Distorted

 Here's a distorted bottle.

A minesweeping update!

In March 2021 I downloaded ViennaSweeper to my new laptop.

In this last month of 2022, I am glad to say that I have managed to achieve my goal of finishing at least one game in each level every month since then. Here's to a similar goal in 2023!

Someone doesn't know how to spell "goggles"

We planned to have brunch at “7 tiao lor” market, but it was too crowded, so we decided to try our luck at Lorong Selamat instead. We ended up in a kopitiam where there was a “Googgle Man” char kuey teow (shop name is Low Eng Hoo kopitiam).

There were several items available, and in the end the least tasty item turned out to be their most famous dish - the char kuey teow.

fried oyster, RM15 (for such a small portion! It was the smallest option. But this was very good; my favourite out of all the dishes there)

hokkien mee, RM7

cendol and ais kacang, RM3.50 and RM4.50

lor bak, RM14 (this was after we ate a bit of it)

char kuey teow, RM12 (we waited the longest for this one...and despite giving us a number to put on our table, they seemed to have difficulty giving the correct plates to the correct table...)

The char kuey teow seller has the name "Googgle man char kuey teow" on his stall, with a drawing of himself wearing goggles. And he did wear goggles while frying his kuey teow. The prawns were good, and there were several pieces of crispy pork lard, which was good. But the kuey teow was so-so.

lor bak, second round, RM20 (they had run out of prawn fritters the first time...we discovered it during the second order)

This lor bak stall gave us so little sauce to go with our big plate of lor bak. We had to go back several times to ask for more...

Lines

Last week's photo theme was lines.

So here are lot of lines...from my bathroom door.

Street art and a gray theme

For once I'm going to post a Photo Friday pic that was taken after the deadline. This is because the theme was street art, and the day after the next theme was released, we went to the Kuantan Art Street. So it is such a pity to post a mediocre "art" on the street when there is some actual street art!

If you can't figure out where the art is, that means the artist did a good job!

And I'm late in posting that theme, so here's the photo for the following theme:

This theme is gray. Not that interesting...

Everything and everyone is fishy

Blind is an extremely interesting drama. The plot twists and turns, and red herrings are dropped relentlessly, making us focus on multiple characters as suspects. However, I am not sure whether I can call it "good". I would have preferred it if they dropped the red herrings together, instead of focusing on one person’s suspicious movements at a time and then clearing that character before moving on to another person’s suspicious movements.

I like that they tied up a lot of loose ends. Many small things were explained here and there as the story unfolded.

But the story was a little far-fetched…and maybe because it was too complicated, some parts were not fully explained. For example, how much, exactly, was in the mastermind’s original plan?

I also don’t like how they did not explain how exactly the kid got adopted in the first place. (not saying anything more because it might be a spoiler)

Anyway, I just discovered Ha Seok Jin. *starry-eyes* In my eyes, he is practically the main lead here. Sorry, Taecyeon.

I like Park Ji Bin too, though I’ll most likely forget his name…I first saw him in The Killer’s Shopping List (the one with good make-up skills). He’s got an awesome smile for this character.

Team cheer!

Because this week's photo theme was hands...

And here's the "behind the scenes" pic. :P

Duffy can't sit up straight! Haha...

(I wanted to hide my index finger's nail which is still stained from the election's ink, so I couldn't move my hand further in. At least this was enough to keep the other hands in place... :P )

Ginseng chicken

There is this Korean ginseng flame-grilled chicken shop that opened at Golden Triangle quite some time ago. It is half a shop lot, and I did not have much faith in it, so I had been waiting to see whether it would last, before deciding to go and try it.

Recently I looked it up on Google Maps, since it has been quite long since it opened. The reviews are all pretty good. So I went and got myself a set.

The lady at the cashier put the "Sam Gye Bab" sticker on top right before putting it into a plastic bag for me. That is the shop's name and logo.

Inside, besides the chicken and the rice, there was kimchi, a red date (right beside the kimchi), a piece of shiitake mushroom (that whitish piece on the left), and some "chilli" sauce. I'm guessing that it is the same sauce used to grill the chicken. It wasn't exactly spicy.

The taste was pretty good, though not exceptional. (I feel like I say this quite a lot :P )

I was actually surprised that the rice was glutinous rice...after that a friend told me that sam gye tang (Korean ginseng chicken soup) also has glutinous rice stuffed into the chicken. I didn't know that either! Haven't tried sam gye tang before.

