Back to Pearl Island!

...and after one week of hiatus, I am back to Pearl Island reviving this neglected little abode of mine! In my previous post a week ago, I attended Persidangan Penterjemahan Antarabangsa ke-13 this time organized by UiTM and was held at Concorde Hotel Shah Alam from 19 til 21 July. I spent another two more days down under over my elder bro's place in which I was able to meet up with the SISTAHood KL Chapter and hang out for one night of Karaoke and lunch the next day before sending me off back to Pearl Island. Now for more detailed stories, please keep an on eye on this space for more backlog posts (as motivation comes...) and for those impatient people, you can always drop by my Facebook profile and ogle at those camwhorish photo album. To kickstart however, a couple of post-conference updates and random stuffs around my campus life.

-Post-conference Stuff-

My supervisor told me that I can claim for reimbursement from grant to cover my transportation (including taxi. YES!) and accommodation (Phew! That's RM300+ for 3 nights you know.) for the purpose of the conference so all I need to do is find compile all the receipts and go to the PPIK general office to fill up some form. After scouring through my bags to find that small stub of my taxi tickets (Luckily I stuff everything into my bag and didn't treat it as rubbish. RM28 claimed is RM28 claimed!), drop by Dr. GSS's office to pick up the hotel receipt (Dr GSS's the one that booked the hotel because I am sharing with his Mainland Chinese Phd Student. More on that in future post!) and went over to PPIK office!

Brought along all the things that deemed necessary such as receipts as well as conference presenter's certificate. Dropped by Dr. WRE's room to drop her certificate. Hope she remembers to pick it up from her room.

The process is relatively straightforward: one form to open an account over Bursary (Needed because I had never dealt with this matter with the Bursary before) and another form for to travel reimbursement. Filled the travel reimbursement form as I am ready with all the receipt while the first form needed a photocopy of IC and a bank statement which I used Bank Islam because that's what USM use to deal with money transfer matter. After compiling all the necessary documents, went back again this morning at 8:45am right on time to catch the lady in charge heading out from the office to have breakfast. Consider it settled then. The only thing I hope right now is that the processing will be smooth and I will be able to claim those RM300++ back. If I do succeed, it means I didn't spent even a single cent on this conference! Please get it through!

Please don't screw up now, Bendahari/Bursary! I'm a poor grad student. I need to eat and support my rent and pay my tuition fees. I will be checking out my Bank Islam account from time to time within this week or two.

-Sights around Ivory Plaza!-

Whenever there's a RM50 note inside my wallet, the idea of heading out somewhere and had something good popped up in my mind just to break it up into smaller changes. I was weighing a couple of choices of where should I go near and far taking into consideration of the weather (the weather this few day has been GREAT with alternating rain and clear blue breezy days! But of course, rain means umbrella and I had a faulty one.) as well as my own willingness to travel (especially to further places...I have RM1.40, just enough to take bus to go Queensbay and Sunshine but what about the return trip?). In the end however, it has come to my realization that it has been forever I visited Ivory Plaza over the RST's side of USM. It's decided then! Get changed and roll out!

As I was walking down from my block towards Fajar Harapan, I saw a bus coming from afar but I know that I won't be able to make it to Fajar Harapan bus stop so I walked towards the School of Pharmacy bus stop right down the road. As the bus coming from behind, I looked at the bus and tried to wave it down even though I kinda expecting that it will just ignore me. Surprisingly, the bus driver did saw me but gave me a wave that it will stop at the designated bus stop over School of Pharmacy and sure enough, the bus signaled and pulled over to the curbside. Immediately I made a mad rush to catch up with bus while hoping that the bus won't dump me...and I MADE IT. SUCCESS AWWWYYEEAAHHH. Great timing indeed especially when it's about infrequent bus service during semester holiday! Alighted at PALAPES bus stop, went out of campus, crossed the road and reached Ivory Plaza.

Ohh it has been a while. The familiar sight that I see on my almost daily pilgrimage to Istimewa back in the ye olde days just to go enjoy unsecured and unfiltered wireless.

Khaleel got rid of their extendable roof for a more permanent zinc roof with the palm trees bursting through the roof. Oh, they also moved one shop to the left taking over that one shoplot that tenant changes all too often while closed down the old side lot and moved out all the their cooking appliances to the sidewalk. Kinda wondered whether anymore dares to rent the side shoplot used by Khaleel...think about is hygiene. *shudder*

My favorite haunt back in the good ol'days, Istimewa has got itself a new signboard as well opting for a more muted maroon instead of the old brighter pink. Everything else still looks the same though including my favorite spot.

Right beside Istimewa though that I spotted that there's yet another new shop: Gil Korean Cafe. Feeling adventurous, I decided to have my lunch here!

The whole cafe is obviously influeced by Hallyu with pre-dominantly white decor and floral patterns creating a fairly homey flair.

One side of the way devoted solely to Kpop too and Korean pops song emanates around the whole premise. Just to top it off, the owners of this cafe are Koreans too from what I can hear of the chatter from the kitchen when the owner inform the ladies in the kitchen of my order.

I ordered Citron Tea or Yujacha in Korean. Quite sweet and citrus-y with citrus peels inside, refreshing drink for lunch time.

For main course, I ordered Jajangbap which is Jajangmyeon but with rice instead of noodle.  The jajang side is more than rice for some reason and the taste is fairly homey fair. The meal is served with a small plate of kimchi too.

And with that, itadakimasu! (いただきます！) Wait, WRONG LANGUAGE! So fellow Korean language speaker and afficionado out there, what's do Korean say before they start their meal? What about after they finish their meal? Any customary saying? One last thing though, the amusing combination of Asian chopsticks with western spoon.

My verdict: Homey indeed. Definitely will come back a few more times just to try out the rest of their offering. The cafe owner told me that they've only opened for two weeks so let's just hope that they will last til the semester reopen which I will guarantee the business will pick up. And oh, no pork no liquor so at least it follows some of the halal tenet. It's a home based cafe so feel free to make yourself at home.

That's all for update for now. Watch out for more blogpost about my one week of escapade down under!

Epilogue: Also CAN'T BELIEVE JULY'S GOING TO BE OVER OMGOMGOMG. *SPAZZ* *cloistered into a small corner of the room and cries in fear of impending doom...figuratively*