Asian Terrace

I went to Asian Terrace located in Solaris for dinner a few nights ago. It's a Thai Vietnamese restaurant. I had Steamed Fish in lime juice, Mango Salad with Soft Shell Crab, Brocolli and Mushrooms with steamed rice. The meal was simply divine and the service was excellent. The waiters were really polite and attentive (which is really difficult to get in KL nowadays).  

Belanga Restaurant

I was in The Gardens again this morning and was walking around looking for a possible breakfast joint when I saw baskets containing packets of nasi outside of the restaurant. There was a choice of Nasi Tumpang (never had it before) and Nasi Berlauk Ikan or Ayam. Both rice dishes originated from Kelantan.

I chose to try the Nasi Berlauk Ayam which comes wrapped in waxed paper. The meal, although prepacked, was warm and to be quiet honest, I really didn't know what to expect but decided to give it a go since I saw other customers eating it. Once opened, the pack contains some thin slices of egg omelet, a packet of sambal (really yummy), a packet of chicken curry with a small piece of chicken in it, some fresh ulam and of course, rice (in this case plain white rice).

It was simply delicious! At RM3.80 a packet, it was good value for money :)

Flying Chillies Restaurant

I tried out the Flying Chillies restaurant in The Gardens Shopping Mall last week. It serves Thai food and I had Fish Cakes, Papaya Salad (extra spicy --- special order) and Red Curry Chicken with steamed rice. The food was yummy and I really enjoyed the meal :)

I'm a Kiva Lender :)

I recently joined Kiva. I figured that I could and should help someone in need. In case you're wondering what Kiva is, it's a non-profit organization that makes it possible for you to make a small loan to people in need.

When the loan gets paid back, the money becomes available in your account again and you're able to lend it out to someone else and repeat the process all over again or you may choose to withdraw the money and use it for something else. For as little as US$25, Kiva makes it possible for you to lend some money to people who are in other parts of the world in order to help them out with their businesses. I like the idea that you can choose who you lend your money to as they have profiles of the borrowers on the website.

You can learn more about Kiva here.

I don't have much but there are lots of other people in the world who have even less than me. It feels good to be able to share a little bit and to be able to offer some help to someone in this world!

The Locust and the Bird by Hanan Al-Shaykh

This story is about Hanan's (the author) mother's life. This book was originally written in Arabic which was later translated into English. It tells of the story of the sacrifices that her Lebanese mother , Kamila, had to make for love.

Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella

In the fourth book of the Shopaholic series, Becky marries Luke but the wedding preparations aren't smooth sailing as two people get busy planning for their wedding --- her mom and Luke's mom and there's a small problem --- both weddings are planned for the same day but on different sides of the planet (one in England and the other in New York)! 

Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella

This is the third book in the Shopaholic series. In this book, Becky Bloomwood moves to the Big Apple with her boyfriend Luke Brandon and continues having her shopaholic misadventures in New York.

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

This is the second of a the Shopaholic series of books that I've been meaning to read but never really got around to purchasing before this (too pricey to pay at regular prices for the whole range). Thank goodness, I found four of the books in this series at the latest Big Bad Wolf Warehouse sale at a fraction of the original price!

Becky Bloomwood is a finance journalist with financial problems! As always, Sophie Kinsella's books are humourous.

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

What are the odds that you find a picture on the ground one day, pick it up, and then you experience a string of good luck even in situations when good luck is pretty slim (such as in a war)?

Yup, another Nicholas Sparks novel. In this one, a US Marine finds a picture of a young woman half buried in the dirt towards the end of one of his early morning runs in Iraq. He takes the picture back to base and puts it on the message board thinking that it belonged to someone there. But when the photo still went unclaimed despite being on the message board for many days, he takes the photo down and puts it in his wallet. Soon after, he experiences streaks of good luck --- he wins poker games and survives combat that kills his close friends.

When he goes back home, he sets out to look for the woman in the picture --- his lucky charm. When he does meet her, he finds himself attracted to her and falls for her while not telling her how he came to be in her life. Was it destiny that made him look for her?

This novel has been made into a movie which is due to be released in April 2012. As always, I prefer to read the novel first before watching the movie as I somehow feel that movies lack the details presented in the book. Besides, when you watch a movie, you're watching someone else's (the director's) interpretation of the novel and most times, this may not be the same interpretation that you will make when you read the novel yourself.