Going home

In the office a friend asked me, "Are you going home tonight?"

I stared back at him and replied, "I'm not sleeping here tonight!"

Sometimes it's more fun to pretend we don't understand. :P

He meant "home" as in back to Kuantan...it was easy to understand because it is election weekend and plenty of people are going home to vote. But my trip back will be the following week, thankfully!

Dots on a roof

Because this week's theme was dots!

The amazing tailgater

The other day I saw the worst tailgater ever (or the best, depending on how you look at it).

I hadn’t left my house long when I found that this car was following me very closely. (And at that point, there’s only one apartment it could have come from…though I won’t say which.) I tried stepping the brake slightly, not enough to actually brake, but it should have been enough to light up the brake lights…but the car behind me didn’t slow down. Then I got to a wider road, where I had planned to let it pass, but another car was coming in to my lane in front of me, so I slowed down behind it, with the car behind me still tailgating.

Once I got some space between myself and the car in front (it was slow at first because it had just come out of a junction), I moved to the left and let the tailgater pass. Then of course, the tailgater started following the other car closely.

After we reached the main road, I saw the tailgater overtake that car, but somehow a few traffic lights later, I found the tailgater behind me again (and of course, still following closely). This time I could let him pass quite quickly, and after that I was treated to the amazing spectacle of him following every car in front of him closely.

Usually when there is smooth traffic, we would see cars spaced out on the road. In this case, when he was in front of me, I had a nice gap between his car and mine, but he would be following the next car closely. Several times there was one car between his and mine, and there I would see nice gaps in front of my car and in front of the car in front of mine…and in front of the tailgater there would be practically no space. It was like seeing two cars glued together, looking like they were parked, except that they were moving! (of course, this is the view from behind the cars, but I’m really curious how it looked from the side :P )

This went along until we reached the highway, then I lost sight of the tailgater. (I was on my way to work…people who know my route will be able to figure things out)

By the way, there were times when I was driving right behind the tailgater, and even stopped behind him at a traffic light. There was a Snorlax in the back of his car! Why don’t you learn from your snoozing Snorlax and chill out a bit?!

Inconsistent hotel service

We stayed at Hampton by Hilton, near Alexanderplatz. It was about a 10-minute walk to Alexanderplatz (one end of it!) The other end would be maybe another 15 minutes away....

Since the only photo I had posted of the hotel was for Photo Friday, here are more:

Personally, I like the room. Very cosy. The bad part is that they didn’t provide a fridge.

view out the window

Windows can only be opened slightly for air. No sticking our heads out. I guess they were worried we would jump out.

I like the body lotion :)

looking up to the room from outside (this "park" does not belong to the hotel)

On the left should be a normal residential building.

They had a gym (I think they called it a fitness center), which I did not use.

At the end of the photo, you can see that towels are provided. There is also a water dispenser. (That is right at the entrance)

Then there was a really cute thing on the inside of the elevator door... :P

I didn't dare snap a photo when there were people around...

Then there's this weird thing: Almost every day, they would exchange a new towel for us (both the small towel and the bath towel). Sometimes they would leave the old one but add new ones...it was not very consistent, probably depended on who was cleaning the room on that day.

In any case, it wasn’t until the last day that I found these tiny towels (face towels?) placed on the small towel beside the sink (usually only the small towel is placed there). I had no idea why…

Oktoberfest beer and pork knuckles

As was the case when I went to Munich, I tried pork knuckle when I was in Berlin.

Actually this time it wasn’t a must-try any more…but when I mentioned that I liked Augustiner beer and would look for it, my friend told me that there was an Augustiner restaurant in Berlin. (There was also one in Potsdam, as I discovered later) So we went there one day after work.

Since it was Oktoberfest season, the restaurant was fully booked for at evening. The waiter even told us, “It’s Friday, it's Oktoberfest, and we’re too famous.” Even though it’s an arrogant phrase, I wouldn’t argue with that…

He went so far as to tell us that there were other restaurants nearby; for example Erdinger, which we had passed on our way there, and Maximilians.

We had seen Erdinger tables earlier (the restaurant is across the street).

The tables were just beside (or in front of?) the Französischer Dom.

