RyL'z Reflectionz

Dinner of the Day: CreaMy N' CheezZy Herbs Fettuccini

2010-11-20T22:06:00.006+08:00

I cooked. Yes ... I cooked today and this is what I was ordered to serve for dinner - pasta!

Among plenty varieties of pasta, tonight's homecook pasta was the CreaMy N' CheezZy Herbs Fettuccini. Oh yeah, western kuey teow ... haha

The amount above was able to serve up to 6 small-to-average servings. My family and I are small eaters k and it is undoubtedly very filling (creammmMy). =p

Ingredients:
To boil pasta:

1/2 packet San Remo Fettuccini
Water
Salt
Cooking oil

Stir-fry ingredients:

sufficient amount of vitalite sunflower oil
2 eggs (omega-3)
ayamas black pepper cocktails - cubed
self chopped/minced pork (less fats) - marinated with oyster sauce, soy sauce, pepper, shao xing wine, sesame oil, corn flour.
1 packet enoki mushroom
1 carrot - cubed
lots of huge sliced onions
a little of minced garlic
shao xing chinese cooking wine

Pasta sauce:

1 can Prego Cheese & Herbs
tiny amount of vitalite sunflower oil
1/2 cup milk (2 tspn nestle omega plus milk powder + water)
masterfoods italian herbs

Ate, while on FB and was watching Asian Games' badminton match. (=.=")

Brunch at Pun Chun Noodle House, Kota Kemuning

2010-11-17T18:00:00.022+08:00

Today is an off-day from work due to Hari Raya Haji holiday and I only woke up at mid-morning after the sunrise. How glad! It was better than weekends. I was so tired the day before and it left me falling asleep while playing world cafe on facebook. =.="

Okay, so what's for breakfast? uhh ... I meant ... What's for BRUNCH???

While I was browsing the net one day, I came across people introducing this well-known noodle house at Kota Kemuning. Have you all heard of Bidor Pun Chun Ark Tooi Mee (Duck Drumstick Noodle)??? Yes, I bet you have, but have you tasted it before? Hmmm, maybe ... but I've not. I only had their famous chicken biscuit (Kai Zai Peng) before.

Yeap, they have a branch at Kota Kemuning now. So what's more? Gotta give it a try and there was where I headed off to for brunch today. =)

They have variety of choices ranging from their popular Duck Drumstick Soup, Shredded Chicken, Curry Pork Ribs, Mushroom Chicken Feet, Char Siew & etc. to Rempah Nasi Lemak. You may opt to have their noodles in soup/dry servings or white rice. I would recommend their noodles, which is much alike the wantan noodles, but better in terms of it doesn't expand into 'fat' noodles after a period of time.

Beverages were good and reasonably priced. Pun Chun Duck Drumstick Noodles in Soup was good too. It is better and less oily compared to the other famous herbal duck drumstick noodles in Penang. But I still do prefer the one at Lucky Garden, Bangsar. It has the additional touch of uummph from chinese herbs, and I just love its clear and flavourful herbal soup.

My dad bought this sesame seed heong peah before we left the restaurant. The biscuit is good and tasty, similar to Penang Him Heang beh teh saw, but a little crispier.

Here's the address, contact and map leading you to PUN CHUN NOODLE HOUSE:

10, Jalan Anggerik Vanilla AC 31/AC,
Kota Kemuning,
40460 Shah Alam,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Contact Tel: 017-7701121 / 019-3206773

Operating hours: 6.30am to 4pm daily.

Blue Reef Fish & Chips @ Tanjung Bungah, Penang

2010-11-14T16:49:00.038+08:00

This should be one of my post here before I shifted back to hometown, but lazy bugs started residing. Anyhow, back to this long-outdated post.

Thanks to a friend, who recommended this place. It was a great dining place, serving good food indeed. I went there with WT one evening. We was a little lost somewhere at first, but thanks to her GPS phone, we're able to get there. The surrounding environment was peaceful as it was located in one of those housing areas at Tanjung Bungah, with a garden just across the road.

Menu from starters to beverages.

Varieties of dressings to choose from.

We had a serving of refreshing chamomile tea and a cup of aromatic cappuccino.

Here were what we shared; Glazed Paprika Chicken and Traditional Beer Batter Fish & Chips. The chicken was a little too stiff for our likings, but the fish & chips was good. We didn't know that beer can be mixed into batter for fish & chips and this dish went along very well with the recommended malt vinegar. Both servings were huge and we actually spent quite some time to clean up our plates, before heading for a walk around the garden and then back home.

