Salsa - A Weekly Staple Diet

Today is 14th July 2006 and it's a Friday. It's my favourite day of the week and I am quite sure it's yours too else why would someone come up with the term "Thank God/Goodness It's Friday" ? But have you ever wondered how did the term come about ?

TGIF is a popular acronym for the phrase Thank God It's Friday (alternatively: Thank Goodness It's Friday). Starting in America, it has become a common expression of relief at the end of the work week and anticipation of relaxing or partying over the weekend. The phrase was further popularised by the 1978 movie starring Donna Summer, Thank God It's Friday. The phrase has also become common for advertising and promotional materials.

Some of the famous uses of TGIF includes :

• The restaurant chain T.G.I. Friday's
• Slogan of a Friday night sitcom programming block on the ABC TV network. See TGIF (ABC). Some hosts would say, "Thank Goodness It's Funny."
• Cadbury's Crunchie chocolate bar ran a commercial of which the slogan was "Thank Crunchie it's Friday". The commercials were followed by more, most of them connecting Crunchie with Fridays.
• Nickelodeon used to have "Thank Nick it's Friday".
• In the 1987 comedy film Dragnet, Tom Hanks's character, Pep Streebeck says the line "Thank God, it's Friday!" as both a play on the original phrase and as a reference to the arrival of his partner, Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd).
• Lonestar's song, T.G.I.F.

I believe everyone has their special day of the week for a get-together session with the "gang" or buddies... a time of their own whether it's bowling night, or girl's night out. For me, Friday will always be my "Salsa" day. After a whole week of hectic stress at work (not that I have very much of that actually) you will want to let your hair down, relax and have some nice clean fun with a group of your good buddies. What better way to do that than to come together, learn some cool slick salsa moves, sweat it out (it does help to workout) and then cool it off with a drink at the cafe nearby.

SALSAJAY on Friday

Every Friday at around noon or slightly later, SalsaJay members will receive a mail from Jeamie Lee seeking attendance confirmation on the evening salsa class.

Where To Makan?

At around 7 ish, most of us would have braved through the Friday evening traffic crawl to get into PJ State and to search for a nice dinner place.

Some nice recommendation to have dinner nearby would be :

1. Sri Melaka
2. Strawberry Cafe
3. Secret Recipe.

But if you are looking for some non-halal delicious chinese food, go check out KAM HEONG RESTAURANT at the Menara MPPJ area is most famous for its braised duck rice in the evenings. People throng there every night. During the day the coffeeshop has a great set of stalls that sell among others wantan mee, seafood porridge and prawn mee. They are certainly worth a try. Check out the location map below.

Occasionally, if you're really earlier you can dine in Amcorp Mall. There are a few nice diners there but I would highly recommend the Korean Restaurant next to McDonald's on the 3rd floor of Amcorp Mall! (I can never remember the name of that restaurant). Try the Korean Kimchi soup - it's hot, it's delicious, it's spicy.... with kimchi, tofu (very smooth ones), thick vermicelli, onions and mushrooms. And trust me, it makes you sweat, sweat, sweat!!!! It's to die for especially if you love kimchi... Extremely good remedy for flu and sinus !!! Every set meal comes with small bowl of rice and side dishes. Usually cost me less than RM20 for a guaranteed satisfaction meal. Darn! I think I just heard a growl in my tummy ....

What Next ?

Ok, now that you have picked up some salsa skills what else can you do ? Continue to come for class at SalsaJay every Friday, learn new steps and hope that you can remember what you've learnt the week before ? Well, some do choose to take that path. It's nice, I am not saying it's not .. after all, it's the company of friends that matter most. But for me, I feel the need to put what I have learnt to practise .. that's also probably because I have the memory bank of a calculator. To simply put that in english, I need to try out what I've picked up on the dance floor. Yes, an actual dance floor with the DJ spinning music, drinks, ciggies and loads of strangers who dance like salsa gods.

But let's leave that part for the next chapter. Else I would have nothing else to write about. Cheers for now.