Coronado Beach

A sand sculpture sign

The trolley tour brought us over the Coronado bridge and into Coronado which is just a perfect township with cute little houses painted in soft pastel colours, and with the perfect weather it created a perfect morning for us to explore Hotel Bel and the beach. A pet peeve some San Diego people may have is for these local Coronado folks to call themselves islanders. The guide was quick to point out that it is a peninsular and not an island. Hah a new fact to add to my knowledge of Coronado.

The gorgeous beach

The sand was velvety soft and it was lovely walking along the beach barefooted while the wind creates havoc with the hair. The colours appear muted as in this picture. Gloomy weather which I prefer don't ask me why because I can't give you a good reason.

Perfect weather for cycling

Seen in San Diego

Aren't these bicycles cute? Its to chain your bicycles to and I've not seen these types before. Let me start off by saying San Diego is the place I would like to spend a whole lot more time in. Possible to retire here. The weather is perfect. All year round. The person who picked us from the airport and drove us to the hotel said their highest temperature was 24 degrees Celsius. Woot! Rain fall is only a couple of inches per year. So yes water can be a problem but they've circumvented this by constructing a recycling system to use such water for irrigation of plants around the city. This is the furthest I've walked in any city a whopping 19.4km. I got a small blister on my second left toe to prove that I walked that much. 

Trolley Tour around San Diego.

The trolley tour signage

I would recommend doing this  hop on, hop off tour. I learnt a lot about San Diego buildings with a short description of each place we passed. the guides are slightly different in character. My favourite was our first one he had a nice way of describing things and a dry sense of humour. He even made us turn with a wonderful description of what turned out to be a simple McDonalds. haha!

The picture above is the official logo, just before you get on the trolley, you're given a round sticker of the tour symbol to stick on your jacket or blouse, after which you're good to go.

my favourite guide of the day.

Here is the picture from where I sat. Its an antique looking trolley with heated floorboards and he plays appropriate music along the way intermittently to get the mood going before imparting some gem of knowledge.

Horton Plaza

The next building of significance that we passed was Horton Plaza. The statue that you see is of Earnest W. Hahn the developer of Horton Plaza. And what a buzz it was when it opened on August 9 1985. It had 51 stores and four department stores, Robinsons, the Broadway Mervyns and Nordstrorm.We passed Horton Plaza which I found later to be a bit of a has been. The anchor tenant moved out a few years ago and not many stores remain. Additional negative information was the weird escalators you may find. I saw one or two homeless people outside the plaza. So no, with the limited time I had on my hands, I chose to opt out of this place.

The end of part one of the tour.

Cheesecake Factory

Cheesecake Factory San Diego

We arrived in San Diego a little after 9pm. The flight from Los Angeles to San Diego was delayed due to an accident when our plane chewed up a bird leading to some cleaning up presumably. It's common so the driver told us. We walked about looking for food. And we found the Cheesecake Factory. Thanks to Penny working here, we promised we would get a meal and cheesecake once before flying out. ( which we did) 

Our first meal in San Diego was in Little Italy. We had pizza and then we walked a lot around little Italy looking for a kebab shop and when we did find out, it was closed. the weather was chilly with a little wind and dry. 

San Diego

Lovely afternoon in San Diego overlooking the bay

Hello from San Diego. Well I'm back to KL now so all this blogging is retrospectively capturing the emotions of that day.  This was my first trip to the States. A long journey which started with applying for a visa. A tip for first timers, it is not difficult but it does take time. (I'll blog separately on the experience) 

In the meantime, please admire the gorgeous view I had for a week when I stayed at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, level 26. Wow! A special thank you to the lady at the counter when I checked in, she asked whether I would sacrifice a king size bed for a smaller room with a view. Of course I would. And this was what I got.

I read that May is meant to be dull and gloomy. So this picture doesn't represent what most of the days were like for me. But as I like gloomy weather I enjoyed the gloom quite a lot. 

To the left of the picture is a row of hotels, Manchester Grand Hyatt, Mariott, The convention centre and finally Hotel Hilton. To the right of the picture is Coronado. And the bridge linking this is Coronado Bridge. ( just to clarify, Coronado is a peninsular and not and island)

The reason why the bridge is shaped like a dome, is to accommodate the height of the naval ships as San Diego is a naval base.

9th May 2018

My voting centre is Raub.

Malaysians came out to vote midweek on the 9th of May 2018. And as you know, we have a new government and the spirit of optimism has spread far and wide. Its a good feeling. And we pray for many more good things for our country. 

Launch of the Malaysian Asthma CPG

The whole team together with the DG.

The 3rd of May 2018. Venue: Main Auditorium, Hospital Serdang. What a great day this was. The culmination of 3 years of hard work under the guidance of Dr Amin and with the support of the Malaysian Thoracic Society ( thank you for the travel grants as well as the printing of the CPGs) and to MABIP ( for the  props used for the gimmick). 

