At Tedboy Bakery in Bangsar South for a tall, iced, Americano. Not bad. It is slightly better than “o.k.”
Got some work done on the Fold 3. Having used it for over a year, I would like to see huge improvements, more so in the area of its software, hopefully; in the upcoming Fold 5, which will be launched in about 2 months. And the camera. And the battery life. The battery life was not that great to begin with. But now, it seems to drain faster than it should.
However, to me; the Samsung Fold is still the best in the market for the work I do. When I have a bit of free time (what is that in today’s day and age?), I fiddle around with what this larger than a phablet, folding tablet, can do; especially with Android apps.
The nutty cookie was well packed…so well packed that it was quite difficult to open the plastic packing. The nutty cookie was quite nice.
When I got home, I realised that the cashier did not give me a bill. Probably they practice giving a bill only when it is requested for.
Over all, I like the setting and ambience of this cafe / bakery. It is worth checking out if you are in Bangsar South.
NOTE: Bangsar South, a development on the former Kampung Kerinchi (Kerinchi Village) site, borders between Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya are cities in Malaysia.
A Saturday morning. The batik influencer had some new pieces she wanted to put together. She sent her Singer sewing machine to a sewing machine service / repair and sales of new seeing machine shop. At that point, her sewing machine was working fine. She thought she’d send it in for a yearly service.
This service place was of great disappointment. After many, many phone calls and whatsapp messages, Jeannie got her machine back; which was 2.5 weeks later.
Jeannie wanted to get starting on her batik pieces yesterday. She tried working with the sewing machine. it didn’t work. This was the same Singer sewing machine that we got back from the service people that same day.
We sent the machine to another sewing machine service place, this time; somewhere in Puchong. Why “somewhere in Puchong”, is because we relied on Google maps for directions.
We told this service repairer (the second one, the Puchong guy) the ordeal we had to go through to service the machine, that we needed the machine working right away. He did a quick diagnosis and told us that it would take less than an hour to get it fixed.
So, the “Malaysian” in us and keen sense for food, soon found out a restaurant that looked pretty ok. I was attracted to try their conlo / wantan mee. Jeannie went for their Sarawak conlo noodles.
Jeannie ordered Sarawak conlo mee. The Sarawak conlo mee came with sweet bar-b-que pork, and a small bowl of fish ball soup. Her drink was “loh hon cai”, which is usually a dried dessert. My meal came with dried, crispy wanton, sweet bar-b-que pork and a plain soup. I also had red bean (soup?) dessert; iced (you can see the big pieces of ice in this dessert.
With the heat wave that we have been experiencing over the past few weeks, we welcomed the air-conditioning. This restaurant had air-conditioning. Yay!
The meal was so so. It looked fairly ok. At least I liked the crispy, fried wanton😁. I had red bean soup (cold) in place of a drink. It was so so, too, kind of watery. However, this is how it is normally prepared. I prefer to have it thick.
We went to the cashier to pay for our meal. Just opposite the cashier, was a long table laid out with various cakes and food sweets. These were already in slices in their packing for convenience of eating them right away. They looked good. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures. However, (you may have noticed that I use “however” more often in my articles than the word “but”), I picked up a pack of what I thought looked like marble cake, a pack of moist chocolate cake and a pack of 5 curry puffs – all for Laura (it seemed). The price for the meal (lunch), cakes and curry puffs came up to RM58. Reasonable, we think.
Went back to the sewing machine shop to check on Jeannie’s sewing machine. By the way, the restaurant is just next door, so we did not have to go far for food. The sewing machine was repaired. Jeannie tested it out and it was working like a gem. The problem / fault was that dust had built up around the foot air controller outlet, something which was overlooked by the other service people.
The time is nearly 6.00pm. We need to get ready in a short while for…yes…dinner. We are all (siblings, uncles and aunts, etc.) meeting at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s place – the reason: Aunty Val is here from Aussie land, so…gathering…of course. And food…more of course😋😂.
As for the people that first took the sewing machine in for service; I have asked that they refund me the payment less their transport charge and RM2 for 2 bobbins that they supplied. That is the least they can do as the owner is a friend. We will donate the refund to a charity. Waiting…
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At the time of keyboard letter-tapping / penning this essay; I had wolfed down a peace of the marble cake and moist chocolate cake. Not bad (means “pretty good” or “can do”).
