Travel, Interior Decoration, Photography and Food

Renovating your kitchen can be expensive. Thus, designing a well functional kitchen is important. Depends on the size, kitchen can be one of the important areas to entertain your guests if it is well layout. So, how to plan the layout of your kitchen? The layout of a kitchen should consider where to place the appliances, type of countertops, and storage. This arrangement will determine how user-friendly your kitchen is. Basically, think about 3 major items that are regularly used in the kitchen; the stove, the sink and the refrigerator. These items should be placed at the tips of a triangle. Usually, the larger the area of this triangle, the better it will be. This triangle will ensure an effective traffic flow in the kitchen i.e. taking raw meat to the sink and taking washed vegetable from the sink to the stove.   Ask yourself the following questions when designing the layout of your kitchen How easy for me to get the cooking oil/water to top off a pot on the stove? Do I have sufficie

After tired listening to the presentations and shopping, it is time to fill in the hungry stomach. So we when to Mak Yah Restaurant which is located very near to the N1 Rachathewi Station (Sukhumvit Line). There are several other halal restaurants near this BTS station. When people visit Bangkok, they always talk about the "tom yum". What is it? Only "tom yum" should be tried? The word “yum” means salad but the taste and its looks are not the same as the western salad which is variety of vegetables served with different kinds of dressing, while in "yum" many kinds of herbs and spicy are added. Most of the yum-type dishes are sour and spicy.  "Yum mamuang" or the green mango salad is one of the popular salad. It is sour (mango/lime juice), salty (fish sauce/dry anchovies/shrimp) and can be very hot (bird eye chillies). Having "tom yum" can be a surreal experience as you will enjoy the taste while burning your mouth.  The green

These are some of the photos from the latest Bangkok trip. The photos only covers Wat Arun and The Grand Palace which are located near the edge of Menam Chao Phraya. These interesting places can be easily reached by public boat, just take the BTS Skytrain (Silom Line) to Saphan Taksin station (Sathorn or the Central Pier), then from here take the orange flagged boat to Stop No. 8 Tha Tien for Wat Arun and Stop No. 9 Tha Chang for the Grand Palace. Each ride will cost 15 Bahts. For Wat Arun, from Tha Tien pier, you will require to cross the river by the crossing boat which will cost you 5 bahts. The Grand Palace is just 500 metres from the Tha Chang pier, just follow the crouds. The entrance fee for the Grand Palace is 400 bahts and worth every penny. Enjoy..... :-)  Wat Arun....the Temple of Dawn The Grand Palace Wat Arun by the Menam Chao Phraya The exterior of the Grand Palace Resting area in the Grand Palace The Main Palace of the Grand Palace One of the gate

It is quiet difficult to capture an image or scenary that is detail in every element. Try to capture a building in a shadow, when the building detail can be seen, the sky and clouds will look flat white. When the sky and clouds detail can be seen, the building will look flat dark. This is where high dynamic range (HDR) photography has a high value. HDR will make all, the building, sky and cloud, highly contrast and detail. HDR photography is actually a type of creative photography process. There are several softwares that can be used to process the photo either freely available in the internet as a shareware or require purchase from commercial source. Normal exposed (0).....sky (left upper corner) is too bright.....people in the stall (right lower corner) is too dark.....only the front part of the stall is nicely highlighted. Under-exposed (-2)......sky (left upper corner) is higlighted.....others become too dark. Over-exposed (+2).......the people in the stall is highlig

Raya is over….pocket is almost empty….. now, have to look who would like to donate for the next Raya plan…. changing the tiles may be……lol Usually, tile is the preferred form of flooring for kitchen and bathroom. Suitable tile will enhance the kitchen and bathroom beautifully.   When choosing the tile consider where it is going to go….to the floor….or to the wall etc.   Glossy tile is more suitable for wall and may not be safe for flooring. Here I share several tips in choosing the perfect tile….(this can be my personal view only): Glass tile...modern and young...suitable for backsplash and bathroom Before select a material, you should decide what surface the tile will be applied to.   Tile can act as a backsplash, or on the wall located underside of the upper wall cabinets. Tile is a popular countertop material too. For kitchens, best materials would be from stone like granite, vinyl, ceramic, porcelain and glass. Granite, ceramic, and porcelain can be used for counters. Choos

