Images: Artful Architectural Wonders

It’s Saturday again. Unlike the previous weekends, I didn’t prepare in advance for the pictures I was suppose to put up for this weekend mainly because it slipped through my mind.

So I had only a small inkling on what to show. My main idea was to look for surreal pictures, something like one of the angels in my old Angel Images entry a few weekends ago.

Bah! Since I don’t have them, I dove into my piles of old stuff pictures and looked for inspirations in the ones that caught my eye.

Then it hit me; buildings!

Call it the KLIA roominess aftermath. I’ve made some really nice buildings images entries before, like the epic-ly beautiful portals I’ve submitted before. I loved those and they were part of this complex imaginary world I have in my head.

So I present this week are some stunning architectures that were made by various creative artists.

A Wizard School by Unknown Artist

Hahaha, to tell you the truth, I don’t know who made this. It’s one of the pictures I took out in my really old stuff folders. I loved it for its 3D rendering of the really tall white Gothic-themed building and the lighting used here made it even more majestic.


Old London at Moonlight by Raphael Lacoste

This is an artwork from my ever-favourite games-visual artist, Raphael Lacoste. The candyman behind the eye-candy of Prince of Persia and Assassin Creed games, he made this piece to emulate what it might have been in Victorian London times.

I’m on all accounts an English/England/Englishland/Fish-and-Chips fanatic so I really got to put this up here.


Landing Zone by Dmitry Savinoff

I knew the artworks of Savinoff neither through the game he and his friend had designed nor through 3Dartists.com webring for artists. Rather it was through a Google search for something sci-fi, during a time when I was still overly plagued with pimples that I discovered his fantasy and sci-fi wonders with digital pictures.

This picture of his I have personally colour-printed and hung it on a wall in my room, close to my PC so I’ll be able to see it when I turn my PC on. It’s kind of like a very nice dawn-of-a-new-day thing it got there, don’t you think?


Fallen Beauty by David Edwards

This is also another picture I’ve been thinking of printing it out and getting it hung on my wall. I needed a fourth wheel to get this entry moving so I took an express through CGSociety.com’s 5 Stars gallery.

Oh my God, this is really beautiful. The detailing is exquisite, every part of the ruin provokes thoughts, speculation and questions on what it means to the artist. Was it a ballroom? A church? Was it ruined through neglect? An evil plot?

I tried looking from his main site but I found even more beautiful pictures that rouse the imagination. Duly recommend that you visit all these artists, as their works, if I hadn’t had a blog to write about them, would be best described as... artfully wonderful.

From KLIA to Iran; Bye-bye Parents!

Last night, Friday was Fly-day for my parents to take their next great adventure across the Middle-East. Don’t ask me why, but they do this all the time now, since Ayah retired. Maybe because since all the juniors relations and fellow traveling friends are all scattered around the globe, there’s always a trusted fellow to call on their Celcom line.

From the Matta fair to KL International Airport, they hadn’t stopped talking about it... and reminding me of all the stuff that needs to be checked while they’re gone. Stuff like:
1. Feed the fishes.
2. Feed the cats.
3. Take out any dead fish floating.
4. Clean up after the cats if they pee in the house (males!)
5. Make sure the Proton, MyVi and Kenari have petrol.
6. Don’t let big brother Arsenal drive either one of those cars.
7. Water the plants.
8. Send lil bro Genius back to UniMalaya on Sunday afternoon.
9. Go to the Uptown D’Kota free-food party this Sunday to show face to the neighbours and explain where did Mak and Ayah went.

Those sort of things.

So in two cars loaded with luggage, we head off to KLIA that evening for the 11.30pm flight. Of course, this freaking family go on a road trip further than Mutiara Damansara, there’s always all kinds of bumps.

“Where’s the car key?”
“This one? Or this one?”
“Which car does this trolley bag go?”
“Figure it out yourself-lah!”
“Liza, can you ask the maid to make milk for Nabil?”
“Passport! Passport!”
“It’s with me (insert mother’s name), cepat-cepat pakai tudung.”
“Oh... now where’s my tudung?”
“Which car does this bag GO?”
“(insert MySis name), did you call Abang Huzir that you won’t be home tonight?”
“Alamak-, my cellphone tada bateri-ler...”
“Ami nak susu! Ami nak suuuusuuu...!”
“Nabil, get up from the floor. Now.”
“Ami nak McDonald’s?”
“No McDonald! Susu aje.”
“Which CAR does this BAG, GOOOO!?”

In the end, we left at 8.45pm, almost half-an-hour later than scheduled.

The road trip was not done in the break-neck speed Ayah would have preferred. Firstly, the second car was running out of petrol (Mak had to stop at Shell gas station), and then it was raining heavily on the highway.

I was in the same car with BabyNabil and he susddenly developed the fits, crying to his Bibik-Yam (the maid) and didn’t stop until we reached the airport. I betcha my dad was a weeeee close to strangling his only grandson.

Aaaah, the international airport. 10 years later and it still runs like slow clockwork.


There’s a lot of people at the viewing area that night, mostly families looking down at their grown kids; some blazer-wearing students getting ready for the flight overseas.

