do not look very appealing because they all look brown and dirty.

After a few days of nasi bungkus, I decided to try a local caterer recommended from a friend. The following photos show the dishes that they served. I had to pay Rp33,000 (RM11.50) per day for 3 dishes (actually 2 dishes with 1 soup). I normally eat half of it for lunch and keep half of it for dinner.

So far, I had chicken+veg with black fungus+corn soup and beef+eggs+chicken soup. The food is definitely better compared to nasi bungkus. The downside to catering is you don't get to choose the type of food you get but the mystery of guessing what is for lunch creates excitement at noon.

Lunch and dinner is pretty much settled for me everyday but breakfast is still pretty boring. We have been having oats for breakfast almost everyday in Palembang. For me, I have had oats since I was young and I hated it. My wife also hated it but it is still the most nutritious food for breakfast in Palembang. We have been trying many ways to make eating oats more pleasant. When we came back from Malaysia during Chinese New Year in Jan'09, we brought back some pork floss to eat with our oats. Our friends also gave us some and it lasted only until Mar'09. After that we have been trying oats with egg & maggi seasoning (see picture below).

I tried to cook something different for breakfast. Found some eggs, tomatos and ladies fingers (left overs), therefore I cooked them up and it looked like this....





It did not taste that good, so I guess tomorrow I will have to buy some nasi uduk (nasi lemak or coconut rice) for breakfast!

Becak (Trishaw) Ride

One day we saw a trishaw carrying a passenger to a nearby house. So I took the opportunity to take my son for a "Becak" ride (in Malaysian it's called "Beca" but in Indonesian it's "Becak" - sounds like bay-chuck).

My wife used to bring my son along for these becak rides once in awhile but it was my first time trying it. The roads are quite bumpy in our housing area and some areas were a bit uneven. When the Becak-man came to the sloping areas, he would jump off his becak and push it. I felt a bit embarrassed having this skinny guy to push 75kg+15kg worth of weight (not counting the weight of his becak).

I offered to come off the becak but he insisted that we stayed on. It only took him 10 mins to round the housing complex but I would not want him to "suffer" by getting him to cycle/push any longer. Here are some shots taken from the becak. My little one was very happy throughout the ride. I am glad to have some fun time with him. The only bad thing is I had to sit on my back bone as the shed is very low (I looked like a prawn inside the becak!).

April 2009 In A Glance

I am truly sorry for not being able to put up any post in the month of April'09. Here's a summary of what happened last month:

Jakarta: We went to JKT for 3D/2N. Took a Sat & Mon off to travel to the Indonesian capital for a weekend break since we still have not been there after 2.5 years living in Indonesia. All that we did was walking the malls/shops and we had such a "loot" in JKT.

Here's a photo of one of the malls (we were not allowed to take any photos inside due to security restrictions but managed to "steal" this shot via my camera phone).

I managed to get my replica United jersey (xmas'08 wish), United merchandise, DVDs and clothing for both my kid and my wife. Everyone was happy with the short visit and I have a strong feeling that we might be visiting JKT again! The Manchester United replicas cost me only 1/4 of the original price but the material is exactly the same as the real merchandise.... sometimes you just can't stop being a "pirate"....LOL!


Circus Came To Town:
A circus was held at an empty ground next to PTC Mall. We did not go in because we were a bit skeptical about the safety (from the animals) and the environment (crowd). However, my son did have a close look at the circus elephants.

These 4 giants were just shackled onto a wooden platform and there were absolutely no barriers to keep us away from those beasts. With a bit of hesitation, I approached them with caution and these shots showed the closest we were from them.

What a full load of crap.....LOL!

Easter: Took my son for a flag-hunt (sort of treasure hunt looking for small flags) after the Easter mass. He only managed to find 1 flag, so he only got 1 Easter egg for his effort.

3 Maids In 2 Years

We have had 3 maids in the past 2 years that we have been staying here in Palembang. It seems like the people here change jobs quite frequently despite the global economic crisis. Below are some interesting facts about the maids that we have had so far.

1st maid:

• 25 years old - supposedly have been working in Malaysia before for a couple of years.
• always had to go home during the weekend to attend to her sick mother.
• always sleeping in the bathroom (just woken up face everytime we see her coming out from the bathroom).
• 1/2 a day's work always take more than 1 day to finish.
• lousy cook.
• duration working for us: 1 year.

2nd maid:

• 17 years old - dropped out from school as family could not afford.
• we helped her go back to school to study on alternate day's afternoons.
• worked for us for 9 months.
• good in cooking and has the initiative to learn.
• got married to one of our complex's security guards within 2 weeks and never returned to work anymore - claiming husband and in-laws prohibited her from working after she got pregnant!

3rd and current maid:

• 17 years old - just got her in last week.
• sister works 2 houses away from us.
• so far so good, hopefully she will be able to last longer than the other 2 maids as she does not have any handphone access!