The surprise farewell

I thought today was going to be another normal weekend. We were planning to have a lunch with Zainal's ex-colleagues at The Curve and maybe some shopping after that. We arrived 15 minutes before 1pm and since Zainal said they were planning to meet at Marche around 1pm, we walked around the flee market to see if I can find something for my company's Crazy Hat Party this Thursday. I guessed Zainal was hungry so he suggested to go to the Marche right away. 

Upon entering Marche, I saw a lady that was smiling and waving at me. I thought I've seen this lady before but is she Zainal's colleague? Then I saw Intan and Dhira and I was like, hey, you guys are here! Don't know that everyone decided to eat at Marche today. After that I saw Sue, Sara (she's the lady that smiled and waved at me!) and lastly Mas. I was like heyyyyy.... ape ni? One of the lady, couldn't remember who said, surprise!! This is a surprise for you. I was like ??????? I was speechless. Didn't know what to say and saw the cake. Tears was just at the corner of my eyes but I hold back of course (don't want this to be a joke later.. haha).

The cake and the gift basket

I was never in the position of being surprised. I don't know how to react and what to do. I'm actually quite blur the whole lunch. I couldn't even think of what to eat. I was actually surprised and overwhelming with so much love thinking that my girlfriends took time to organize and make it all the way to The Curve. And my husband, wow, he can really keep a secret and knows how to cover the whole surprise lunch.

Thank you so much for the best surprise farewell lunch. I love you, ladies. You make me harder to leave thinking that I'm leaving such a wonderful best friends. Last but not least, the gift basket. Love it! The truth is, most the items in the basket are the items that I'm planning to buy, including the basket. I'm bringing all of that to Miri :)

Love you gals :)

The anniversary dinner

For us, celebrating our anniversary is something that we always look forward to. We tried to plan a holiday somewhere around it and if time (or money) not permitted, we will have a nice dining plan out. For this year, holiday was not planned as I will be moving soon, so we decided to have a good dinner to celebrate our fifth anniversary.

I told my husband to surprise me. He ruled out any buffet as I'm on my PB diet and finally he told me that we are going to Tanzini in G Tower. Honestly that was my first time hearing that restaurant and after looking at the online review, I was excited to go.

Tanzini is situated at the 28th floor of the G Tower and has 2 floors. The Upper Deck is serving the set course meal only and the lower one is the ala carte menu. Husband chose the upper deck as it is more private and have better view. 

The set menu consist of 4, 5 or 6 courses that you can choose. We chose the 5 course meals and beef and lamb as our main course. Then I ordered their specialty drink, Tanzini T - black tea, strawberry (with real strawberry floating), mint and pomegranate syrup. I really looovveee it. Husband ordered apple juice with lemon glass and it's just ok.

The first course was smoked salmon. It was delicious. In fact it was one of the best course that night. Then the waiter served our starter, mine was dried scallops with something something and Zainal was duck with something something. Well, it was ok. Next was the baby kailan soup with crispy chicken. He poured the soup in front of us to ensure that the crispy chicken didn't not turn soggy swimming in the soup. Between the soup and main course, the waiter served us watermelon sorbet to rinse our taste palate before the main. I don't like sorbet, so I didn't enjoy it. Then our main was served. I chose lamb while Zainal chose beef tenderloin. My lamb was so tender with some grill taste outside. It was so yummy. Compared to husband beef tenderloin which I think is just average, the lamb is better. Lastly was the dessert. The huge disappointment. It was a scope of ice cream on top of chocolate cookies and reddish. The ice cream and cookies was ok, but the reddish, omg, seriously just spoiled my whole experience of the food that night. Maybe I don't like reddish but man, that's not dessert!

For left top: My delicious drink Tanzini T, smoked salmon, the starters, sorbet, Zainal's beef tenderloin, dessert and my lamb. In the middle is the kailan soup.

Despite the limited food choice in the upper deck session, I love the restaurant. The ambiance was so romantic, with high ceiling glass ceiling where you can see KLCC in front of you. The couch as the seat where we can cuddle (if only the waiter stopped coming checking on us) and the hanging round lights in the middle of the room made the whole place very cozy. You can also hang out at the balcony before you leave enjoying the soft breeze of KL night skyline. There were 2 couples including us only for that night and made us felt like we own that place. 

The ambiance

The service was excellent. The waiter was very attentive, checking on us so many times, explaining what is the dish that have just served and took time to take a lot of our pictures. The best part was when we ordered a beef dish, he came back to us and told us that dish was marinated with wine. So he told us to change it and gave us different menu. 

