Valentine’s at Decanter Too

Let’s just say that being Malaysians, we were incredibly late to send Sarah off at the airport on Saturday night, narrowly missing seeing her. Esther was already at my house at about 4pm, then at 6pm we took off in my car to Taipan for a while to Menara Optometry (Esther wanted to purchase some coloured contacts, while I wanted to straighten up my somewhat bent spectacles, which later resulted in my vision seeing raised floors wtf), then picked up Andy, Jon, and then Kai Tzin. Kai wanted to go to the money changer at The Summit, so we dropped him off.. and seeing a massive jam at the traffic lights, we thought we could enter Summit’s parking lot for free if we take only less than 15 minutes to exit it – but turns out that wasn’t true as the ticket was rejected by the ticket collecting machine at the exit and a staff came to our help just as we were about to reverse our car, and accepted the payment of RM2 made by Kai on the spot, saving us the need to go all the way to the ticket-paying machine (although we suspect that the man would’ve pocketed the money).

I think we only left Subang at about 6.45-6.50pm, and I zoomed at a maximum of 120kmph when we hit the highway leading to KLIA and got a little stuck at the car park (Sarah had then rang us up to find out where we were: about to enter the parking lot) – bloody Myvi in front of my car was soo excruciatingly slow while the car parks on each level didn’t have a single free parking space.. save for the top floor. -___-

By then we sprinted all the way (save for Esther who was in her high heels, and Jon who teman-ed her) just in time to give Sarah a hug (wtf), snap a group photo of the u8 gang (or what’s left thereof), and bade her goodbye and a safe journey. After she went past that dreaded gate where people would leave for a good period of time, we went towards the glassed area where we could see the floor below us (as we did with Suet last time) and banged on the glass and railing like crazy to get her attention wtf.

Group photo! Ding and Mei Yee came on a separate car, while Wai Hong (together with his friend) came from Inti Nilai.

Then Jon took over the driver’s seat of my car while I took the opportunity to nap, since Jon and co (save for Kai Tzin) slept while I was driving to KLIA and I didn’t get a chance to catch some sleep. Jon was also rushing back to get to his church, then when we were dropped off in front of Jon’s house, we went to Taipan again while Esther went to another optometry shop, then we took off to SS14 to await for her friend Serena. (Ding at one point had SMSed Esther that he wouldn’t be joining us.)

We then went all the way to Decanter Too, Sri Hartamas, and just as we arrived at about 9.50pm and parked illegally by the roadside to avoid paying an RM10 parking fee, Adrian and his (as well as Esther’s) friend Joshua came right behind our car. As we walked towards Decanter Too, I was immediately taken up by the bright décor and its modern outtake of a bar/bistro – very homely, cosy, with a one-man acoustic performance of sentimental songs reverberating throughout the bar.

Didn’t correct the white balance in this photo ‘cause I thought the warm glow served to present accurately how the ambience actually was.

Seeing that it was Valentine’s, there were rose petals on the tables.

As Esther had booked a place for us hours before we arrived, we managed to sit in the lounge composed of two comfortable sofas and several squarish seats (which you can’t lean on), with a table at the centre of this setting.

The bar. And a TV.. which happened to show wrestling WTF. (I remember telling the rest that Shawn would love this place to bits wtf.)

Adrian and Joshua. (Finally discovered a way to correct white balance in Digital Photo Professional. :D)

My Hainanese Chicken Chop, supposedly a specialty at Decanter, served with Hainanese sauce, whatever that is. It was absolutely delicious, and every other dish that came (ordered by the rest) smelt fucking fragrant – such as how Kai’s carbonora had that strong cheesy scent, and I’m not too sure whether I’m perceiving everything as extra tasty because I was dead hungry at that time. And best of all, the prices were actually quite reasonable and even slightly cheaper than Uno’s (the former Pizza Uno)! My chicken chop was only RM14.

Accidentally captured this when what I wanted to snap was my food.

Another look of my food.

Group photo!

Oh and that is Brenda, sitting to the left of Kai Tzin, who was quite chatty and friendly.

And another group photo.

Serena was quite cheeky wtf.