It is Monday morning in Kuala Lumpur (K.L.). Hard to believe that it actually is…Monday morning. In Kuala Lumpur. We are here, near Sogo. The traffic is smooth flowing and the streets are pretty empty of motor vehicles. Sogo shopping mall or the area surrounding it, is quite famous. It seems to be a gathering point where many street protests. both large and small; were / are held. Perhaps something like “Speaker’s Corner” in the north-east corner of Hyde Park in London, England?
Jeannie was on leave as we had a couple of document errands to deal with in K.L.. We would have preferred to have caught a ride to K.L. on the LRT near our house. However, the places that we had to get these errands seen to, were off the LRT track. We did not want to dice the weather, too; as it had been sort of temperamental over the past few weeks. We did like what many Malaysians would do – we drove in our motorcar. (♪Baby, you can drive my car, and baby I love you. Beep beep, beep beep yeah♪). Anyway, we had those errands sorted out pretty quickly.
We decided to grab some coffee at KFC…no, not at Starbucks, or CBTL (Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, though more commonly known as “Coffee Bean”) or a kopitiam (though we didn’t really notice any nearby). We wanted to sit in an a.c. (air-conditioned) environment. The weather was not hot. The sky was fairly carpeted with light grey clouds providing some shade. However, it was humid. Hence, our reason for having coffee as the term generally used in Malaysia “in air-con place”.
The KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) restaurant was located inside Pertama Complex, at the side, on the Ground Floor. We got our coffee and sat by the large glass windows, looking out at Sogo and all the going-ons in the street. This kind of reminded us of the time we had coffee at Starbucks early one morning in London, years ago. However, in London; it was cold with gloomy skies. Chilling out and relaxing, we sipped at our coffee and watched the world go by in the streets of K.L. This area with Campbell Shopping Complex across the road, Pertama Complex and the shopping haven of Jalan (road) Tuanku Abdul Rahman; was the modern shopping of K. L. in the 1970s and ’80s. Nearby here, was the iconic Coliseum bar & grill (no longer there). I think the reason it was famous was because of its rude waiters. They were probably as old as the restaurant. Perhaps, that is why they were often grouchy. And this was the charm of the Coliseum. Haha.
We were in the present, enjoying it.
After about 45 minutes; we decided to head home. When we stepped out of the restaurant; we saw this mat salleh tending to his bicycle. There were many things strapped to his bicycle that it looked like he was running (riding / cycling) away from home. We decided to have a chat with him.
David McCourt, Jeannie and me; with the famous Asian pose: the ✌️sign pose.
David McCourt is an engineer by profession. He hails from Melbourne, Australia. He decided that he wanted to visit his place of birth, which is Dublin, Ireland. He also wanted to travel to different countries, too. What better way to do it – by cycling all the way from Melbourne to Dublin.
The cyclist in me, with David.
What caught my eye was David’s bike (“bicycle ” for the uninitiated😏). I took up cycling on a daily basis and clocked 75,000km between 2007 to 2015. Laura’s (our daughter) training and participation in competitive swimming on a state and national level became more intense at that time. As parents, this required our dedicated time and support towards her aspirations.
This meant me retiring from the cycling scene. No more 70km to 181km cycling distances in Malaysia’s hot, humid or rainy weather (sometimes all three rolled in one). No more grime and dust blowing into my face and sticking on until it caked in. No more pouring sweat…er, I mean perspiration that sprung out from every pore on my body; no more stinging my eyes when it found its way of getting into my eyes. No more motor vehicles cutting right into my pathway even though I could be seen a mile away. 3 mishaps was one too many. Yes…missed it all. Haha. Nostalgia.
Back to David’s ride to Ireland. He entered Malaysia at Malacca from Indonesia. A short sight-seeing of KL and then onwards through mainland Asia. We wish David safe travels and lots of fun.
It was also time for Jeannie and I to make our way back to the comforts of Subang Jaya as the cloudy over hung skies which provided some shade from the sun, was now without clouds. The sun was bright and hot. Drops of perspiration, stinging my eyes…
Should this secret be revealed? It is kind of cliché. You do read about secrets to be told or have a carrot dangled by speakers who want you to sign up for their talks or seminars, “the two, three or more …secrets” that they are willing to share with their audience to help their audience improve and / or succeed in life.
At 9.00am, on April 16th; our car was laden with things from our house that we were to ferry to Amcorp. The drive to PJ today, this Sunday morning; was nice. Traffic on the Federal Highway was light.