Actually, we couldn’t have bothered. It turned out that their flight, Iran Air, had been delayed by about an hour and a half, no idea why. A full hour and a half or almost totally nothing to do.

Oh what da hell, this is an airport!

Since Nabil was so fidgety to the point that not even Mak’s delicious tandoori chicken meal we all had earlier could help him.

But as babies need to be fed, we ended up buying McDonald’s Chicken Rice Porriage.


Fidgety in the car, hyperactive in McDonald’s.


The bubur-ayam was very hot, so MySis dump a small amount into a paper cup before BabyNabil scoops them with his spoon.

I guess in the end, he got his McDonald’s after all. *sheeeeeesh...*
And it was a good thing we stuck around for a bit. It turns out that Mak forgot something really important and left it back home in Kt. D’sara.

Naturally.

It was the keys to their luggage. Tips on traveling say that we should lock our luggage and so my parents got the heavy duty ones with a key since they can never remember lock combinations.

Ayah, already armed with Iranian currency, flight tickets and passports, handed the luggage responsibility to Mak. And Mak went Ooops! So it was a very good thing the flight got delayed after all. We called big brother Arsenal up quickly and he was free to drive all the way to KLIA with the forgotten keys.

I’m trying to imagine if they flew to Iran and only then just realized they don’t have the keys to their luggage. Maybe they can ask the hotel staff for help?

“Pardon, this is Room-So-and-so. Can you please bring up a crowbar and maybe some shears?”


We hung around the viewing hall while waiting for Abang Arsenal by watching the big planes park in and airport workers drive their golf-carts around. These glass walls are now smothered in a two-year-old’s chicken rice porriage breath and sticky prints.


I took a moment to take my own picture for the blog. I like these kind of dual-view obscure photography that reflects scenes.

Bye Mak! Bye Ayah! See you guys in two weeks. Just remember that I want cheese and chocolates for souvenirs.
*hahahaha!*


We exchange salam and pray for a safe journey.

To Me, From Mak, With Tandoori Chickens

Some of you asked what’s my mother’s inspiration for being quite the chef in the kitchen. I would say the AFC Food Channel on Astro TV but she’s been stuffing the family faces long before cable TV became the vogue.

I supposed it had to do with being the eldest daughter of 9 siblings and miscellaneous relations and friendly neighbours. The entire community knew the Jailani family very well. Anybody had a problem, refer to the freakishly huge noisy family. Country-mice aren’t like town-mice after all.

I can see why my dad, being a very quiet and private person, had to gather some 5 years of courage after meeting Mak before he could formally ask Yayi for her hand.

But I’m wandering here. Mak likes to cook because she grew up pretty much next to the kitchen stove. There’s always mouths to feed and even today, I got uncles and aunties coming in for no reason every other week or so.

But this time, my folks are taking on a long trip, more than 2 weeks. They’re going to fly to Iran to ski on mountain snow and see the springtime flowers. Then they’re crossing the border to Turkey to shop and eat and shop s’more and eat s’more.

So they’ll be nobody to feed me.

Hey, I’m cool actually. I can live on mamak food. I was planning to buy a nice tandoori chicken with naan bread from this restaurant called Fazila Maju. I told that to Mak and was budgeting my finances (secretly, I still want to buy a paperback novel!).

Soooo, as usual before she flies to a land far, far, jet-plane-trip away, she made a feast big enough so I can make myself some sandwiches for the next day. Tandoori chickens.

Red hot from the oven!


Did Mak roast a whole bird? Yup, she did.

Her excuse was that tandoori chickens are much, much healthier than me making pies (can’t argue with that). Mak’s first tandoori chicken cooking was a melting failure and so I guess she’s trying to improve where she did wrong.

I’d say this one was great! It’s not as dry and flaky as the mamak tandoori chickens; quite juicy on the inside and meaty-chewy on the outside. She used a better tandoori mix too, great colour, spicy but not overly tongue-burning hot.

You should have seen the cooking pan under the metal bar-trays thingy used to cook the chicken on it. All the bird fat dripped on it was black and brown to a crisp. I should have taken a photo but it was ugly and I was too distracted by the chicken itself (I’ll have to scrap it clean later too, urg...)..


Yummy setting.


Mm-mmm, better than KFC...

Ayah went out to buy freshly baked naan bread from the mamak. Hehe, I guess I’ll know what Mak will be trying to make next!

Too bad we don’t have instant spicy mint sauce mix so the meal would have been perfect. MySis came for dinner too, since she and I were going to send Mak and Ayah to KL International Airport after evening prayers. And she came early after work too, since she heard that Mak was making tandooris.

So there you have it. Mak may not cook for an extensive family anymore; instead she emulated new food and styles of cooking. MySis inherited her baking skills (once she finds a really good oven for her small kitchen, she’ll be making chocolate-smothered brownies and fruity pavlovas again) and I guess I’ll more into casseroles and meat dishes.

Note2self: Must learn to cook this and get it right before next family reunion/meeting open house at Batu Arang. I now got married cousins to impress.
*hehehe!*


Oh yeeeeeeaaahh! Did I mention that she also made some home-brewed pineapple juice? Of course, she’s anak Pontian...