Actually there were these three buildings in a row, and I snapped these photos without knowing what the buildings were:

Deutscher Dom

The concert house in the middle, and Französischer Dom

Looking back at my old Berlin post, I realize that I had visited them before as a tourist (this trip, I was not planning any touristy stuff in Berlin itself). No prizes for guessing which German name corresponds to the “German” and “French” Doms.

We decided to go to Maximilians because my friend had tried Erdinger before (at least I think that was the reason…I may have remembered wrongly :P )

Big guy welcoming us to the restaurant. Haha.

This restaurant serves Hacker-Pschorr beer, which is one of the six big breweries of Munich (you can see it on the coaster in my old post about the beer tour).

A book of Oktoberfest beers for us to choose from. We both chose this one, the basic Oktoberfest special.

It seems that they specially brew different beers for Oktoberfest, that are not available during other times of the year. I had no idea until my friend told me.

My half-litre glass of beer.

Taking a photo with my friend’s one-litre glass. The logo is on the opposite side of the handle, so we cannot see it here.

Our pork knuckle

From a different angle, so that we can see the sauce.

The pork knuckle’s skin was unfortunately not that crispy…it was quite hard. The sauerkraut was not bad, not too sour, and the little pieces of meat in it gave it a nice taste. The dumplings were…meh. Nothing special. Being quite small eaters, we couldn’t finish the dish, not even after we decided to give up on the dumplings and focus on the meat.

As for the beer, it was quite good. I think Augustiner is still smoother, but this is one that I could enjoy.

So that was it for Maximilians…but wait! Didn’t I mention that I was going to drink Augustiner?

That was the main target…and still was. In fact, before we left Augustiner, we asked the waiter to make us a reservation. He actually kept telling us it was fully booked, probably because we didn’t speak German and he expected we were tourists who were only there for a day or two. But we kept asking when was the first date there was a spot for us (It was only our first week there…we had three more weeks in which we could reserve, including weekdays if necessary. Was it really booked up for so long?). So we made our reservation and went there another day. 

(Actually later we found out that we could make a reservation through their website, or even through Google Maps. The website seems to be only in German, but the reservation widget is available in multiple languages)

In case you are interested, here is Augustiner, and you can see the other two restaurants just nearby. We arrived at U-Hausvogteiplatz, and after eating at Maximilians, we left from U-Stadtmitte.

The famous Augustiner

The menu. It seems that I started taking a photo of the last page and moved back to the front. I guess that’s normal…that is after all the most important page. :P

I opted for the first beer, which I expected (and I think I was correct) to be the one that I had before, while my friend took an Oktoberfest special which was on a separate menu card. Somehow I didn’t take a photo of that seasonal beer list.

Mine on the left, Oktoberfest beer in a special glass on the right. This time he took half a litre, so that he could try another kind later if he wished.

The pork knuckle. The presentation is not as nice as Maximilians'.

We managed to finish more of this one. The skin was also crispier, though not all parts were crispy.

And then there was the opening of a new barrel of beer… turns out that it is quite an important occasion. My friend said something about the beer being more fragrant when it is from a newly-opened barrel. I doubt that I would be able to taste the difference… :P 

There is a bell being tinkled when it is time to open a new barrel, and then people actually move up to watch. We had heard the bell in Maximilians as well, but at that time we were seated too far away to see anything. Here we could see quite clearly what was going on.

You can see that people are clapping as the new barrel is being opened.

A glass of beer on the newly-opened barrel... I dunno how that works because to me, that is too much foam. :P

So how was the beer? As good as I remember. :D

I even thought of going back one day just for the beer (maybe we could have ordered a smaller dish, like just a snack). But that turned out to be unnecessary, because my friend discovered Augustiner beer in supermarkets.

If not mistaken, it costs around €1.90 per bottle.

There are so many different types of beers in the supermarkets, and some are from the big six (those top six breweries I mentioned), and some are even Oktoberfest beers. And I’ve got to say that even though I love the taste of Augustiner, the bottle itself is the ugliest. I mentioned this to my friend and he agreed…he said that he just suddenly noticed that it was Augustiner. And guess what - after knowing what the bottle looked like, we started noticing that many food shops sell this beer (it’s in their beer fridges), and lots of people actually drink it sitting in parks or beside rivers.

And to drink it in my room, since our hotel room doesn’t come with a fridge, I asked for ice at the bar downstairs, and made my own ice bath for my beer. :P