Last night which was my last night in Manila, the Nuffies from Nuffnang Philippines put together a great night out. We had a really nice dinner party at the beautiful home of one of our partners there: Jay.

The PH Nuffies did a really great job in setting everything up. Everything from the finger food, drinks, food and settings. About 30-40 of us were there and we all had name tags with fixed seating arrangements so everyone knew where to go.

And as a surprise, they even arranged for Heny Sison and some of her apprentices to cook for us that night.

Now Heny Sison is probably a new name to us but according to all the Filipinos I talked to there, she’s a really really famous chef that does cook shows on TV.

Jay described her as the “Filipino Martha Stewart”. Cooking for private functions like this is not something that she does at all. She just agreed to it because she was a family friend of Carlos our PH Nuffie.

She cooked some of the food but she even gave a bit of a cooking class to teach us how to make Pizza. So we all put on our Chef hats and aprons and tried to follow.

Man I never knew it was so much work just to make the dough.

This is how you do it.

First you put a mixture of some things yeast just like Jay here.

Then you put some flour in with the yeast in a mixer. Just like how I was doing here. See ? I helpful! 🙂

Then you’re supposed to knead the dough.

And once the dough settles after 40 minutes or so it looks like this.

Then you’re supposed to take bits of it and roll it until it becomes a flat pizza thing and you can put all your toppings on it to put it in the oven.

And voila… pizza is made.

Everyone was just having fun watching the others work.

Look at Ming laughing so loud! *evil laugh.

Thank you Chef Heny for the nice cooking lesson.

For the rest of the night we had our dinner, some dessert and a lot of great conversations.

Here are some pictures from the night.

Some of the Nuffies and Nuffnangers chat over dinner. All look like they’re having some deep conversation.

Me and PH Nuffie Patty here.

Ming having a conversation with Nuffnanger Jane.

Pam and Joy. The bubbly wives of our partners 🙂

One of the desserts we had that night.

Picture with some of the Nuffies and Nuffnangers that night.

Judd camwhoring with my camera.

Hannah and me.

Hannah is a Filipino blogger who reads lots of Malaysian blogs. She said she’s a big fan of Nuffnang even before Nuffnang came to the Philippines.

And I first knew of her when I blogged about coming to Manila once before and she left a comment welcoming me or something. I checked out her blog then because I didn’t think then that I would have many people from the Philippines reading my blog. That was a long time ago.

Now we’re all friends.

Jay and Ming having a good man to man talk.

The Buffet table with all the food.

Nuffie Maki here having dinner with Jehz!

Jehz if you remember was one of the finalists for Most Influential Blogger in the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards. (Notice Ming in the background taking some pictures of the food with his “beast”).

By the end of the night, this is how I looked. Red as a lobster all because of the man in the picture.

His name is Gerard. He was getting everyone to drink plenty all night long.

Thanks for coming everyone. And thanks to the Nuffies for putting the whole party together! I thought they did a great job.

Oh and thanks to Jay for letting us host it at his place.

I had so much fun. Just halfway throughout the night I told Ming “You know, these are one of the nights where I’m going to have a memory of forever”. I will always remember that night.

What a way to end our trip to Manila.

I just had a very very fun first night in Manila.

It started off with dinner with the PH Nuffies.

This is Eric and Jay. Our partners in Nuffnang Philippines!

And here’s the Nuffnang Philippines Team.

Can’t believe how it has grown. Used to have like.. just one person in Nuffnang Philippines when we started about one and a half years ago.

Dinner was great. Good company, good conversations and great laughs.

After dinner though we headed to this bar called Mag.Net for its famous Monday Rockeoke Nights. Now Rockeoke is where there’s a live band and anyone who wants to request a song can go up and sing.

It doesn’t matter if you’re good or bad, the crowd’s just really supportive either ways. The last time I was at Rockeoke I chickened out of singing in front of the crowd and I really regretted it.

This trip back in the Philippines I decided that I just HAD to do it. You only live once!

So I mustered the courage to go up to sing. At first I requested to sing Yellow by Cold Play but the band decided to sing it as one of their opening songs and they sang it so damn bloody well I changed my mind about singing that song. So I picked “How to Save a Life” by Fray.

The whole night was so much fun!

We were all singing along with the other people who went up on stage to sing. Cheered for them. Danced along with the music and had lots to drink. That was pretty obvious from the colour of my face. Red as Sebastian.

Here’s a picture of Ming and I with the host that night.

I woke up at 4.45AM this morning. Waking up that early in the morning has got to be illegal in some countries but well awake I was.