On side note, I always respect and have a high admiration to restaurants that are very sensitive to their customers religion belief and inform them the ingredients. I found out that how I dress, for example like me which is wearing a hijab, always save me in restaurants. Few restaurants that I went, Tanzini, Alexis, Chocolate Bar at Marina Bay Sand in Singapore and few others, has warned me that certain dish in their menu has alcohol as ingredient. The funny part is they informed me but not my husband (in the case of Chocolate Bar). So I always believe if we dress as a Muslim, we will be respected as one too.

Back to the Tanzini, overall the food and the ambiance there was above my expectation. I really enjoy our dinner last night. 

Thank you husband for the great dinner and as my lifelong companion. Happy 5th anniversary and may our love last till Jannah. Love you bunch <3 p="p">

The marriage numbers

19th of January is our 5th year wedding anniversary.

We dated each other for 5.5 years before we got married.

We knew each other for 5 years before we dated.

Therefore, we have known each other for 15.5 years. Which means we have known each other more than half of our life.

:)

Still no peace

When I told my husband about her, how she made this and that, my husband just smiled and said, when you hate someone, everything he/she did is wrong and will make you angry. Why don't you just sit back, watch her burn herself and walk away?

Well, I just can't. Every little thing she did to me just so annoying and making me so stressful. Of all the people I need to handover, why it has to be her? I remembered people used to warn me about her. I thought I don't want to judge so early, be neutral and let me experience myself. Ya Allah, how true what people said. Masakan pohon bergoyang tanpa angin..

She's like a knife stuck in my heart. Everyday she twists a little bit and slowly tearing my heart. Some days the knife goes in deeper, crushing my lungs leaving me gasping for some air. Leaving it there cause pain, trying to remove it cause pain too. At the end, my motivation slowly dying.

Why la some people are like this?

I think I need to stand up and stop being bullied.

So how do I start?

Finding my peace

I just want to leave this place with good memories and less heartache. After one and a half years, the last thing I want to do is to leave a bad impression after building up a good reputation. Of course, it was not that simple. People still want to make my heart bleeds with irrational decisions.

I used to ignore everything and focus my energy to the things that matter. But then, when the replacement came, suddenly I realized I'm a black sheep. Everything I did was a mistake. Every now and then I heard complaints and dissatisfaction about me. The complaints came from someone that didn't matter much but clearly important to him. No complaints came from everyone that matter, but did he care. Of course not. Comments and feedback was very satisfying from everyone that matters but to him I'm just a headache. Ah, I forgot that pleasing him is more important than getting the job done with everyone that matter. 

Even at the last days of my service, the unthinkable still happened. Few people volunteered, but he chose me. Yes me. To organise my own goodbye. What on earth people organize their own farewell? Clearly bedazzled most of the people, but I kept on repeating this mantra to myself to keep my sanity, everyone is different and we should respect. Again and again. It just happened that the person with authority that is different flock.

Oh well, I'm doing this for Allah, to please only Him. Allah will take care of me, not him. I have given my best and leave everything to Him.

I will find my peace soon. InsyaAllah.

Wonderful 2012

There is only one word to describe 2012: Alhamdulillah. All praise to Allah. So much has happening in 2012, even though I have ups and downs, but the amount of love I get from Allah and people, is just unbelievable.

We traveled a lot this year. It's like a revenge for 2011 for the lack of traveling. The highlight of the year is Umrah. But the worst of 2012, the hospitalization after Umrah.

Well, let's recap 2012:

1. We travel a lot, on average of once every 3 months:
1. January : Bali for our 4th anniversary
2. March: Umrah
3. May: Penang
4. August: Alor Setar
5. September: Langkawi
6. November: South Korea
2. Hospitalized coz of Influenza B - then doctor took the opportunity to do endoscopic procedure since I always have stomach problem. Who would know the equipment I used to repair during internship become my diagnostic tool.
3. Alhamdulillah no death in the family this year.
4. Steep learning curve in my career. But it was very satisfying. 
5. No diving trip this year :(

I guess that's all this year. I see only 2 common themes: Travel and work. And sickness. Haha. My stakeholder actually put this twice in my performance review this year: She needs to take care of her health. Ok, that will be this year resolution.

I always looking forward to do each year reflection (this blog tradition) just to remind myself to be thankful of all the things that happened in my life and as a learning to improve myself. On a sad day, I will search this list every year and smile at all life experiences that I have been through.

Complicated

Husband: When are you going to buy all the stuff that you want to bring to East Malaysia?
Me: Don't know yet.
Husband: So you want to do it last minute and rush everything? Oh wait, do you have checklist things to buy?
Me: No.

Husband looked at me. I'm feeling scared.

Me: Ok, I will do it today. I'm confused what thing to bring. Should I duplicate everything I have here?
Husband: Or you can bring things from here rather than duplicate everything.
Me: But then when I come back here, I don't have all the things that I need coz some are there.

Husband looked at me.

Husband: God, your life is so complicated, isn't it?

*Grin*

Ok, I better do the checklist ASAP.