This hyperactive kid was busy jumping around and sempat pose for me – he was seriously a natural model wtf.

This shot was snapped by Adrian right before my camera’s battery went dead.

This was absolutely my ideal bar – that kinda place I’ve been looking everywhere for a long time now, and I fell in love with this place. It was also unusual that the entire bar was brightly lit (as opposed to other dimly lit pubs) but as it was nearing midnight, the lights at Decanter Too were dimmed too.

1) Excellent atmosphere with comfortable seats with good (although somewhat emo-ish) music – check
2) Food and drinks at reasonable prices (my iced lemon tea was at least RM1-1.50 cheaper than the one at Uno’s, plus the one at Decanter Too tasted a tad bit different in a good way) – check
3) Great hilarious intimate company (before the advent of more and more of other people I didn’t recognise) – check

Although as time went on and more and more of Esther’s church friends and collegemates arrived, our table was getting increasingly crowded.. and nearly everyone else smokes! I was actually shocked that people were allowed to smoke inside bars, until I realise that I’m still in Malaysia..

I get down on my knees everyday and thank god that our u8 gang is relatively smoke-free (apart from two people ahem) and I don’t have to succumb to death by second-hand smoke wtf. Although that night itself probably negated whatever efforts I had made to stay away from inhaling tar and tobacco – that was the first time I’ve ever been in a group where nearly everyone smokes. It may also interest you that I have some sort of an aversion towards smoke (of any kinds, from tobacco or otherwise) as I cough very easily and often feel as if I’m suffocating from it – which is why I avoid temples with burning incense like the plague. Plus my eyes would tear and my face and clothes would stink.

At about 12.30am, Kai Tzin went off with his other friends to club, so Andy and I took our leave too. My GPS failed to lock on for a very long time as I drove around while awaiting for satellites to be locked on to, so eventually I just parked by the road side somewhere near Mont Kiara and waited for at least 5 minutes for some positive signs that the satellites have been detected – this never happened before, and I suppose it could be because I flashed my phone’s firmware just a few days ago.

My GPS brilliantly sent me on a huge useless U-turn encircling a beautiful villa and some neighbourhood before I came back to the same place I set off from (at where I got off from the car to try and detect the satellites). -___- Nevertheless we managed to reach home after avoiding tolls (used the roads leading to PJ, similar to what I did on Wednesday night when I was returning home from my French class), all in one piece.

And that’s how I celebrated my Valentine’s – with a bunch of mostly singletons.

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Joe came to my house quite randomly on Friday about 4pm to transfer some videos and songs off my hard drive after he purchased his 1TB external hard drive for only about RM470. Whilst we waited for the transfer of about 2 hours (!) to finish, we sat around my room and chatted and caught up with each other’s lives – his in New Zealand, and mine (future one, at least) in Melbourne, Australia.

Thanks Joe for telling me about the existence of various piano tutorials for a wide variety of songs existing on Youtube (as well as the software Pro Guitar or something of that sort)! :) I honestly had fun trying the tuts on Youtube out.

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Inspired by Aud’s attempt on a Project 365, who was inspired by her friend Jia Meei, who was in turn inspired by this, I will try my very best to snap at least one photo each day for 365 days – whether by DSLR, point-and-shoot, or my phone – and post up the collection once a week (as opposed to doing it daily, I don’t have the luxury of time).

As such, since I don’t want to repeat my photos in this personal project, I will be withholding one photo of my choosing (should it “clashes” with the photo that would have been put up) and post them up at a later date. Looking forward to doing this – should be able to come up with pretty interesting photos especially when I’m going to Australia. :)

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I’ve turned 21. ２１歳になった。

That pushes me up to the dreaded ranking of Adults, but that said, I can now legally vote. That’s assuming that I still have my citizenship then and that I still have the least bit of interest in our country, given the horrid, discouraging politics around.

My birthday has come and passed quite uneventfully – it was altogether entirely pleasant as I woke up at nearly 12pm, did a bit of my French homework and HS work, then went out for a dinner with my family (pics would come in the next entry).

Thanks for the wishes guys (ranging from face-to-face, MSN, Facebook, and SMSes, you know who you are) – I genuinely appreciate it. =)