I sent out a tweet thinking that nobody else would see it but apparently I wasn’t the only one awake so early.

I quickly showered, got dressed then hopped on to a flight from Penang to KL and then KL to Manila.

I reached Manila to have Patty, one of the Nuffies from Nuffnang PH pick me up from the airport with a big sign!

I’m now at the hotel. Ming is arriving soon.

I’m in Penang now. Just drove down this morning. Came back to see my family for a day then Monday morning I have to wake up at like 4AM and catch a flight to Manila. Aihh… my life.

Last night though I went for the Guinness St Patrick’s Day celebration at 1-Utama and I had soooo much fun. I had fun at last year’s event too but this year’s was a class of its own. I went really early. Like it starts at 6PM and I was there even before that, having come straight from a meeting.

Walked around 1-Utama for a bit and waited for the rest of the Nuffies to arrive. Linda was the second earliest Nuffie to arrive and we decided to walk around and take some pictures.

Here’s me with the huge St Pat’s Day clover made out of balloons.

And check out the huge Guinness pint made of balloons behind me. Gotta be the most creative use of balloons I’ve ever really seen.

While I was having my picture taken, a friendly stranger popped in to take a picture with me too.

The whole event had a very carnival-like feel. There was a huge stage where they had bands playing all night long.

They had a comedy tent where they got Douglas Lim, Kavin and Jenhan to perform stand-up comedy.

and they had food stalls that served great food.

Even one from J&R.

I actually just had J&R for lunch that same day but I decided anyway to pick up some Guinness.

And what they call a “Guinness Pie”. I’m assuming a beef pie with some Guinness in it.

They even put the Guinness logo on the pastry.

Linda didn’t feel like pie so she had a hot dog that was apparently really spicy. I call it a hot hot dog. It was also around then when she told me that she had never once in her life tried Guinness before so I made sure she got one.

Guinness to me is a bit of an acquired taste (if you don’t like it, go acquire some taste… haha just kidding just kidding. I learned that line from one of our PH Nuffies). The first time I tried it I didn’t quite like it but after drinking more and more of it I began to grow to like it.

My staple drink is still Heineken but there are times when I’m in the mood for a Guinness. Like you know, there are so many of these Irish Pubs popping up around KL. The kind where you go in and everyone else is drinking Guinness. Makes you want to have one yourself.

Anyway back to St Patrick’s Day. We were all in time to watch the first stand-up comedy session with Kavin and Jenhan. Linda and I went in early so we sat at one of the front rows. Halfway through Jenhan’s performance Tziaa called me to tell me she was here. She wanted to know where I was.

I picked up the phone and spoke very very softly for a few seconds but Tzia couldn’t hear me. Then realizing that I was being very very rude to Jenhan performing I quickly hung up and text her to tell her that I’ll call her back. Sorry Jenhan… won’t be so rude ever again.

Just as well though, for some reason Tzia managed to guess that we were in the comedy tent and met up with us after the performance.

Say hello to Tzia and Adele.

There were a lot of other bloggers there. Including Vvens, Ginny and Superwilson here.

And Ringo too.

I heard Kimcun and Shaolin were there too (from their tweets) but I didn’t manage to spot them. I did manage to find Sixthseal though.

When I got home my brother told me some news. He told me how someone we all knew had gone missing for the past 7 days. No sign of him, no call for ransom or anything. Nothing. Just recently they found him…. murdered.

I don’t want to go into the identity of this person nor do I want to go into what happened but I don’t know how to describe how I feel about this now. We read about these things in the papers almost every other day. Someone gets raped, someone gets murdered or something else equally as bad happens to someone. To us we all read it as a piece of news because we don’t know that someone.

When it happens to someone you know it finally hits you. Suddenly a person that you felt would always be around just suddenly disappears from your life. You think of your last memory of him and maybe the last conversation you’ve had with him and then poof it’s all gone. I can’t even say I was really close to this someone and already I feel very sad. I can’t imagine how his family must feel.

Why are there such cruel people in this world?

God please help us…

Was at Princess’ house the other day and I saw this car parked outside.

I’m sure all of you know what’s been going on with Tiger Woods right? How he’s been having a little bit of a bad time for being caught cheating on his wife and all that. He’s even had a press conference not too long ago to issue an apology. The public has been putting him through so much shit that I actually feel really sorry for him.

It’s politically correct these days to say Tiger Woods deserved whatever he’s getting and all that for what he did but I’m just going to say it. I think it’s too much. While he has done wrong by cheating, why should everyone continue to crucify him for his suffering marriage? Who are we to say that we will never make any mistakes like this at any point in our lives? When we judge him, what is it that makes us feel we’re more perfect than him?