When night falls, this was how the place would look like. Hope you don't lost your way there. :)

Exact location of this restaurant is at along Lebuh Lembah Permai 4. It's facing a well-lit opened garden.

Back ... Very Soon

2010-11-14T15:33:00.003+08:00

Had been abandoning this blog for quite some time and it’s time to wrap up what had happened throughout this year … time to kill those lazy bugs =)

RAKUZEN Japanese Restaurant @ SS15, Subang

2010-02-19T02:13:00.009+08:00

One Friday, as I stepped my foot off Aeroline bus from PG onto the street in front of Pyramid with an empty stomach, I thought my dinner would be at Pasta Zanmai. Instead, my brother brought us to RAKUZEN located at a row of shophouses directly opposite SJMC at SS15, Subang Jaya. The street Jalan SS15/5a was a little less crowded and dark, but the restaurant could be spotted easily. :)

This Japanese cuisine restaurant is well-decorated portraying a simply warm, cozy and pleasant environment to all its guests.

Food wise, they were pleasantly good indeed, just a little more pricey compared to other average priced japanese dining places. But I would say it's worth it for the qualities of food that you're served, as well as for the great comfy environment. =)

There were 5 of us and we ordered mostly alacarte (Soft-shell crab, chicken katsu, deep fried corn paste) to go with bowls of garlic rice and cha-soba. I ordered the saba shioyaki set for sharing as well since I wanted the miso soup and chawan mushi. :)

Oopsy, saba shioyaki (grilled mackerel) went MIA....I forgot to capture its photo... wahaha...

Penang Road Lobak @ Kheng Pin Cafe, Penang

2010-02-01T12:18:00.009+08:00

Penang Road at Georgetown has the best LOBAK I ever had. I've been savouring this famous lobak in Kheng Pin Cafe situated at a junction along the Penang Road meeting Sri Bahari street, since I was small. =.=" Paiseh ya...it sounded like I'd been in Penang for so long... What I actually meant was whenever I visited and travelled to Penang before my working days here, my family and I would never miss the chance to have our lobak breakfast here. =D It was recommended by my grandaunt, which was indeed a good recommendation!

The uncle is always busy deep-frying those lobak like no other business. It seems like a non-stop task since the very minute they open their stall till all fresh ingredients are sold out in no time. Aunty and her daughter are extremely busy as well, taking down orders and serving the tempting plates of lobak to both their new and loyal customers. Sometimes, they don't even have the time to take your orders and they will just suggest you to take all available lobak they have at that particular period. If you plan to have the fresh juicy fish meat lobak, you gotta be early, otherwise it will usually be sold out. So, be early!!!

Varieties of lobak include fresh seafood lobak (fish, squid, shrimp), pork lobak, chinese sausage, popiah lobak, tofu, etc.

Br0ther's Wedding Night @ New Palm Grove Restaurant, Klang ~

2010-01-27T17:32:00.012+08:00

2009 Dec - Brother's wedding dinner was held on the same night as the official wedding ceremony day. It was an extremely busy day for all of us, yet too little time for all the necessary preparations. (>.<)

Well, I didn't manage to capture all happy moments during the wedding dinner lo :( ... was busy throughout the night with something else rather than jumping/hopping/buzzing around being a camera girl, plus I was in my pretty golden high heels...muahaha =p. So, will have to depend on camera/video men for all those lovely photographs and videos dy. Yeah!

These food pictures were some of which I had captured earlier during the food testing day. They were exactly the same dishes served. =)

Uncle, aunt and cousins.

Bride and Bridesgroom thanked all their guests who had spent their lovely sunday evening with us.

Br0ther's Big Wedding Day ~

2010-01-26T00:30:00.007+08:00

2009 Dec - It's brother's BIG day, finally. Most of us slept late after the pre-wedding dinner clean-up. I slept at approximately 2.45am and had to force myself awake at 4.30am! I practically crawled to the washroom and got ready with my 2 puffy eyes @_@. Well, why so early you may ask? ...coz...we gotta depart from my house to the bride-of-the-day's place at about 6.00am in the morrrrrninnnngggg.

6.15am... 6.30am... 6.55am... passed 7.00am and we reached the bride's house.

Tea serving ceremony to all family & relatives at bride's place.

Done with the elongated tea ceremony and we're then heading back to the bridegroom's house.

