Baby muffins

My brother had his third baby girl recently and for the full month party, they had these cute little baby themed muffins. I just thought they were cute. :-)

Baby muffins

Being an arty farty with Pixlr-o-matic

So as I said in my last post, here's the first of my favourite Android apps I've been using, which in my opinion is far better than Instagram which everyone goess crazy about for god knows what reason. I tried Instagram for a day and was disappointed by the serious lack of effects it has. I think the only reason why people go gaga over it is coz' of the community website where the pics can be posted to show off to the rest of the Instagram world. I'm not one who cares for what random people have to say about my pics. And I find it annoying that everytime someone posts an Instagram pic on FB, I gotta go the community site just to see the pic. Why can't it just be seen as a popup like normal FB pics? Oh well, not everyone shares my gripe, I know but to each their own.

Now Pixlr-o-matic is a photo editing app that I love to bits. Like Instagram, the effects are mainly to give a retro effect, but it has a gazillion more choices of effects compared to Instagram, including the ability to combine effects. The best thing is a randomizer button which randomly assigns effects to the pic and I can choose to edit the effects I don't like and keep the ones I do like. Good for when you're feeling lazy. And of course it has options gto easily post to social networks sites and doesn't force you to go some other link just to view the pic. Pixlr-o-matic also has a website from which you can edit on your pc, which is great for those who don't use smartphones and also want the same effects. All in all, there's nothing not to love about Pixlr-o-matic.

Here are some of the cooler pics I've done so far with this app, including a pic of my nieces which I love so much, it's my current phone wallpaper. Enjoy! :-)

Tree lights at the Curve shopping complex

A little snack while working

Was enjoying a glass of water at a hotel balcony

Some kid I saw in Vietnam 

My dog sunbathing on our condo balcony 

My lovely nieces :)

Being an arty farty with Pixlr-o-matic

Going App crazy

Hola, guys and gals. As usual I have been missing in action from blogging due to being overworked and as usual here I am trying to make my lame attempt to revive the dying blog.

A few months back I bought my smartphone (previously using a dumb phone with no data plan and lousy app market) with the intention of using it to blog more easily since I travel a lot and hardly have the time to sit down and write out long posts. However, I ended up being distracted by all the other cool stuff I could do with a smartphone, even til today and always on the lookout on the Android market and of course using it for all the normal silly stuff like checking Facebook and checking in Foursquare. To be honest, I don't know why I do it. Not like I can see places with discounts in Malaysia on Foursquare, like in the US. It's just the cool thing to do.

So one of the things I'm going to *try* and do (when I'm not swamped with work and feeling too lazy to post anything) is post about some the more interesting apps I've been using. Starting off with my fav photo editing app. Refer to next post :-)

Going App crazy

The Hungry Hog - great place for pork lovers :D

It's not often that I go to a new restaurant that really wows me, but I got the introduced by some church mates to this place called Hungry Hog which I never knew existed before although it's at SS15, which is like a stone's throw away from my place. And it turned out to be such a nice place to eat, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to people, and definitely earns a good post from me. 

As you might guess from the name, the place specializes in pork. And while I do feel a tad bit sorry for little porkers that get slaughtered to satisfy our palates, unfortunately I love pork too much to care that much. One of the cute things about this place is that they have interesting little porker themed phrases hanging off the walls, such as the one below.

I don't wanna give away the others... you should check them out for yourself. :P

On the menu, you have most of the normal items you might expected of a pork haven, including pork ribs, pork chops (with the cuter name - porky chops), our local 'siew yuk' rice and pork burger which is named 3 little pigs. A couple of my friends ordered that and, it looked prettytempting. 

You might have noticed from the menu above that they also have crispy fried pork skin, given the moniker of 'keropork', which sounded so tempting and sinful at the same time. I did not cave on ordering that though (definitely next time I go!), and instead went for probably what was slightly healthier, although quite filling - the bangers and mash.

Perhaps it doesn't look too appetizing in the pic, but trust me, for RM15.90, this is one of the best sausages I've had EVER. They say the sausages are homemade, and I don't doubt it, coz' these are not processed like other sausages. It's kinda like lightly minced meat wrapped in that sausage casing thingy...and while it tastes different from most types of sausages ( especially since they're pork, and you don't get pork sausages often in Malaysia, unless you pay an arm and a leg at some German place).And if the sausages aren't awesome enough, the mashed potatoes are also clearly made of really stuff, not the process crap. There're even residual potato skins left in the mash as evidence. XD. Top it off with a reasonable amount of healthy greens, and I can say this is probably the best dish in the house.

A friend of mine also had bacon pasta (no photo of that, unfortunately), which is supposed to be fried with chilli padi, but he asked for no chilli padi. Tried a bit of that and wouldn't say it's the bestest, but it was ok (I got back to enjoying my bangers and mash after that). Unfortunately my friend had a slightly negative experience when the waiter didn't get his request right, and first time the pasta was brought out, it was made with chilli padi. But after he complained, they took it back and made a fresh batch minus the chilli padi. So I guess that's a positive on the service there, that they were willing to replace the order without arguing.

