Something for the Day

Hope this motivates and inspires you, and myself as well.

Have a great day ahead.
Yours truly,
xoxo

ParamKL

I was on my way to work this morning and as usual I'd tune on to Red FM.
The Red FM Breakfast announcers have always been Lil Kev and Sarimah, unfortunately this morning I guess Lil Kev wasn't around and Sarimah was alone.

However, she wasn't alone, literally. There were two invited guests who are volunteers from a Malaysian bazaar food portal website catered specially for the fasting month for residents in the Klang Valley.

It was quite interesting you know. (So obviously that explains why I'd prefer listening to Red FM).

And so, back to the interview session in the studio. These two volunteers (I can't recall their names, but one was a female and the other was a male). They are speaking on behalf of this local website which basically tells you what are the best "Pasar Ramadhan" spots for you to visit to get your favourite local Malaysian delicacies.

Its called ParamKL.

PARAM is the abbreviation for PAsar + RAMadhan.
*Pasar = market/bazaar


PARAM is an annual event which takes place through out Malaysia, during the fasting month of Ramadhan. Muslims and non-Muslims will tend to swarm or mob these PARAMs and they could actually get just about ANYTHING. Yes, I mean ANYTHING and EVERYTHING (food, especially) for breaking fast.
The main reason of them flocking these PARAMs is because the food sold are considerably cheap and the wide varieties they have will always tempt you to buy at least something.
(even if you do not have any intention or whatsoever to get anything, trust me, YOU WILL!)

Who do ParamKL cater? (got this from their website)

There are two situations:

• Happening Hock Lei is going to a PARAM and doesn’t know which are the stalls that sells the good stuff,
• Pretty Patimah is craving for ayam percik and wants to know which PARAM in town sells the best of that.

So, yeah. This website basically tells you what is the best food to get at a particular PARAM or which PARAM to get the food you are craving for.

On the other hand, I think, this website also helps foreigners to get to know more on the favourite local Malaysian delicacies.

So, why not give it a try?!

Horror Hotels?

Bed bugs and bad plumbing are nothing compared to finding an uninvited guest hovering over your bed at night.  We ask a few seasoned travellers to share their tale of encounters with things that go bump in the night.

Melissa Wong sank into her bed at a five-star hotel in Kensington, London. It was winter and darkness fell early. The 28-year-old air stewardess with a Middle Eastern airline was exhausted from a 12-hour flight. Sleep overcame her with ease.

Some time in the night, a gentle triing triing of the phone being dialled woke her up. It was the 1990s and the phones were still old-fashioned ones with round dials. Wong groggily picked up the handset. There was only a dial tone. She went back to sleep.

But there came the sound again. Wong opened her eyes sleepily. Panic seized her. For a dark figure was standing silently by the window. A crack of light through the curtains revealed that he was clutching a knife.

Wong leapt out of bed. She banged frantically at a colleague’s door and fell into the room hysterically. Both women made their way to the leading stewardess’ room, where the terrified pair stayed till dawn before heading downstairs.

“The duty manager just dismissed the incident,” recalls Wong.

“Later, a young receptionist told us that a man had committed suicide in the hotel years ago. I wasn’t harmed but that was the last thing you’d want to see in your room in the middle of the night!”

Uninvited guests

While hotels commonly deny the presence of paranormal patrons, spooky sightings and unexplainable encounters are rife among frequent travellers.

An entire airline crew at one of Tokyo Narita Airport’s hotels last year was kept awake by what they described as a banshee wailing over the air-conditioner ducts.

“It didn’t surprise us because our rooms were located in the vicinity of a room that had been left with its door opened and a red tape strung across it,” recalls one of the crew members.

Insurance agent Mary-Jo Thomas, 38, felt an eerie sensation upon stepping inside her room at a popular Taipei hotel.

“I can’t explain it, but I just felt a chill,” Mary recalls.

“We’d just come in from a long-haul flight and we were beat. The room was oddly angled. The small window partially faced a courtyard wall so little sunlight penetrated the room. It felt cold and musty. I was tired so I ignored my instincts. Plus my luggage had been sent up.”

Mary slept till 5pm and went out for dinner. She returned at 9pm and watched television. As she leaned back on her pillow against the headrest of the bed, she felt a presence doing likewise by her side. The pillow next to her was conspicuously sunken in.

Mary started breathing fast. But she refused to budge.

“I’d heard that restless spirits visit when we’re drained physically, emotionally or spiritually. Whatever it was, I refused to give in or they’d probably visit me more often! Plus, it didn’t feel sinister. I started swearing as I heard that spirits are turned off by bad language. After 20 minutes, I saw the pillow puffing up again as if the weight that was on it had been lifted.”

Paranormal activities sometimes manifest physically.

Fashion buyer Syarina Yusof, 25, took a nap before dinner after checking in at the same Taipei hotel. She woke up to find her cosmetics scattered all over the dressing table and floor. Perplexed, Syarina recalled a colleague who’d spoken of Taipei’s constant earthquake tremors, and assumed it must have happened while she was asleep.

After dinner, Syarina returned to her room and called it a day. But the stillness of the night was punctuated by a distinctive click of a lipstick tube opening in the dark.

She quickly flicked on the lights. Again, her make-up and skincare were scattered all over the dressing table when she’d earlier lined them up neatly for her morning routine. And she had not felt any tremor. The next morning, a fellow guest said he’d seen a little girl sitting alone in the lobby at midnight, which he’d found odd, as nobody else had seen her.

Syarina’s encounter wasn’t an isolated incident as frequent travellers have related numerous experiences in the same hotel, leading to rumours of the site being a former burial ground. With stories of haunted hotels so rife, it can be difficult to sift fact from fiction, reality from imagination, or urban legends from truth.

Okay now I might freak out whenever I check into a hotel. Nonetheless, these things are unavoidable.

I might be imagining things already.

Just for a read.

Got it from here!

London 2012

Four more days.... and it's now the time for the 2012 Olympics.

Will be held in London, from 27 July till 4 August. 

Reminiscing back into time during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Nadia Comaneci from Romania - winner of three Olympic gold medals and the first ever gymnast to score a perfect 10. Her routine was the uneven bars.

She was 14 then.

And so I browsed, decided to look up for a video of her performing her routine on the uneven bars. It was just so perfect.

Now 50, married. Her husband, an American ex-gymnast, Bart Conner.

She recently held the torch for the 2012 London Olympics.

Click!

The Blessed Month

Taking this opportunity to wish all Muslims a Ramadhan Kareem.

Sahih Bukhari :: Book# 31 :: Hadith# 120


Narrated Sahl: The Prophet said, “There is a gate in Paradise called Ar-Raiyan, and those who observe fasts will enter through it on the Day of Resurrection and none except them will enter through it. It will be said, ‘Where are those who used to observe fasts?’ They will get up, and none except them will enter through it. After their entry the gate will be closed and nobody will enter through it.”

Sahih Bukhari :: Book# 31 :: Hadith# 123
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, “When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained.”


 Sahih Bukhari :: Book# 31 :: Hadith# 125
               Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, “Whoever established prayers on the night of Qadr out of     sincere faith and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven; and whoever fasts in the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith, and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven.”


God willing.

xoxo

There It Goes...

The couple I thought their marriage would last is now going to pieces.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are in the midst of filing their divorce.

Katie wanted the divorce.

I guess now Tom needs someone who is 33 years or older because al his ex wives are 33 when they divorced him.

So anyone?