It was the second day of our sales, this time round. We parked our car in its usual spot (We chose this same spot the day before that. It was also the same parking bay we had parked at on both days the last time we were here, two weeks ago).
We lugged our two main luggage bags full of our things which we were putting up for sale, first. Got them to our booth and had them set up. I went back to the car to get the rest of the things while Jeannie arranged the things on display.
We were ready for “business” at 10.00am. Shanti, the lady selling Ipoh kacang and muruku; arrived with her daughter not long after that. By the way, the kacang and muruku she sells is not just the branding, “Ipoh kacang”, it is from Ipoh. Shanti who is usually accompanied by husband, drives a 3 hour drive, down to P.J. every weekend to sell her products.
One of the earliest visitors to visit our booth was an old time friend, Joseph Rocky Gomez (as in Rocky Balboa [Sylvester Stallone] of the movie, “ROCKY”) and his wife. The last we met was many years ago. It was great seeing him again after all these years. He hadn’t changed except that his hair is all white now.
As time went by, Jonathan and Liam, fans of my Hotwheels collection; dropped by…so did many other people.
I spent time observing some of the people running the booths. This brings memories back to the time a couple of years ago, when I first started writing or jotting down notes of my observations of my surroundings and the people involved. Some people thought I was a reporting journalist and became a bit defensive or apprehensive in what they said in front of me for fear (more like shy, shy [People like to say words in doubles like “play, play” “kaw kaw”{Chinese meaning really strong…usually used when ordering drinks like kopi-o kaw kaw}]) that I will “report” in my articles what they said.
I paid special attention to those that ran their booths as a bread & butter business, meaning the weekends at this flea market in Amcorp was an extension to the business they ran on weekdays. For many of them, the flea market was a different location to their business on weekdays.
I am not sure how they derive an income from these businesses they run. General rule of thumb would be profit after deducting costs is an income. Even with their simple mechanics of accounting; they will manage to own a decent home, send their children for local tertiary education and live a happy life (in most cases).
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The experience, and meeting with many supporters of http://www.leatherpotato.com , old friends and new friends at our booth over the last couple of times in Amcorp Shopping Mall, has prompted us to have a booth there this weekend.
I am looking forward to meeting many more readers of http://www.leatherpotato.com . Please share your ideas and views. Let’s meet.
We will have more from “La” Batik Cape Creations. Renowned batik influencer, Jeannie Ong-Atkinson will be at hand for you to discuss batik with her.
Included in this weekend will be a Bang & Olufsen earbuds, more Hotwheels of yesteryear, a green dinosaur (has Barney shed his purple?) big, soft toy, more collectible bags and briefcases; and new BMW bags.
We will be at:
2nd Floor, Amcorp Shopping Mall, Lot 2.04, Level 2 Amcorp Shopping Mall, 8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia Date: April 29 and April 30, 2023 Time: 10.00am to 4.00pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
See you all, there this Saturday (April 29th) and Sunday (April 30th).
You have no idea how good life is about to get. The next moment has yet to come. It will arrive. Then, the next moment after that, and the one after that.
We don’t know what the next moment in life holds for us. We can only guess.
In the meantime, we plan, have ambitions and set goals. All these help make the next moments of our lives more a possibility in becoming a reality.
Just share your magic with the world and watch each moment, which is a new scene in your life; unfold. Enjoy!
3rd Floor, Amcorp Shopping Mall, Lot 3.08, Level 3 Amcorp Shopping Mall, 8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia Date: April 15 and April 16, 2023 Time: 10.00am to 4.00pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
It is happening again. Yes, once again, we will be having out booth at Booth 3.08 at Amcorp Shopping Centre in Petaling Jaya. Jeannie and I have been asked to do another sales session. We have had so many requests to do this “meet and sell” session. We had so much of fun the last time round that we expect to have more fun this weekend.
I met with many subscribers and readers of leatherpoato.com at our last “MEET WITH ME SESSION”. The usual questions include “What is leatherpotato?” “Why leatherpotato?” Fun questions. They came to support leatherpotato.
Jeannie has a large and growing following as a batik influencer. Jeannie focuses on promoting the “localness” of her “La” Batik Cape Creations. These “La” Batik Cape Creations come in many colours, each to suit a different occasion. There are four ways of wearing these “La” Batik Cape Creations. Come on over to find out more on the colours, patterns, designs, which one brings “the real you out for every occasion” from the batik influencer.