One of the deserts they had was a rather interesting and different though....ice cream with candied bacon! Yup, I kid you know, these brave people went and mixed up candy and ice cream with PORK.... and the result was... not too bad. Certainly not something I've ever tried before, and I think it would be a taste people would find ok but not great, but still good to try out. Doesn't it just look so innocent in the pic below (slightly melted and eaten, sorry about that. Couldn't do the photo taking in time. :P)

So all in all, it's one of few places with really good food in Subang, far as I'm concerned. The joint has a website too! Check the link for more info on how to get there and support support! I actually hope this place grows and starts to have more franchises popping up all over the place. ^_^

The Hungry Hog - great place for pork lovers :D

Tunes Hotel - Small room for big price

I travel around quite a bit and stay at lots of different hotels. And at most hotels, I don't really have much complaints. Usually really nice hotels with good amenities are pricey and hotels that have less amenities and look a little crappy are correspondingly cheaper, so for the most part, you get what you pay for (most of the time it's my company that pays for it, so I don't always know the price of the room, but I try to find out just for the fun of it). I've been wanting to do more posts about hotels coz I stay at so many nice ones, but since I got the 'honour' at staying at Tunes hotel recently and I have plenty to say about it, this definitely requires a blog post coz' when something is in dire need of improvement, ranting on a public arena is one of the best ways to do it (although this isn't a particularly famous blog to make a big difference, but better than nothing).
So I've never stayed at Tunes hotel before, since it's in KL and I wouldn't have a reason to stay there since I can go home. But last weekend I got a chance to try this place near LCCT airport. I was returning from Indonesia on Sunday night and had an early flight to Vietnam the next morning, so my manager said I might as well stay at Tunes for the night instead of heading back to my home, which sounded like a good plan to me.
Now Tunes hotel markets itself as convenient with affordable prices. Well, no one can argue with the convenient part, considering it's located 3 minutes drive away from the airport, and it's primary function is to be a stopover for travellers who don't want to pay for amenities they will not be using. So they do away with posh extras like swimming pool, gym, tv, etc. Fine, I can accept that concept, IF the price of the hotel actually was reasonable for a hotel WITHOUT all these extra amenities. But for the available amenities, the price of the room (which I'm glad I didn't have to pay for) was quite ridiculous.



Here's the good: As can be seen from my pic above, the room has a nice big comfy bed, is brightly lit, clean with a good hot water shower. The bed and bathroom are very nice overall. There is also a hairdryer, which I'm surprised doesn't cost extra. And from my pic below, I'm sure the room looks nice and inviting. Don't be fooled, it's only because I have a brilliant cameraphone that makes it look better than it is. :-P
Here's the bad: The room is not spacious. At all. Period. There's not even a metre of walking space between the bed and the walls. Which means if I put my luggage bag on the floor, I have to step over it to walk around the room. So I put the bag on my bed til I was ready to sleep. I can't imagine the insanity of trying to walk around if 2 people were staying in the room. And the lock did not look very secure as I could only lock the door handle but no additional latch for extra security, so if some perv was working at the hotel and had the master key, he could easily enter my room. So for my security as single lone female, I put my bag in between the door and the bed (it was just a nice fit, which says even more about how much space was in there) so anyone who tries to open my door would have been blocked by the bag.
The price of the room is RM189, which does not include toiletries or towel. So we get charged an additional RM 15 for a towel and basic toiletries which is just handsoap and small satchets of shower gel and shampoo which lasts one use (compare this to most hotels where even the small bottles can last at least 2 or 3 days use). And when I checked out I had to bring the towel back to the counter. I have NEVER been to any hotel which such a dumb requirement, not even an RM70 hotel.
The room also does not have most of the facilities of a normal room. No tv, no desk so can't work, no kettle or cups, no cupboard, only hangers. Apparently the airconditioning has a time limit of 12 hours, and I'm sure if you want to use it longer, you have to pay extra. Again, all this would be fine if the price was reasonable, and I've been to RM70-80 hotels with all these facilities. But the price of the room is RM189.00 PLUS 10% service charge PLUS RM15 for the toiletries. So room total price was RM222.90. That is the price of a 4 star hotel!!! But Tunes offers less than what a 1 star hotel offers. Lol.
As if that's not crap enough, there are also Shokubutsu and York ads in the room, which means the hotel makes money from room ads. And for the shuttle ride to the airport which is a stone's throw away, I have to pay RM1. Not a lot, but compared to most hotels which offer FREE shuttle services to airports located much further away, the ads and paying for the shuttle is just really sad.
Given that there are a lot of international travellers that stay at that hotel, only because it's the nearest and they wouldn't know any better on how truly sadly small and sadly unfurnished it is, I think it gives a negative image to travellers that such a place costs so much. No backpacker in their right mind would stay there. I'm sure there are hotels located slightly further away from the airport, around 15 minutes, which have much more amenities for the same price. So far as I'm concerned, Tony Fernandez is really trying to milk whatever he can with this hotel. And advertising it as affordable is ridiculous. The only thing I'm glad about is that they gave me a feedback form when I checked out, which I couldn't make much good use of as I was rushing for my flight. So I made up it with this post.
The only request I have to Mr. Fernandez is, you can market this hotel as convenient, but please, don't try to con people into thinking it's affordable, coz' the whole set up is pretty much daylight robbery. You should realize that if there was another hotel located next to Tunes which offers the normal facilities at reasonable price of most hotels, Tunes would close shop in all of 2 seconds.
Ok, next time I'll blog about nice hotels. Sorry for this rant, but when something is this bad, I just hope this will drive the people in charge to change it. Or at least this review can be a warning to potential travellers to KL. If you need a hotel near the airport, try to avoid this one!

Tunes Hotel - Small room for big price