Food Trip!!!

Yen Pin and I had planned this for a while after GDW the "Great" told us to have fun as our internship stint was getting a bit boring towards the end. We had NO WORK to do at all (sorry to all my other coursemates who were made to slave for free during the last two months). Lol.

So on a Sunday, we decided to go ahead with our mission to go over to City Square (CS) to eat. Haha. Two greedy people huh? It's kinda fun actually.

We reached CS at about 12. We were starving by then. So we headed to Shihlin to have our favourite chicken meal.

We also noticed that the queue to eat at Kim Gary's was this long. And the restaurants beside Kim Gary's are all almost empty! Poor shops. I feel for them, really.

After the chicken meal, we were kinda full, so Yen Pin decided to torture me with her usual walk around the whole shopping mall, entering into shops after shops, etc. Padini is the the headache one. Belt. No belt. Belt. No belt. Belt. No belt. -Sigh- And there was also shoes. No shoes. Shoes. No shoes. -SIGH!!!!- Did she buy anything at the end? That you gotta wait! Lol

Next was of course bookstores. We always go to the bookstore when we are at CS. There are two pretty huge ones anyway. MPH and Popular. I was actually looking for a Pixar book there but all I came across are Toy Story 3 books (and yes. Like a kid, I read them). Anyway, at MPH, we saw this whole set of books with adjectives as titles. Lol. So we took the ones that best suited us and took pictures of them. Lol!

This is me. I should not have Mr Jelly there. But the rest pretty much tells you about me huh?

You see Mr Mean, who do you think of? OF COURSE that MISS SIU YEN PIN!!!

Nosey=Ryan naturally

-Sigh- Perfect=Greg?????

Right. Moving back to the food now. After all the walking (she makes me walk a lot. Trust me), we (or just me, I think) was a little tired. So we decided to go for pretzels and coffee! So we went to Auntie Anne's for our sour cream and onion pretzel and then to Coffee Bean for our ice blended coffee.

I know this picture don't look too good. There weren't enough light to take this. I'll tell you why. After I placed my order at Coffee Bean and sat, before my butt even got the chance to heat up the chair, the power went out. Half of CS had power failure. Damn! Anyway, we waited for almost an hour, I think for it to come back on and at the end, we gave up. I'm supposed to get my refund but I don't think I have till now. :( So no Coffee Bean. Just pretzels. :(

Not to be defeated, we were determine to at least have something cold. So we went to the "darker side" of CS to get shave ice. Peanut and chocolate. Me favourite!

Penguin! Lol

And then it was back to walk and not shop. Lol. Money's the key factor her. And surprise, surprise. Back to PADINI. Back to the shoe section. Back to shoes. No shoes. Shoes. No shoes. And then to the belt. No belt. Belt. No belt. All over again. BUT!!!! At the end, it was belt and no shoes. At least she bought something! Grrrr... Lol. -Relieved-

Then we went to the book exhibition by Popular. They had one at the concourse area. Huge space for them. They offered crazy discounts too. We went around the area and then got stuck in the art area. One guess why. It ain't that hard right? Lol. And Yen Pin got crazy, literally cuckoo nuts with all the cute stickers. That alone killed like 10 minutes. I realised now that she is a sucker for cute stuffs. Lol. Kinda cute actually. Her reaction that is. Anyway, there, we killed a whole hour and got hungry again.

Dinner? Nando's!!! My yummy, yummy marinated chicken. Yen Pin loves it too since I introduced it to her. No franchise in Kuching. Sad eh?

After this meal, we decided that we've stuffed ourselves enough for one day. Lol. Finally huh? But trust me, if there was still space in our tummies, Yen Pin would have gotten her J Co donuts. Lol.

Anyhow, now I will present you the sad part of the trip. The heart breaker.

We descended the escalator and walked towards that yellow machine. Yes! That yellow, money eating parking ticket machine. Argh!!! We inserted our parking ticket and guess the amount we had to play! RM14! FOURTEEN!!! That is the most expensive parking ever to me. -Sigh- Heartache. But we've gotten over it since. Anyway, that is the first and last time I am ever gonna back at CS basement. It is so warm, one park at one's own risk (although you pay so much!) and the layout is so complicated. No more CS basement parking for me. Hmph!!!

Clueless

Look at the image below and I will tell you why I am so confused and clueless.