Last weekend I went for one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had in my life. Here’s how it started.

I notice that these few years I’ve been spending my time really differently. I’d imagine the typical Malaysian couple would spend their time on weekends going window shopping in malls, watching a movie and stuff along those lines.

Princess and I used to follow that routine and all but after a while we began to be a boring couple. So we started not going out and just staying home on lazy Sunday afternoons, reading our books or just lying around.

Then after it dawns on us that we’ve become a lazy couple, we get defensive and quickly go find something to do… like make chocolate truffles.

One thing that we’ve been quite active in during our free time though is the stand-up comedy scene. To be honest, that came after going for some stand-up comedies and getting to know Jenhan. Last week we went for Timeout’s Stand-Up Comedy night at Zouk.

The stand-up comedy scene in KL is really fast growing. We have some really good stand-up comedians in Malaysia and every performance I attend is always packed with people so there’s quite a following too.

I think it takes sooo much confidence to be a stand-up comedian. Imagine having to stand on a stage with a spotlight right on you. Then look at the faces all staring right up at you, waiting for you to say something that will make them laugh. And if you don’t make them laugh then you end up having a load more stress piled on to you.

I think it’s such a hard job and I really admire how so many of these stand-up comedians have the courage to do it for fun… not for money or anything but for fun. That night we watched like maybe ten different comedians including Rudy from Mix.FM and it was so much fun.

This Canadian guy made fun of me the most though.

Princess and I were sitting near the stage when he went around asking people what their ambitions were when they were young. This lawyer in his 50s answered that he wanted to be an “astronaut” and Princess went “Hahaha so cute wan!”.

And then to my surprise he turned to me and asked me “Now what did you want to be?”

Being caught by surprise I answered it as honestly as I could (which I now realize was a big mistake). I answered “Postman“.

He said “Postman?!?! Man you must’ve been watching too much porn!!” (Think because there’s gotta be some porn somewhere that involves a postman and a lonely housewife or something).

Everyone found it funny that I wanted to be a postman. Why though? It’s something I really wanted to be and even my mum didn’t find it worrying when I told her that I wanted to be a postman.

When I thought of being a postman, I thought of riding my motorbike with the wind in my face. The outside world would be my office as I travel house by house delivering mail. Plus I was going through a phase where I loved putting letters into mailboxes so that was loads of fun to me too.

But as I grew older my ambitions changed with age too. At one time I wanted to be a soldier and another time a pilot. Not sure why I was so fickle but I think I was heavily influenced by the movies I watched. Top Gun made me wanna be a pilot and Rambo made me want to be a soldier.

I’m turning 26 this year… and I’m neither a pilot, postman or soldier.

Today I experienced an EPIC traffic jam in KL. It was raining cats, dogs, dinosaurs and hippos during rush hour and my destination was somewhere off the LDP. I could seriously use one of those flying cars the Jetsons use to get around.

Anyway this will be a short entry. Some friends came together last weekend for a long lunch at Delicious.

Jia Jer… my friend whom I got to know at college, then followed me to London for university and then back to KL to work again. Goodbye for he has moved away to Australia and left us behind to live the good relaxing Aussie life.

Goodbye Jia Jer! We will miss you!

Trivia: My friend Jia Jer whom I’ve known for many years is actually the elder brother of Princess’ good friend Jia Meei.

Such a small small world!

Small world ride in Disneyland Hong Kong! Whee…

Speaking of a small world. Let me tell you another story.

Years ago while I was studying in London I knew this guy (whom I will refer to here as) Alfred. He was a nice guy and all but he was going through a tough time in his life. He had broken up with his ex-gf (whom I will name here as Susan) for like… 1-2 years or something and he was still hung over. Like he couldn’t stop talking about her and tell people how much he loved her and all that.

One day Alfred told me about how Susan’s best friend had actually sent him a really nasty e-mail scolding him for something he (wrongfully) accused Susan and telling him to fuckoff and leave Susan alone (you know standing up for her best friend). Being a fellow guy-friend of his I just shook my head and said “What a bitch!”.

3-4 years later I had already gotten together with Princess.

One day I was telling her about this friend of mine (Alfred) who was heartbroken over his ex and how his ex’s bitch best friend had sent him a nasty e-mail to scold him. Princess gave me a rather peculiar look for a while… then I realized that Susan’s “bitch best friend”, was actually Princess.

What a small world indeed!