Tea serving ceremony at bridegroom's place.

Br0ther's Pre-wedding Buffet-style Dinner @ h0me

2010-01-25T23:03:00.009+08:00

2009 Dec - Brother's big day fell on a sunday. The night before, we had a simple, yet wonderful pre-wedding dinner served at our home. Family, relatives, neighbours and friends, all gathered together to celebrate the pre-event and to enjoy the food, while chit-chatting all night long, catching up with all the latest news/gossips, then kepoh here and there....phew....hahah.

Halloween @ MOIS, UPR

2009-11-15T01:24:00.006+08:00

31st October!!! It's HALLOWEEN!!!

Halloween 2009 was spent partying with a group of friends at MOIS, UPR! Obviously, MOIS was the only happening one at UPR with those eerie creepy spppooookKyy decos and loitered with bunches of awesomely look-a-like ghouls, ghosts & spirits personnels. It was simply fun, but not many dressed in halloween costumes. Guessed halloween in Malaysia was just not as crazy as elsewhere...

Lunch at Nice Soup Gang Restaurant @ Taman Daya, Kepong

2009-11-02T15:48:00.013+08:00

Aunt and dad made a plan to meet up to have lunch together on one fine afternoon during the passed weekend when I was back at home. So, we headed up to aunt's place at KL and she suggested this restaurant, which is located at just a corner turn from the main Selayang-Kepong highway.

Environment wise, Nice Soup Gang Restaurant is just another ordinary restaurant. It is simple, but well-decorated with collections of traditional wall clocks and paintings. Despite that, the restaurant serves superb tasty fried rice and it has a variety of fresh river water fishes to choose ranging from Patin Fish to Umur-umur to Empurau. They also have baby shark and hairy crabs.

Those are some of the choices that are visible to you.

Now, let's head to the tempting food that we had on that particular noon. First on the table was the Skinned baby shark's head. This dish mainly contained skins from every part of the shark's head and the only leftover was the bone structure. The texture was soft, gluey and gummy. Some may like it, I don't, but i believed that it serves a good purpose for your skin (especially ladies :p) as it maybe high in collagens.

Next were the Creamy milk-prawns and the Fried pumpkins with spicy salted egg-yolks. Both were equally good for my taste bud. I only had one piece of the prawn and my nose started to itch with zits, an hour later. That's how bad my allergy towards prawns. :-(

Then came the simmering hot Steamed fish (Correction: It's not Patin Fish according to my dad. It's something similar to umur-umur? I'm not so sure though). This fish was fresh and just perfectly cooked in a simple fragrant light soy sauce.

Last in the list was the fried rice. The fried rice here looked simply plain, but it tasted really good ... tempting ... tasty ... irresistable ..... speechless ... hahaha. Not too sure about other varieties of fried rice that they have, but we had the fried rice with scallop, long beans and some of their secret-recipe ingredients I guessed.

Below is the location of Nice Soup Gang Restaurant @ Jalan Daya 12, Taman Daya:-

One Hell of a Discussion

2009-10-15T23:47:00.005+08:00

I just don't don't DON'T understand why some people are so so SO calculative in every single little thing. Why do all small matters are so significant to them when it only involves a one time deal while there are many other more obviously important things that should be well considered as they involve recurring deals???? I'm so stucked up. Humans are selfish. Tried my best keeping my mouth shut. What else could I do? Hit the damn table and slam the freaking door shut? Who knows...perhaps one day I will...but doubtfully, will I? I don't want myself to be like this...This isn't the real me...I love my clean, comfy and cozy room, but I just don't love this house; house which doesn't belongs to me, house without my family, house which is nothing like a home .....

Recipe - Deep Fried Pumpkins with Salty Egg-Yolks & Curry Leaves

2009-10-03T17:17:00.003+08:00

New recipe in 'da House!
We've neither seen nor tasted this unique dish before hand. It was firstly introduced to us when we watched 'Taste with Jason' on Astro AEC. Despite the superb short introduction in the show, we cracked our brain listing down all the possible ingredients used in preparing this particular dish. In fact, it is a very simple dish to prepare.