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

This story is about Ronnie, a troubled teenage girl whose parents are divorced goes to spend the summer with her father. Her father, a former concert pianist is now living in a house on the beach. While there, she falls in love with William, an unlikely match for her, who changes her. This is a story about first love as well as love between parents and children.

Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter

Mr Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice, the ideal man... but does he really exist? Well, Emily Albright has had meetings with Mr Darcy himself while she was on tour to England with the Jane Austen Book Club (which, by the way, is made up of little old ladies and an old man! Just as there is the perfect man, there is also the anti-Mr Darcy in this book whose name is Spike Hargreaves. A nice humourous read. 

you need this book to get what you want by mark palmer & scott solder

Interesting title...that was what I was thinking when I picked up this book at the Big Bad Wold Warehouse sale. This book is about using psychology to get into other people's heads in order to get what you want.

How to be a Property Goddess by Smita Talati

This is a guide for women who want to be home owners. It covers all aspects of home ownership from buying and home maintenance to selling, investing and renting homes. 

MooGoo Anti-Ageing Face Cream

The MooGoo Anti-Ageing Face Cream 

and the "milk carton" that it comes in

I bought the MooGoo Anti-Ageing Face Cream after reading rave reviews about this product online. I've been using it for the past three weeks and let me tell you, I just love it. I've got oily skin and what I like about this face cream is that it's not oily and feels great on the skin.

It comes in a 75g pump bottle packaged in a milk carton. I absolutely adore the milk carton packaging (Hey, what can I say, I just think that the packaging is so right for the product line which is basically made from milk products)!

I use it after washing my face and I normally use about half a pump for both my face and neck. A little bit goes a long way and I expect this product will last me a long time.

This cream contains Resveratrol and Ascorbyl Tetraisopalmitate, both of which are anti-oxidants. It also has a light fresh scent that goes away fairly quickly.

To be quite honest, I'm not sure if my skin looks any better now than before I started using the product but hey, it's an organic product that feels great on my skin and to me, that is all that I need. I'm all for using safe products on my skin nowadays.

This product gets a thumbs up from me. Try it, you might be surprised.

Read my other reviews on MooGoo products
MooGoo Full Cream
MooGoo Cow Lick Lip Balm
MooGoo Milk Shampoo and Conditioner

Put More Cash in Your Pocket by Loral Langemeier

This book is about making more money by doing things that you already are doing (but most probably aren't charging for). It lists possible money making ventures and goes about showing you the steps that you have to consider such as the resources that you have or will need for your venture, your personality, deciding how much money you need to make in a month, how much time it will take for you to receive your first payment, testing the market, replicating and duplicating a business model that is already out there (as this implies that there is a ready market out there wanting what you have to offer), five key distinctions about your venture that makes you stand out in the market, your talk track where you describe your venture in a sentence or two and even the ask-for-the-cash talk track when you need to ask for payment.

This is a fantastic book for anyone thinking of doing some freelance work on the side to generate more income.   

Mid Valley Megamall Parking Ticket

I went to Mid Valley Megamall today. Isn't their parking ticket design so adorable?

The Gift by Cecilia Ahern

This book is told in a story about Lou, a successful man who is constantly busy climbing the corporate ladder at the expense of his family and loved ones. One morning, he buys Gabe, a homeless man who sits outside his office building, a coffee and thus begins the friendship between the two men. When the mail room in his office is underhanded, Lou takes Gabe on to help out in the mail room. As time goes by, Gabe presents Lou with choices, one of which is being able to be at two places at one time by just taking a pill.

This book is about cherishing those around you and spending with them the most valuable asset (more valuable than money, gold, oil, etc) that all of us have been granted with --- time. The gift of spending time with your loved ones is the one valuable gift that you can give others. This book reminds us that most of us are just way too busy doing our own thing and thinking about ourselves that we simply fail to spend enough time with our loved ones. I know that I'm certainly one of them and I needed to read this book!   

Pay It Down! by Jean Chatzky

In this book, Jean Chatsky shares her advice on how to track your spending, strategies of finding money so that you can pay off your debts and then build your savings after you've managed to successfully pay off all of your debts all on just $10 a day. 