Tagliatelle pasta.....from durum wheat Pasta bolognese.... lasagna... .pizza..... all are yummy Italian dishes. The majority of Italian pastas have similar ingredient, taste, texture and colour. The main ingredient of pasta is the durum wheat. There are hundreds of different shapes of pasta with at least locally recognised names; spaghetti (thin strings), maccheroni (tubes or cylinders), tagliatelle (flat noodle), fusilli (swirls), and lasagne (sheets). The main component of Italian dishes that makes each dish different is the sauce accompanied them. How to prepare your own tastalicious tomato based pasta sauce? Here I share a simple recipe for the pasta sauce either by itself or can be added with meat i.e. chicken or beef.   Try this if you want to impress your spouse or friends. Diced Holland onions Italian spice.......a mixture of dried basil, majoram, oregano, sage You required the following ingredients: two large Holland onions (yellow onion, coarsely diced), f

Two guys are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, “ I slept with your mother! ” The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. The first again yells, “ I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!!!!!! ”  The other says, “ Go home dad you’re drunk .”

Few of my friends have asked the following questions: Why we need to edit the photo? Why don’t we just print the photo directly from the camera without any image editing? My answer is simple, “it is up to you”. My personal view on any image that I captured is that, if the image by itself did not carry any strong story or beauty in composition then I will edit them so that I can highlight what is interesting in the image. If the image has a strong story and level of beauty then I might just crop the image or print them as it is. Usually, these types of images have excellent composition and colour tone which is partly due to the camera settings. As such before you capture any image, plan in your head how you want the image to be at printing. Get some ideas from magazines, books, flickr or even your friends that have similar interest. Then try to set your camera to achieve the aim. Redang Island Terengganu....with minor saturation editing How much is too much in editing? No exact

The Hari Raya Aidilfitri is coming closer. The city dwellers are busy shopping like crazy....sales are every where. Just a brief introduction, Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Eid ul-Fitr  is a Muslim holiday  that marks the end of Ramadhan , the holy month of Islam. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity," while Fitr or fitrah means "nature of origin". The holiday celebrates the conclusion of the thirty days of dawn-to-sunset fasting . The first day of Eid falls on the first day of the month Syawal. The Putra Mosque of Putrajaya, Malaysia In the early morning of Syawal, people will visits their relatives and asking for forgiving. This is reflected in the popular slogan of Aidifitri which is "Maaf Zahir dan Batin" or "forgive my physical and emotional wrongdoings". In Malaysia, Aidilfitri is strongly associated with ketupat (packed rice), lemang ( made of glutinous rice and coconut milk and cooked in a hollowed bamboo) and rendang (special

A  girl is overweight, so her doctor puts her on a diet. "I want you to eat regularly for two days, then SKIP a day, and repeat the procedure for two weeks" The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 2 kilos." said the doctor. When the girl returns, she's lost nearly 6 kilos. "Amazing!" the doctor says. "Did you follow my instructions?" The girl nods and says "I'll tell you, though, I thought I was going to drop DEAD that third day." "From hunger, you mean?" said the doctor. "No, from SKIPping," replied the girl.

Cropping refers to the removal of the outer parts of an image. Crop factor is depending on the size of a digital camera image sensor. The smaller the sensor size, the high the crop factor will be. The crop factor is actually a ratio between a camera sensor size and a 35 mm film frame size (also known as full-frame format). Some professional DSLRs use full-frame sensors, equal to the size of a frame of 35 mm film (the price of cameras with this format can be very expensive. A higher crop factor is useful for macro and zoom-in photography. To get the full advantage of this high crop factor, a higher sensor pixel count is required so that the detail of the object will be captured. On the other hand, a smaller crop factor is useful for landscape photography or to exaggerate perspective especially for wide angle lenses. Most consumer-level SLRs use sensors of a frame of APS-C film, with a crop factor of 1.5 (Nikon DX’s, Sony alpha’s, Konica Minolta’s, Pentax’s Fuji’s DSLRs) to 1.6 (Canon’s

Thank you to CikKie for the mamagodzillalicious caramel pudding with peach pieces. Very sweet very nice.... The caramel pudding with peach pieces......yummy!