I would like to thank every single one of the team who have travelled long and far even during the fasting month for meetings in Putra Jaya to do the literature review as well as the writing process. I know some of you travelled and couldn't claim for all trips and yet you did not complain. One of you travelled by bus all the way from up north to contribute while others drove from Penang, flew in from KB, Muar, Klang ( and later Ipoh) Banting and also prioritize meetings so you could attend at least one out of the 2-day meeting dates on a monthly basis. Most of you hold more than one post and yet sacrificed your time. 

I am grateful for the time we spent together, it gave me the opportunity to get to know you all better and it reminded me what a good team can achieve when we have a common goal and with the right guidance. And here this leads me to a special mention of Dr Amin, our true mentor throughout the entire process without whom this CPG would not be possible. Truly, he is a humble man who allows others to take the glory of his hard work. He supports and pushes quietly with great tact and always polite. He is an inspiration to us all.

Colouring is therapeutic

It took close to three weeks to complete this one page.

Today marks the last day of the long Raya weekend. Oh boy, time flies when you're having fun. I just woke up from a nap. I went for my second session at Hiit2fit gym at Publika this morning. 45 minutes of circuit training with the heart rate monitor showing you whether you're reached your target heart rate. I'm better with the cardio sets. The weights with the medicine balls and dumbbells and sit ups and kick ups was so painful I did less than the others and for once was too tired to be embarrassed. There were 14 in this class. According to the instructor this is one of the biggest group to date. It was a bit cramped initially but we soon settled to our spots and space wasn't an issue once the music started and we went from zero pain to maximum pain. 

We were divided into two groups, the weight training group and the cardio group. It was good I ended the class with the cardio section cos I managed to get to 90% of the heart rate there and 80% most of the time. The good thing with the heart rate monitor is they show your stats on the screen, together with everyone elses....so if you have a competitive streak this will push you further. 

The gym is located at the same level as Tonkatsu. And it faces the main Dutamas road. Tucked in a corner. The shower area is very nice. Clean, big and equip with nice shampoo and conditioner as well as a hair dryer. After the class, I was still able to walk( thankfully) and got a light meal before driving back to have a lie down. 

It's after the lie down that the main is obvious. And now I'm in pain. I'm assuming this is leading to some burning to fat. Fingers crossed.

Pippa Middleton

Picture from Vogue

Pippa got married exactly one week today. I remember getting the first glimpse of her wedding dress and thinking wow. And that feeling hasn't left. She picked the correct dress for her body type. Not many can get away with wearing capped sleeves but she did. The cut of the dress camouflage her longer torso and that corseted bodice made the dress keep its silhouette.

What I like most, is the feeling of happiness you get from looking at the pictures of the bride and groom. Love the genuine smiles and the sweet hand holding. I also like the page boys and flower girls ' outfits. Wonder how they behaved in church.

Blue lipsticks by Mac

Interesting shades of blue

 This won't be a long post. Just two pictures taken at KLCC earlier this week. Why is it when you plan just to browse that you see yourself buying more things than intended? And when you plan , things don't happen? So weird.

This is us at Mac KLCC where we were served by a lovely young man. He showed us what we could do with blue lipsticks. ( Because I asked)

Green lipstick ...over red lipstick gives you a delightful mauve

I guess if you are a lipstick woman this opens up a whole new whole of shades. Imagine drawing the lip and getting darker shades and feeling rather original and confident in the thought that you would be the only one in that shade in the room.

Rattan Furniture at Ampang New Village

Unassuming shop front

We went to Ampang last weekend for a peculiar reason which I will blog about at a later date once I've put my thoughts together chronologically. In the meantime, allow me to expand on my hunt for some rattan furniture. This is shop I found which did not have a name. So I couldn't check in on the app Swarm. ( No points earned there) We were greeted with a lot of furniture arranged on both sides of the shop creating an aisle but no sign of life for the first 2 minutes in the shop.

After a bit, a man shuffled out from far deep inside and served us. He was a patient man not one of those annoyingly enthusiastic creatures who would follow you closely and expand on every single potential in store.

A potential hanging utensil for the longchamps

Now this baby is worth thinking about. Imagine all my longchamps hanging on this stand. Yeah!  But no, I didn't buy it. At RM 170 I thought it was expensive.

Two tone rattan. ( No!)

This chair was nice to nice to sit. I considered buying it but couldn't get over the two tone rattan which wasn't pleasing to my eye. I prefer all the same colour..like the chair below.

A recliner. Comes with a foot stool

I love this weave. I would like a bag in this weave. But no bags available so this recliner had that darker rattan at the sides which despite trying very hard, I found hard to accept.

Mr Dog approves of the latest purchase

And so I finally found the chair of my choice and here it is in the apartment. My Dog gets the first try on it and he appears satisfied with the feel. No complains there.

An attempt to decorate the chair

Louis Vitton

All that posh talk re Pippa, let's move on to things you can spend money on. Louis Vuitton Damier Azur Tahitiennes Collection. Isn't this print just gorgeous? You have to be brave enough to ask the man at the counter whether you can touch and feel it. That makes the difference to whether you think this is a fake or not.

The pink crazy lines superimposed on the chequer-like blocks is both attractive and pleasing. If money weren't an issue I would take the purse and the bag...and possibly the shoes in this.