I found this book in the latest Big Bad Wolf Sale and  purchased it because I have read a book written by Jean before and I wanted to see if I could gain any real down to earth ideas about thinking about money. 

The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach

I've been reading a load of books ever since carting back loads of books from the most recent Big Bad Wolf Sale. I haven't been doing a great job at updating my blog with reviews of the books that I've read though...

So, I hope to play catch up with my book reviews within the next few weeks. So here goes...

The Automatic Millionaire presents you with the idea of a financial plan that is automated, one that you can forget about once you have set it in place.

I like the idea how this book presents the idea that you can even make giving to charity (something that is often overlooked when making financial plans) automatic (apart from the other obvious aspects of financial planning that you should automate such as you retirement plan, savings cushion for a rainy day, home ownership and paying off debts).

MooGoo Milk Shampoo

In my quest to make safer choices, I have decided to go organic. I was browsing the shelves in Caring Pharmacy in 1 Mont Kiara when I came across MooGoo products from Australia. Curious, I went home and googled them up. I discovered that many people were raving about their products.

I went back to Caring Pharmacy the next day to make my very first MooGoo product purchase --- their Milk Shampoo. Upon trying out the product for the very first time, I found it strange that the shampoo was runny and water-like in consistency and so, I made an enquiry via the MooGoo Australia website.

Their response to my question about the consistency was that what I had wasn't right and they asked for the batch number so that they could look into the matter and that I should refer the matter to their local partner, Triniare, in KL.

Okay, so I contacted the KL partner, Triniare, via the MooGoo Malaysia website and was informed by Sabrina, of Triniare, that there was nothing wrong with the product. In fact, here's the reply that I got from them:

"No worries about the Shampoo.
MooGoo Australia had some ingredients changed to further improve the shampoo and there is no problem with it."


Basically, Triniare gave me the brush off. There wasn't even any interest in finding out more about the concern that I was raising.

Unhappy, with their response, I forwarded the reply from Triniare to MooGoo Australia.

Strangely, enough, the next day, I didn't get a response from MooGoo in Australia but I got a response from the Triniare who by the way, has suddenly been inspired to show some interest in the matter. I can only assume that MooGoo Australia forwarded my email to Triniare. This is what Sabrina wrote:

" Good morning,

Btw, could you provide us the batch no printed on your shampoo and which outlet did you purchase the Shampoo?

We would like to determine that the Shampoo you 've got is the new batch or otherwise."

I supplied them with the batch number as requested. Later, I got this response:

" Thank you for your reply.

I have sent this batch number to MooGoo Australia and now awaiting for their feedback.

We can do a 1 to 1 exchange for you , however the Shampoos I have here with me may be similar to what you have.

Anyway, is it possible for you to provide us your contact number so that we can call you?"

Note that the request for my contact number "so that they can contact me" is their way of not having any written record of their further communication with me.

I received a call from Sabrina, of Triniare, the next morning who didn't apologize for putting out defective products on the shelves to be sold. In fact, what she said to me was that they were willing to replace the product "out of goodwill"!!! Goodwill??? This is NOT goodwill! It is the company's responsibility to make good a defective product! They're not doing me any favours --- in fact, this is all a hassle for me. I have paid good money for the product and I want my money's worth. Nothing more. Is that too much to ask for???

I think it is high time that companies in Malaysia learn a thing or two about good customer service. When you make a mistake, you (1) admit to it and (2) make good your mistakes.

So, anyone out there thinking of buying the MooGoo Milk Shampoo in Malaysia, please check to make sure that the consistency of the shampoo is not watery, if it is, its defective and don't buy it because trying to get a replacement is one hell of a hassle.

MooGoo Australia, being aware of the issue that I was having, offered to arrange for a replacement to be shipped out to me from Australia if their local KL partner, Triniare, failed to sort out the issue on this end within the next few days.

Thumbs up to MooGoo Australia for their fantastic customer service but as for their local partner, Triniare, well, they have a llooooonnnngggg way to go (personally, they have absolutely NO idea what customer service really means).

It's a shame that MooGoo Australia has teamed up with such an incompetent partner in Malaysia.