For so long this blog has not been updated. Today, I would like to share something on cooking that is one of my past-time hobby. I'm not the best cook....but I love to experiment with new recipe, ingredients and look for short-cut to produce best dishes.... :-). At this moment, I'm in Kuantan the capital city of Pahang, the largest state in the Penisular of Malaysia. Just visiting a family and good friends. We are planning to cook for today's dinner. I will cook the popular "Thai's chicken green curry", as such I will share with you the recipe (do notice that I will not really cook from scratch). The Thai's green curry paste The ingredients include green curry paste (get this from commercially available product), Thai's basil leave, Turkey berry (terung pipit)(don't really know what to call this in English...I think it is Turkey berry), kaffir lime leave, tomato, large onions, small cuts of chicken and coconut milk (preferably the fresh

Mystery malady A wife is visiting her husband in hospital Husband : "I'm worried, dear, I don't think the doctors know what's wrong with me" Wife : "What makes you say that?" Husband : "The suggestions box at the end of the bed." Source: Marion Kaplinsky 2005. 1001 things to make you smile

Lighting that is too bright or too dim will disturb your calmness and makes you feel very sleepy. When you buy lights for your house, think where you will put them and what is it for? Arrange the lights where you can control the ambience for specific purpose i.e. romantic mood, party, relaxation etc. You may want to have a power cut if you use the following items to illuminate your house. (1) Novelty lamps, anything shaped like duck and its family or crumpled paper bag. (2) Fluorescent strip lights, especially with plastic covers that collect insects. If used in the kitchen, some extra flavour may be added to your dishes. (3) Hand holding an illuminated globe, don’t tell me that you are the witch that should be burned alive. (4) Fake plastic Tiffany lamps, are you the granny!!! (5) Picture lamps, OMG throw all these illuminated scenes of the KLCC, waterfalls or the Taj Mahal. These also indicate how bad your taste is. (6)Whhhaaaattttt….disco light! Are you joking? Who will get down to

In this post, I will share more about the general photography composition rules. FIVE more rules will be described such as background, viewpoint, depth, framing and cropping. Choosing a right BACKGROUND is important for portrait photography. Look for simple background such as brick wall, green grasses, bright or dark background etc. If you do not have the luxury to choose the background, then increase the distance between your subject and the background, use lens with longer focal length (at least 50mm) and open up the aperture to the maximum (smallest f-value), this will create blur background. Thus, your subject will stand out. Dark background, 50 mm, f1.8 Think from where you will shoot before photographing your subject. Try viewpoints that are less common, be different. If the VIEWPOINT is common such as at eye level, then your photo will look common too. Try from high above, down at ground, from the side, from far away, from very close and so on. Viewpoint down at gro

Kitchen is a HEART of a house. Functional kitchen not only acts as a place to cook BUT also as a place for socialization. Kitchen should also be soundly safe for cooking activities. So, how to know if you have a disastrous kitchen? If any of the following apply to you or your kitchen, then you should do something…..may be buying or renting a new house….lol. Preparing a simple meal such as cooking instant noodle a.k.a. MAGGI is so stressful. Your workspace to do all the chopping is only half meter wide. If you have used the kitchen for more than a year and still have TEN fingers, consider your-self as LUCKY. You can’t cook what you want when you want. The space is overrun with gadgets i.e. the blender, the toaster, the cutleries, the microwave, the multiple chopper, the bread-maker, the kettle. egg slicer, strainer etc. Your kitchen cannot accommodate more than one cook at a time and does not provide sufficient space for your guest

Light decoration on palm trees (50 mm, f1.8) When ever we look at a photo, objects that are in focused will pull our attention. Cameras and lenses were developed to produce high quality image with brilliant focused. Object can be focused by either fully auto- or manual-focus. This can be done by a click of a button. Photo with images that look out of focus are usually due to cheap lens, sensor issue, vibration, aperture versus focus point issue, high ISO or that’s what the photographer want it to be. While driving; the yellow/orange circles are the road lights, the red circles are  the car breaking lights Road junction; the green circles are the traffic lights Out of focus images can be valuable if it was done with a careful plan. These photos are categorised as abstract image. Abstract images are suitable for large print for the living room or bed room, or as background for posters, slide of presentation, webpage etc. The quality of out of focus images is usually depending