At the same time, her craft section is also gaining popularity.
Come meet us. Together, we can explore new ideas.
We are adding new items to to sell. Many are rare, ranging from over 15 years to 25 years and beyond. Among these items is a rare ladies Swatch watch on offer.
There is also a brand new (box unopened) Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 (40mm). This is the latest on offering from Samsung in their line-up of highly efficient watches. Besides telling the time and looking great, it has a host of other features like step and distance tracking, exercise and fitness tracking, heartrate, B.I.A., Blood Pressure and ECG. You can also play your music song list, answer calls like in the comics, “Dick Tracy” style; select and change watchfaces from the thousands offered on Android…the list goes on.
I am bringing along many Hotwheels cars this weekend, that were not on sale 2 weeks ago. So, make sure you come and check them out.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and the ladies Swatch dress watch.
Made available for the very first time will be “CARS” from the movie “CARS” for sale. There is also a set of MINI cars and a set of James Bond cars in the offering, too.
Micro BMW push engine cars, on a BMW music box.
“Leyland Terrier” by Corgi Junior. Year of manufacture: 1980
BMW and MINI keyrings. In this picture, is a rare BMW Sauber FI Team key-ring, the very unusual “twin tailpipe” Mini keyring and the BMW 3 series keyring.
The BMW overnight bag. Brilliantly made, using some of the finest materials.
The BMW overnight bag is definitely a bag to have. Lovely olive green, with black / dark grey tones that compliment it. It has a long, well padded and comfortable, sturdy strap that makes carrying this bag when loaded, very comfortable.
BMW plush toy bear
1978 “Steam Loco” by Matchbox Superfast.
Jeannie and I are looking forward to seeing you at our Booth 3.08. Let’s make it “carnival-like”. We could be the noisiest booth once again.
3rd Floor, Amcorp Shopping Mall, Lot 3.08, Level 3 Amcorp Shopping Mall, 8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia Date: April 1 and April 2, 2023 Time: 10.00am to 4.00pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
Time: 8.45am. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. The sky was clear blue. There was a slight cool breeze blowing, keeping the otherwise humid weather, cool.
Jeannie and I lugged our two large luggage bags, along with many other woven bags of things to sell, and piled them in the car. By 9.00am, we were on our way to Booth 3.08 at Amcorp Shopping Mall.
Traffic along the Federal Highway was light and smooth. We reached the mall in almost no time at all at 9.15am.
Having becoming more familiar with the mall after having been there the whole day, the day before; we found an elevator close to where we parked our car. This made moving our things from the car to our booth very much easier, especially because the distance was reduced to at least half.
Our booth was set up within half an hour as we had pre-planned the arrangement of the things for sale.
Jeannie all set to tango.
Our day started right about 10.00am itself. We had our new friend from yesterday, Farid as our first visitor to greet us.
Me, with some of our earliest visitors. Farid is on the right.
Jonathan, who picked up more Hotwheels vehicles to add to his collection.
Jonathan, who purchased a couple of Hotwheels vehicles yesterday, came by again, being one of the earliest and purchased a few more Hotwheels vehicles.
Another gentleman, who came by with his wife and two children yesterday, and purchased several Hotwheels vehicles and keyholders / key-chains; was one of the first to visit us this morning, this time without his family. He purchased more keyholders / key-chains. The ones I put up for sale are at least 30 years old. One can tell that these decorative devices to hold your keys secure, was of a different era just by looking at the locking mechanism. Today’s rings are the “coiled, leaf-type” rings.
A 1st generation Mini Cooper (when they were on the streets in the 1970s and 1980s) and the 1st generation of the current Mini Cooper series, both Hotwheels models; were quickly snapped up by another buyer.
We were as noisy or ever more noisier than yesterday, with lots of activity and laughter.
A gentleman, with his young daughter; after just acquiring the Casio TM-100 microphone watch. This watch comes with a retracting aerial, which when extended; can connect to any FM radio with the right FM frequency. The “FM mic” can be tuned to the FM radio and the radio becomes a speaker. I purchased this watch in 1986. As the watch was handed over to the watch shop owner by the CASIO dealer representative; I told the watch shop owner that I will take it. So, this CASIO microphone watch never even got to be in the display showcase among the other watches of this watch shop owner.
En Shauqi and his wife, very happy with this brand new THULE bagpack which they had just acquired.