If you don't know what this is, it's fried rice. That's cooked rice fried with lots of garlic, pork bacon, shreds of chicken meat, anchovies and cabbage. The result is like the above picture.

Ok. Now I shall get to the part about me being clueless.

The above plate of fried rice is done by my brother. He is SIXTEEN years old. Just SIXTEEN. So what I don't get is this.

The above plate of fried rice is SO SUPER YUMMY that I needed more (but no heart to steal his). Lol.

So if a SIXTEEN year old can cook up a delicious simple plate of fried rice, why can't the oldies back in school?

And look. No 'chao ta' (dinosaurs, I don't know how to spell pinyin). It means no burn stuffs.


Even that, the oldies back in school can't seem to manage. And they call themselves hawkers. LOL!!!

Just When I Thought..

..that I have done my best lasagna in my previous cookings, I actually defy myself again by doing it better today. I was out the other day at the store with my mother and brother when I thought to myself that I needed to at least bake and eat lasagna once before I head back to school (next Sunday). So my brother and I went all out in getting beef (we even argued over what kind of beef we wanted - beef patty, minced beef, choice parts, etc) and lasagna sheets. Today, feeling hungry and looking at the cloudy weather outside, we felt like nothing could stop us from cooking. What could be better than cooking with such good weather right? (The weather was so good that we didn't even sweat!) And after a little cheese sauce mayhem (overcame with my brother's genius work) and an hour or so, we got this..

..perfect lasagna. How amazing does it look eh? And trust me, this picture is not taken off the net or photoshoped. It is as real as we did it. Prepared, cooked and baked to absolute perfection. And allow me tell you this, it tastes even better!

P.S: I sure hope I did not make ya'll drool while reading this! Lol.

My Awesome Trip To Kuching!!!

So I think it is about time that I blog again. Since it has been ages since I last do so. Anyway, you may find another post of this trip at http://iammiko.blogspot.com/. It is a good one. Anyhow, my side of the story now. Lol

We left shortly after our finals (will blog about results soon enough). On the 11th of November to be exact and stayed for a whole 2 weeks! At first I did think it would be too long but now that I look back, it was a good length of time. I just hope I did not trouble Yen Pin's mother too much. Lol.

So on the 11th of November was the first time I flew and it was awesome. Ok. I don't wanna sound like a ignorant person here but it was really nice. I love the taking off and landing especially. Everything in between except turning is boring. The taking off of an airplane needs a lot of speed as one would know and the g-force of the airplane hitting that speed is just amazing. You feel your body launching back and then your stomach feels a little weird when it lifts into the air. And the landing..err..it is nothing much but like a bump. Haha.

So when we were there, I kinda hit it off with Yen Pin's mum almost immediately. Spoke to her right away when she picked us up. May Peng must be counting her stars that night that I managed to take Yen Pin's mum (I shall refer her as Auntie from now on) off her. Lol. So Yen Pin's house was a lot smaller than I had imagined too. I always thought she lived in a huge house for some reason. Haha. But it is really comfortable and nice. And the service there is awesome. Hehe. Oh yeah. Her brother, Derek, is nice too. If only I knew how to talk to him better though. -Sigh- And her dad..scary?? Lol. But still a nice man, I guess. Well, I don't know enough to judge. He was hardly at home anyway.

Ok. Enough on her family and home.

So the first thing I did there was 'technical stuffs'. Really. I was the Art Technician. Specialised in cutting and preparing double-sided tapes. Lol. My boss? Miss Siu Yen Pin. Lol. She was helping her brother in his assignment and knowing there was so much to do, I 'kepo-kepo' helped her and came to know as the technical person. Lol. Oh yeah. Did I mention that her brother is this super awesome artist? Her family must be the most artistic family I've come to know. Lol. But really, they are. Her brother drew this 'Sarawak rainforest' thingy and it was so beautiful. I have a picture of it but I don't suppose I should put it on here in case some other artist might come on here and then mimic his artwork! Lol. So the first day of our trip was that.

