Author: CMR.sg

Attended the BP CNY dinner on the 6th day of CNY. Apparently it’s supposed to be an auspicious day today.

The event was held at the CC and a noisy evening with some 500 people. The thing about these events is that they think the guests need to be entertained and therefore have singers belting out noisy songs in Chinese, Malay and Tamil. So loud that you cannot talk to the person sitting next to you much less mingle with the other tables. Food was so so but that’s only to be expected with a community event at the CC. Also the ubiquitous lucky draw.

However it’s always a pleasure to catch up with friends and enjoy the festivities!

Arrived back yesterday. SQ flight was delayed, as usual. Cannot imagine why short flights to kl are always delayed. Most of the time it’s because of a delay caused by aircraft leaving Singapore late. They need to improve efficiency here. Since it was CNY the flight was full and many people with connecting flights were affected.

It was warm and humid when I arrived back. I think somehow the weather in kl doesn’t feel as oppressive as here when it’s sunny.

Later started pouring for quite a while.

Let’s now await the start of the new year of the snake!!

Came across another restaurant at Avenue K. This time it was a Peruvian Chinese restaurant. Have never tried Peruvian food before and so it was a new experience.

The food was different from a typical Mexican or Brazilian food and was flavourful with zesty flavors and lots of seafood and salads. At a fraction of the cost of what a similar high end South American restaurant would price their food in Singapore.

Later I found out that this restaurant was part of the Cinnamon Group which runs other restaurants here. I have tried a few like Aliya, Nadodi and Cafe Colombo and they were all good!

Came across this Japanese counter restaurant at Ave K today. Open on both days of CNY. I was there at 12 and the place was empty as it had just opened. Very fresh food and very reasonably priced. Service was also fast and good. My lunch was all of Rm 80. They have a number of other outlets. When I left about half an hour later it was no surprise that all the seats were taken up!

Lunch today was at the Curate. The place was well decorated and the selection of food was good. They are fully booked for lunch and dinner till Sunday.

Good to see a mix of people of all races dining here. Surprisingly lo hei is not a big thing here or at least not with the Chinese tourists. Didn’t see any table doing this. Maybe it’s a Singaporean thing and a very clever way for restaurants to make money at CNY by pushing yu sheng!

Tonight’s reunion dinner of sorts was at the Nobu.

Not much of a crowd and it was typical Nobu food. Service was good. Apparently they have no japanese chef currently as their chef went to Bangkok to start up the Nobu there.

Of course if this was Singapore, all the restaurants would be packed for reunion night with poor service and high prices!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AAeomYAaE/

A very nice post put out by the CDC. Just saw this. Well it’s been 17 years now… looking forward to our next Club 100 dinner on 13 February.

Somehow the festive atmosphere in Kl just seems so much better. There is a lot more vibrancy, colours and more people walking around, buying things and generally enjoying themselves.

I see a lot more tourists in kl nowadays and even though it’s nearly CNY, I see a lot of Chinese tourists who are obviously going to spend their holidays here. Restaurants are also packed and the shopping centres are looking very colorful and festive!!

Also came across a drink in a supermarket I only last saw when I was in primary school. Used to enjoy it then! Then it was only the orange flavored one. Don’t recall a pink! Wonder what happened to Kickapoo, sarsi and ice cream soda which were my other favorite drinks!

PS

Was walking in KLCC on the first day of CNY. Every single shop and restaurant was open, even the Chinese restaurants. Completely different from what happens in Singapore.

Was watching YouTube yesterday and came across a CNBC news article about a new Chinese AI called Deepseek. It was launched only this month and it was apparently developed in a few months under a budget of $20m. On some of the benchmark tests it performed better than the current US ones such as OpenAI, Gemini and Perplexity and it’s open sourced. It was also built entirely on the reinforcement learning model ie without any human involved in the training process.

The various people interviewed in the article expressed shock at this development because the thinking had been that the Chinese were about 2 years behind in the game in AI, having had a late start in AI and without having the benefit of the latest hardware due to the US ban.

So I downloaded Deepseek yesterday and explored it by asking it very general questions.

I first asked how it functioned. I then asked it what was the concept of karma, the lessons behind Hindu epic Mahabharata and what was so good about morning. I also asked if Remains of the Day was a sad story.

The wonderful thing about Deepseek is that it sets out its thought process in great detail and that is so fascinating to read and mind boggling! In fact reading the thinking process is more fun than its final answer.

Now I must see how I can use this more effectively in other areas rather than just ask general questions to test it.

PS

As I write this today on 28th Jan, US stocks took a beating after understanding the implications of what Deepseek has achieved. Nvidia down a lot.

I have been drinking Chinese tea for a very long time. I can’t remember who or what got me started but I do recall I drank long jing tea for at least about 20 years. Long jing is Chinese green tea freshly plucked and lightly roasted. I used to drink ming jian long jing which is the first pluck of the spring season. Every May I would purchase the fresh tea that had just been plucked that year and would buy sufficient tea to last the whole year. Used to drink tea in my office and it was my morning ritual making tea for many years. I remember being told it had a high level of antioxidants.

It was only much later I learnt that Chinese green tea was not good for the stomach if drunk regularly for too long and was cooling for the body. That explained why I was always cold.

I have now started drinking puer both raw and roasted. I drink tea because I enjoy making it and slowly sipping it. I also enjoy buying tea and tea pots and I think I have too much of both.

A friend invited me to drink some very expensive raw puer today. It had been kept for 22 years and leaves are from an ancient tree. I think I could feel the difference in the quality, although not sure if it is subconscious since I was told it’s a rare and expensive tea. Let’s see if I can sleep tonight since I drank it at about 4pm!!