Hotwheels enthusiasts browsing through the collection on display.
Some of the Hotwheels and other makes on sale
Jeannie. the batik influencer, was busy demonstrating her beautiful and unique “La” Batik Cape Creations to the many ladies of all ages, and even men who wanted to purchase these as gifts for their wives, mothers and friends.
Jeannie, modelling one of her creations.
We had Shyleena Faridah Hope, CEO of Mrs Asia Worldwide(M), stop by and acquire one of Jeannie’s “La” Batik Cape Creations. She was very “chic” and friendly, an interesting person.
R to L: Shyleena Faridah Hope, Jeannie and me
A popular social media influencer on Instagram, deadpudds, who is a cosplayer, content creator and artist; visited our booth, 3.08, together with cabibibi, another popular social media influencer.
Deadpudds acquired another of Jeannie’s “La” Batik Cape Creations. She looked fantastic in it. There was already a gathering of some of her social media fans lining up to take pictures with her.
Popular Instagram social media influencer, Deadpudds; modelling in one of Jeannie’s “La” Batik Cape Creations.L to R: Deadpudds, Jeannie and Cabibibi, as Jeannie helps show the 4 different ways of wearing this “La” batik cape.Popular Instagram social media influencer, Deadpudds; with the “La” Batik Cape she acquired. Nice choice, Pudds.
Renowned artist, Eddie Lim and his wife; came to visit us. Known as “Mr Eddie Lim”; he is known for his many, many paintings in contemporary and modern works. Eddie and I were classmates in La Salle School, Klang; since we were 10 years old. Eddie’s work is simply amazing. His paint brushes captures and translates his thoughts on canvas.
Eddie Lim with his wife; and Jeannie and I.
We continued to have visitors right up to our closing of our booth.
A late in the evening, visitor; acquiring some key-holders / keychains.
When we were closing up, Jeannie and I spent time with our very friendly booth neighbors. The Ipoh muruku was made by Shanti herself. Best muruku in town. Shanti and her husband, Mohan; come down every Friday to Sunday to sell their delicious snacks here,
Our neighbor, Jay; with his very sophisticated and premium transfers / stickers, which he can do on the spot. He does a lot of corporate orders.
Our neighbors on both sides, Shanti & Mohan; and Jay; help make our Saturday and Sunday, here; very enjoyable.
It was an experience to remember. Jeannie and I had so much fun running this booth. We raised a good amount of money from the sales of our items. This money will be re-invested in Leatherpotato.
I had an amazing time meeting with many of Leatherpotato’s subscribers / readers. I learnt so much from them – their views, experiences, how they relate to the many articles that was published. Definitely mission accomplished.
We have had and still are receiving requests for us to run the booth again. We are definitely considering this option. Keep a lookout for a notice here informing you of our options. We look forward to seeing all of you and lots more people there when we set up again.
At 6.00pm, our (Jeannie’s and my) two day adventure came to a close. From what started as a passing fancy a week ago about setting up a booth at the famous (here, I will use the word “famous” because it is) “flea market” in Amcorp Shopping Mall, to actually going through with it. And now, it is over.
Our booth was in between the famous (Yes, used the “famous” word again, and again; it is valid) “Ipoh Mari” Indian Muruku snacks booth; and Jay’s specialized high-tech printing and hot-pressing very detailed pictures on T-shirts.
We sure made many, many new friends. Farid again, was the first to see us in the morning. Jonathan, who purchased a couple of Hotwheels vehicles yesterday, came buy again, being one of the earliest and purchased a few more Hotwheels vehicles.
Another gentleman, who came by with his wife and two children yesterday, and purchased several Hotwheels vehicles and keyholders / key-chains; was one of the first to visit us this morning, this time without his family. He purchased more keyholders / key-chains. The ones I put up for sale are at least 30 years old. One can tell that these decorative devices to hold your keys secure, was of a different era just by looking at the locking mechanism. Today’s rings are the “coiled, leaf-type” rings.
We had a fashion icon CEO, a popular and influential Cosplayer, my classmate from school, his wife and their eldest son; and many, many collectors and hobbyists visit us at our booth.
It’s just past midnight. It has been quite a struggle piecing this article to where we are right now because my energy is completely drained out. Jeannie is drained out, too; having been asleep since around 9.00pm.
I will have a write-up about all of today’s excitement with lots of pictures, within a day or two. “til then, peace and love to you all.✌️❤️
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