Then soon enough, we went to Jong’s Crocodile park. And I must say that Auntie’s timing is always good. Because she always manages to bring us to places at the right time. We went there right when they were having feeding time and so we managed to see the crocs in action. There was also a mini zoo there (like Yen Pin said) and we saw deers, goat (I ‘talked’ to it???), wild boars, monkeys, otters and other animals. Oh yeah. the otters were having their before mating ritual, I think (again, Auntie’s good timing). Lol



Awesome huh? We also went to a pitcher plant farm after that and I should say there was nothing there. –Sigh- Then, we visited some museums and again, awesome timing. Just before it close. Ok. Don’t get me wrong here. What I meant is that Auntie manages to bring us there despite having to do it all by 4.30p.m. (closing time).

The next day (15th November), we went to Friendship Park (it is a park to commemorate the relationship between Malaysia and China). There was nothing much there but we somehow managed a contest called ‘Mimic the Horny Cats Statue’ and I think it is clear that Yen Pin and I won that. Anyway, due to some technical difficulties (also like Yen Pin said), I should mention no more about it (but for pictures..really funny ones on this contest, do go to my Facebook. Lol). And at night (I think it was this night), Uncle (Yen Pin’s dad) treated us to a meal at a seafood restaurant and the food was yummy! Thanks, Uncle (although I highly doubt Yen Pin would show this to him).



Alright then. 16th November. We ‘bungkus’ a huge area on this day. Mainly, Main Bazaar and I can’t remember what else (full details at the earlier address I mentioned). So we did some souvenir buying on here and A LOT of walking. Lol. But it was a good day overall. Fun too. Oh yeah. We ‘bungkus’ the temple too. Tua Pek Kong, I think.

Tua Pek Kong.

The most colourful shopping centre I have ever seen.

Then Foon Yee left (and there were 3 visitors left). Anyway, on the 17th, we went to Sarawak Cultural Village. It was a pretty long drive up there but once there, we got to see Sarawak natives’ stuffs. Their dancing, ritual and houses. And then we also went to Damai Beach which was nothing actually. What a waste.

Now I can’t remember what we did on the 18th, so I shall skip to 19th. We went to another temple. 2 temples actually. The first was a little one with beautiful carvings. Taught the dinosaurs about turtle/terrapin/tortoise there. Lol. Then to a temple featuring a huge (not that huge though) Goddess of Mercy. There, I made friend with the ‘Chi Ling’. Hehe. And I think that is it for this day.

The first temple.

Turtle/terrapin/tortoise lesson.

Goddess of Mercy.

Meet my friend, Chi Ling!! Mimicing him here.

Don't I like my friend? Lol.

Again, I don’t recall what was done on the 20th and so I am skipping to 21st November (Happy Birthday, Sandra!!!). We visited 3 places on that day. The first is Wind Cave. VERY CREEPY. Because it is so dark and there were no guides but we five girls toughen ourselves anyway and explore the cave. Hehe. Next was Fairy Cave, the nicer one between the two. And less creepy. Lol. Then Semantan beach. This one is so far away that I had to do the driving. An hour’s drive in fact but the beach was nice and May Peng (again, like Yen Pin said) was so happy to collect seashells and almost drown (and Soo Chen watched and not help till May Peng was so close to drowning). Lol.

Entrance to Wind Cave.

Entrance to Fairy Cave. 120 steps up.

Us at Fairy Cave. -Sigh- Missing Chomper. -Sigh-

Now the remaining days were subtle and we did nothing much but it was still interesting days. Soo Chen then left us on the 24th and it was down to 2 visitors. May Peng and I eventually left on the 27th.

Anyway, while I was there, I managed to show off my cooking skill 3 times. Lol. One of them is a failure though. I cooked spaghetti twice and lasagna once. The failure was the lasagna, mainly because there was no oven. But overall, I think Auntie and Derek liked them. I sure hope they did! Lol. I also managed to try many local stuffs. Sarawak ‘laksa’, ‘kueh chap’ and finally tried and like ‘rui cha’ (please forgive my spellings if there is any errors). Also tried the infamous drink, ‘teh ci peng special’. And I LOVE it. And I would drink it almost everyday and get hyper. Hehe. There, I also visited and watched movie 3 times at MBO Cinemas (2012, A Christmas Carol and New Moon). In addition, I also learnt to make grasshoppers from darling out of coconut leaves and also bought and ate my favourite 'bi pang' (Dear darling Yen Pin and Siew Fen, I have finished my 'bi pang' and if you guys would be so kind as to buy me some more, I would be so happy! Do let me know before you buy though. Hehe.)

