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best birthday cake, ever!!

i know my birthday is one month ago and it's kinda late now to talk about birthday cakes right now, but this one is worth mentioning, even now....

1 week after my birthday last month, my groupmates celebrated my birthday in "tinkoff", a place famous for cheap sushi lunch set...

here in russia, it's a luxury to eat sushi, becoz the normal price of 2 small pieces of sushi will cost about 10 ringgit...which will makes us cry while eating, not becoz of the wasabi, but having rm 10 swallowed in less than 2 seconds without even slight sensation of fullness. imagine standing in supermarket as a promoter for 3 hours to earn the rm10 and finish it with just 2 pieces of sushi, that is pure heartache man...

so this sushi lunch set is not exactly very cheap, but it's relatively cheaper than others...it consist of a miso soup, a tea, a lunch box set, and unrestricted usage of soy sauce(fyi, soy sauce is very ex in russia)...

the lunch box consisit of tempura on the top left corner, rice, and a few pieces of sushi. the lower center part is something like baked clams...with cheeze, rice and mayonese above it...

they have different varieties for this so called "business lunch", somw with seaweeds, fried chicken ball, salmon, beef etc....

the above mentioned "business lunch" cost about rm 40, which is what most ppl will order when they go there....

don think that i am out of the topic...

on that day, in addition to the conventional "business lunch" for each of us, my groupmates decided to order something special.....

taddaa!!

this my friend, is the "best birthday cake, ever", i was talking about...

and it's not included into the business lunch, of course....

it's one of those kind of sushi which cost about "rm 10 for 2 pieces"....so u could guess how expensive it is...

and yea, my 21st birhtday's birthday cake is worth rm 250!!!

personally i do not like cakes as it's sweet and high caloric......but this one, i can accept....hehehe

all in all that lunch cost about 700 ringgit....and i was dibelanja-ed....

am really thankful to my groupmates for the memorable birthday celebration...thanks you guys!!

blackout!

somewhere during end of last year, probably around october or november, for the first time during my stay in russia, there were no electricity throughout the whole city...

blackout is very common in msia, but what's so special about this one???

"do u know that the sky is red during winter nights???" a friend asked me...

seriously, i've heard of such phenomenon, but never have i truly seen it altho i've been staying here for like 4 years...or rather i've never stop for a moment to look at the sky at winter nights to truly appriciate the beauty of winter nights....untill i was forced to stop everything i was doing due to the blackout...

it was an amazing sight....the sky was literally red in color.. crimson red...clean and bright...

sometimes you need the "absence" of certain factors to see the presence of what is around you more clearly...it's the absence of light that made me realize that there'se such a wonderful scene during winter...

"absence" is not always bad. it does not always mean loosing or missing something. from a certain point of view, it's an exclusion of certain distracting factors which prevent us from seeing the seemingly weaker factors there have been present all these while...when there's "absence", instead of trying to find a way back to "presence", which is sometimes beyond our control, we could try to recognize what is left...to see what is remaining in "presence"...you might find something more rewarding....

"absence" allows us to appriciate "presence" more. only poor people could tell you about the true value of money, when there were constant absence of money in their life. absence makes the heart grow fonder. and absence of light....even for few hours, made us cheered in joy when the electricity finally came....

i remembered when i was in primary school when we had to right chinese essay on blackouts....we often use the expression "伸手不见五指" literally meaning "unabled to see your five fingers"....in msia, even in at night, without lights, i could always see my fingers....but not here...the whole corridor is spookily dark....you'll have to find your way back to your room with the guidance of the wall....even so, sometimes you are unabled to locate the entrance to your block...

i like blackouts.....it allows my mind to think clearly wihout any distraction....

i wouldn't mind if there were any more blackouts in the future, but please make it happen when i am free, not when i have a test on the next day or before i've cooked my dinner...which was exactly what happened during the last 2 blackouts....(esp not now, during exam period....many ppl will kill me if this comes true due to my big mouth)

well, out of desperation, you could do what i did during the last blackout if u really wanna study...altho it's extremely bad for your eyes....

no this is not any black magic, or ritual to make the elctricity come back.....it's placing of candles (bought in ikea) around the notes so that you could read better. Note: again, this is extremely bad for eyes. do not try this at home..

这样的夜晚，让我想起你。多希望你当时就在我身边，陪我一起欣赏那美丽的夜晚。多想与你分享我生命中所有美好的回忆。。

这样的夜晚，不禁让我想起与你一起看电影的时候，虽然隔了几个人，虽然伸手不见五指，我依然清清楚楚的看见了你。。。。