Deng deng deng ....
There you go..... My mum's first attempt on this special dish called Deep-fried Pumpkins with Salty Egg-Yolk & Curry Leaves. I helped too. I helped to mix the tempura mixture, isolate salty egg-yolks from egg-white and mashed them. *simple job* ..... And obviously I helped to eat! It turned out to be good and tasty. *yum yum*

Ingredients:

Sliced pieces of Pumpkin
Tempura flour
1/3 Butter
2 Salty Egg-Yolks
Curry leaves (*important as it adds the touch of fragrant to the dish)

Instructions:

Mix tempura flour with water to form thick tempura mixture.
Dip slices of pumpkin into tempura mixture, then deep fry them till golden brown. Remove fried tempura pumpkins and set aside.
Heat up pan/wok and place in the butter. Constantly stir till butter is fully melted and bubbles are formed.
Put in the mashed salty egg-yolks and quickly stir until salty egg-yolks are well dissolved.
Throw in curry leaves and fried pumpkins. Stir well and serve it warm.

My relatives came over for dinner as well. So, it's dinner for 9 with Kung Po Fish, 2 servings of vegetables and a huge pot of soup. (^_^)

Little Cousin's 8th Birthday

2009-10-03T01:29:00.002+08:00

These photos were captured by dad on little couzy's 8th birthday this year. She was too pai seh (shy) - doesn't want to take photos, doesn't want to blow candles (>.<).

Uuummmm....yummy yummy cake from Fruity Cakehouse. I sponsored the cake k...., but mum went to buy. Irresistable I would say....see see, mum curi curi makan the cream. :-/ There's also silky smooth tau fu fah from Chi Liung's pasar malam and irresistably tasty satay from Petaling Garden. *eyes popping out*

Eve of 8月15日 Mid-Autumn/Lantern/Mooncake Festival

2009-10-02T21:45:00.003+08:00

Sitting alone in the room watching drama on the eve of 8月15日 Mid-Autumn/Lantern/Mooncake Festival is so damn boring. Friends all are back to their hometown by now. Haihzzzz.....no beautiful tang lung to play with.....wuahhhhh *rolling all over the floor em kam wuan*

Who to blame?

AirAsia lo....all special 'thanks' to AA for changing my flight to an extremely inconvenient flight time, so I was left with no other option but to only cancel my flight and I'm now stuck here. :(

Wat else to do?

Hmmmm....continue blogging lo since I haven't been blogging for quite some time already and there are lots of photos pending for update. :-S

Well, since I'm not able to lit up those colourful candles for all those beautiful lanterns, let's see what I did last last last last autumn??? Hehehe...yeah! Back in year 2005, there was where I'd been on Mid-Autumn night. :>

Day 8 - Shanghai/ KL (Pudong International Airport)

2009-07-06T23:53:00.007+08:00

It had been an enjoyable 7 days tour from Shanghai to Hang Zhou to Nan Jing to Wu Xi to Su Zhou and then back to Shanghai again. Day 8 was our last day at Shanghai.

After morning breakfast at hotel, we travelled straight to Shanghai Pudong International Airport to check-in for our return flight back to KL. While on the way there, we passed by the in-progress construction area for the coming year Shanghai Expo 2010. Great development!

Worried about H1N1? Hehehe....not yet....not wearing any mask.

We landed at KLIA an hour late due to flight delay and bought Glenfiddich 12 years. By dinner time, we were already at *home sweet home*. (^_^)

Day 7 - Su Zhou/ Shanghai (Silk Factory, Bao Shu Tang, Huangpu River, The Bund, Oriental Pearl Tower)

2009-07-05T19:07:00.051+08:00

Day 7 was another exciting day. We started off with a hearty breakfast at Su Zhou.

After breakfast, we visited Su Zhou’s No. 1 Silk Factory. This is a well-known factory museum modeled to educate tourists on a complete process of silk making, includes:

mulberry planting,
silkworms raising,
cocoons selection,
cocoons cooking,
silk reeling,
silk re-reeling,
silk weaving
silk quilt making.

Life-cycle of Silkworms

Silkworms are raised by feeding mulberry leaves until they are matured and turned into cocoons. Once they turned themselves into cocoons, they are then cautiously selected for silk making. This is to prevent cocoons from turning into moths.

Next, selected cocoons are put to cook following the Cocoon Cooking process. The cocoons are immersed into hot water to help enlarge, moisten and soften cocoons’ gumming force. This act helps to allow the cocoon silk to be flawlessly separated and ease in silk reeling process.

Silk reeling is the first stage of turning cocoons into raw silk depending on its thickness and quality. One cocoon can produced about 1200m - 1500m of raw silk thread.