And with that, I think I have come to the end of my post. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and I certainly hope my ability to amuse readers who bump into this blog is still there with this post. Have a nice day!! And remember, for more pictures, go over to my Facebook. =)

P.S: Thank you so very much to Uncle, Auntie, Derek and darling Yen Pin for making this trip possible. Without the provided accommodation, I would not have make it there yet. Thank you also for all the meals provided and the warm hospitality. In addition, thank you for being wonderful tour guides (Auntie, darling and Siew Fen). In brief, thank you for everything and if I was of any nuisance (with my silly OCDness, sinus, etc) while I was there, I am so sorry and I am so grateful for everything. =)

Food!!

One highlights about going home is the food I get. Lol!

Sunday's lunch. Daddy's really good lamb steak.

Sunday's dinner, which I cooked with lots of LOVE and brought it back to uni for my greedy friends.

Saturday's dinner. Cod fish and really good vegetables among the dishes.

And not forgetting, home baked cookies!! Yummy!

And that is definately a reason to go home!! Lol. Besides seeing my family, of course.

King Crab

My dad eats this..

King crap.

The little white sac is its poison. And look at its LITTLE pincers. Haha.

It's eggs.

A Bowl of Rambutan With Love

I bet no one else's daddy does this. Peels the rambutans and then cuts the flesh out of the seeds and chill them for you. Best daddy ever!

Desserts

I was out for dinner with my family on Sunday and we had nasi kandar. My favourite. Lol. After that, we decided to get desserts. I got some kind of lemonade which turned out to be blue in colour. Weird but it tasted good. My brother, as seen below, got himself DURIAN CENDOL. Darling, nice eh? Not to me though. I tried and almost choke!

Dumplings

Below is a video on mu unlce doing dumplings.



Yummy dumplings.

Oops! I Did It Again!

Lol! It is nothing big actually. Just that I cooked awesome-ness again today! Lol. It's spaghetti and it is yummy and delicious and terrific and whatever nice things there is to say about it. Haha. I should seriously consider making business out of it. Lol. Anyway, it ain't hard to cook this up. So it makes me wonder. How do some people screw up spaghetti? -Sigh-


And for some reason, I always manage to prepare THWEE plates of it. Lol!


And 'darling', as promised, if we end up going back on the same day, I will prepare it for you.

Of Buffets And Broadband

So I had the priviledge to go back to my second hometown this weekend and stayed at Puteri Pacific Hotel for 3 (thwee) days and 2 nights. While the hotel is a good place to stay and it is in the heart of Johor Bahru (it is just 5 minutes walk from City Square), the hotel also offers AMAZING buffets and the broadband speed there is awesome (that has nothing to do with the hotel though).

My first buffet dinner there on Friday night offered a variety of food. among the best ones are salted fettucini puttanesca (which I will definately learn how to cook after this) and the octopus (the ones served in Japanese restaurants).

On the second night, I had another buffet and this one is to die for. International Seafood Buffet. The food was just DELICIOUSLY AMAZING. I am not even kidding or exaggerating here. Anyway, I might as well just let pictures of the food do the talking. Lol.

I started my dinner with salmon. It was awesome and it did tastes like the salmon I once cooked.

Then I tried their baked fish and it was also amazing.

Then this. It is fish cooked in olive oil. Didn't like this one though.

After that, I decided to get myself a lobster and it was really good. its fleash was really sweat.

Then I thought of slowing down a little. So I took prawns and vegetables. Guees what? Love the vegetables and hated the prawns. Lol

Now look away if you are a fan of spaghetti and pasta.

Plate number 1: Fettucini

Plate number 2: Pasta

Plate number 3: Also pasta but didn't eat this on as the big squid head spat out black icky ink. Yuck!

It is once again safe to look at my blog now. Lol!

I was already getting sull. So I took some salad.

And I ended with my new found favourite ice-cream -GREEN TEA ice-cream. Yummy! I had 2 bowls of this by the way.

Delicious looking, aren't they? I was even thinking that Puteri Pacific Hotel could be a good place for my upcoming faculty night. But obviously there is so much to consider before we can even decide a place. One thing for sure is that I can tell that the place is pretty costly. Lol!

Oh yeah, while I was here, I even checked out the swimming pool.

And now something I realised I could get in JB.

Excellent broadband speed.