It’s so frustrating. Streamyx connection in my house has been down since about yesterday. I contacted Streamyx’s hotline today and went through a series of troubleshooting procedures with them via telephone without any luck. They promised to send a technician to my house within 2-3 business days. What the heck!

The Streamyx downtime proved costly for me. I had been planning to bid for an eBay auction closing at about 9.20 am yesterday. The auction was for a huge collection of stamps, coins and sports collectibles weighing about 30 kilos. I had intended to put in a bid of $1,000 for the item 30-40 seconds before its closing but I was unable to do so due to the Streamyx downtime. I later found out that someone won the item for less than $600. Had I been able to place my bid, I would have won that item.

Being unable to surf the Internet, my family and I spent hours shopping yesterday. We first had lunch at Cheng Kee Chicken Rice at Krokop 10. As usual, the place was packed. Try out the steamed tofu…it’s nice. It seems that a lot of chicken rice outlets in Miri are doing a roaring business.

After our lunch, we walked over to the nearby Krokop market where we bought a kilogram of the local olives. I have a soft spot for these olives since young. You just soak these olives in warm water and when they have softened, you can either add some salt or black soya sauce and sugar. If you manage to buy the good quality ones, they taste so yummy!

We then dropped by Ng Sian Hap Pottery where we bought 4 flower pots and some groceries. My wife decided to buy some orchid plants to add to her collection of flowers and plants so we drove to LG Nursery situated just before the Lutong Bridge as you drive from town to Lutong.

LG Nursery has a good variety of flowers and plants. We had a great time looking around the place and what made it even more pleasant was the friendliness of the lady towkay or “towkay neo” and her staff. We ended up buying 2 orchid plants,and 2 other plants plus 2 kilograms of mangoes. One of the plants that we bought have leaves that look like butterflies.I love mangoes!

This looks weird!

This reminds me of a certain part of the male anatomy, haha!

Another new addition to my wife's plant collection

Mangolicious!

Emart was our final destination before we headed home. At the tamu there, we bought another orchid plant and two soursops (locally known as durian belanda). In Hokkien, we call the soursop “ang mo durian” meaning Caucasian durians…..I think it’s probably because of the white flesh of the fruit. By the way, sousop is now known as a fruit with amazing health benefits. Its botanical name is Annonaceae muricata or graviala.

The third orchid plant bought by my wife

Soursop (aka ang mo durian aka graviala)

I am now writing this inside Double Star Restaurant in Pelita Commercial Centre as the place has WIFI access. I really hope Streamyx will send a technician to my house soonest and restore my internet connection. It’s such a pain in the ass to have no access to the internet at home.

Yesterday was a beautiful Sunday except for the unbearable heat.  My wife, my son Les and I went out at about 11.15 am and we dropped by Double Star Restaurant for brunch as I was meeting up with my friend Michelle Tan from Brunei at that restaurant.

As we were ordering our food, Michelle arrived. I got to know Michelle in April this year at an internet marketing seminar in Miri and we have since then became friends.

Michelle is an enterprising lady and has recently started business selling Hello Kitty products from her home in Brunei.  You can visit her blog at :

www.hellokittyandmymelody.blogspot.com

Michelle has also started selling her Hello Kitty products on eBay and that was why she wanted to meet up with me to learn more about selling on eBay. I shared with her some of my eBay experience and also some tips on selling on eBay.  It was embarrassing for  me because Michelle not only gave me some gifts she had bought in Taiwan but she also foot the restaurant bill without my knowing. Thanks a lot, Michelle! The next round is on me.

I noted that the restaurant was fully packed. I guess the unbearable heat contributed partly to the brisk business. Double Star is nicely air-conditioned and with WIFI access and enjoys good business everyday.

After leaving the restaurant, we dropped off Les at Boulevard Shopping Complex as he was meeting up with his friends. We drove around and decided to drop by Beautiful Garden. We were surprised that this was quite a big place as we passed by it everyday and it looked like a small nursery from the road.

Entrance to Beautiful Garden

Plants aplenty

Young plants at the nursery

Lovely flower

Cactus

Lots of cactus for sale

Cactus plant with nice flowers

We bought 2 bags of soil and a bottle of organic insecticide as some of my wife’s plants have been under attack by ants and insects.

We then dropped by the house of my sis-in-law Vun (my wife’s  younger sister) whose dog has recently given birth to a litter of 9 puppies! Gosh, if human beings are so “productive”,  we would have a huge population explosion!

Three of the puppies

The proud mother with some of her puppies

Five of the puppies pushing and shoving for their mummy's milk

I pity the poor mummy. With so many puppies to feed, she would be “sucked” dry! (not to mention sore nipples, haha!).