Then, raw silk is re-reeled to dry off its moisture appropriately, and in the mean time, sustains its elasticity, strength, and lengthen rate.

Silk threads are used to make silk fabric through Silk Weaving. These silk fabrics are of high quality for making stunning clothing and bedding clothes.

Cocoons are also used to make silk quilt. High quality cocoons are first dropped into boiling water to soften. Then, cocoons are torn to remove its pupas. Ten cocoons are stretched and placed into a small arch to produce a small silk layer. After collecting ten small silk layers, they are placed into a big arch to form a large silk layer. All large silk layers are left to dry before 4 workers stretched them onto a table to make a silk quilt. One silk quilt is made up of about 7000 – 12000 cocoons.

Silk quilt is perfectly suitable for usage at all 4 seasons. It helps to absorb body moisture, which is very beneficial for old folks to prevent “fong sap” (rheumatism). The maintenance for silk quilt isn’t difficult. It just needs to be aired twice a year for 30 minutes without direct heat under morning sun, as it has amino acid protein.

We travelled back to Shanghai to catch our lunch on a boat at HuangPu River. The Xiao Long Bao here tasted better compared to previous try on the first day at Shanghai.

After lunch and tiring 7 days journey, we were brought to Bao Shu Tang (寶樹堂) traditional medicine center for a free foot massage to relieve muscles soreness. They are well-known for its Bao Fu Ling burning cream, which is very good in curing skin burnt. There are also sore-muscle patch and sore-muscle oil used to ease muscle-ache.

Dinner at Shanghai was our last restaurant meal throughout the whole journey. We enjoyed our dinner that night after re-energized from a relaxing foot massage and a calming shoulder muscles relief.

At last, our long waited night cruise at Shanghai had arrived. We cruised on Shanghai’s HuangPu River along the magnificent “上海滩” (The Bund). It was definitely a great night view sceneries accompanied with perfect cooling night breeze. However, the cruising period was pretty short. :( I managed to capture some beautiful night scenes, thought they weren’t exactly clear as the ferry was cruising.

We then proceeded to the nearby Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The tower stands with its highest peak at 468m height. It is decorated with flashes of multi-colour lights, which clearly showed off itself as the tallest tower along The Bund at night. We queued for quite some time before we took the high-speed elevator up to the sight-seeing level on tower’s upper sphere at 263m height. Standing there, we were able to observe whole dazzling night views of Shanghai city surrounding the Oriental Pearl Tower.

It was a pleasant night at Shanghai, but happy times seemed to be short. We headed back to hotel after enjoying the memorable night scenes.

Day 6 - Wu Xi/ Su Zhou (Fresh Water Pearl Farm, Purple-sand Teapot Museum, Lion Forest Garden, Guan Qian Street, Shan Tang Street, The Grand Canal)

2009-06-30T22:30:00.026+08:00

After breakfast at hotel, we started our Day 6 tour from Wu Xi to Su Zhou. Wu Xi is known as the city of Plum Blossom (梅花).

Our first stop of the day was Wu Xi’s Fresh Water Pearl Farm. We were served with a cup of pearl powder tea, while they explained the origin of pearls and finally, introduced their products.

These freshwater pearls from Tai Lake are formed in freshwater mussels, while the saltwater pearls are from sea oysters. We were showed a 5-year old freshwater mussel and a few mini cultured pearls can be spotted in it.

What are cultured pearls? Cultured pearls are pearls that grew in mussel/oyster by human implantation of a nucleus. They didn’t exist naturally, but involve human’s act. These pearls are usually inexpensive as they can be formed and found easily. Whereas, natural pearls are pearls that formed naturally in mussel/oyster for decades of years. A perfect round and big natural pearl is extremely hard to find, therefore, it is pricey, almost 20 times the price of a cultured pearl. In fact, only 5% of all pearls are suitable to be made jewelries, another 95% are processed into powder form.

So, how do we differentiate between real and fake pearls?
Real pearls are rough when they are rubbed together and it will leave stain of white pearl powder when being scratched on glasses. However, fake pearls are very smooth/slick when they are rubbed together, leaving no powder stain.

Next, we went to the Purple-sand Teapot Museum. There were lots of talented students learning to make their own best teapots from the master. We opened our eyes to lots of magical functions that a perfect teapot could make. I’d also tried to compare the teapot I had at home and it was nothing magical like that. :p …what to do? Didn’t have the proper knowledge to select a good teapot before this mer….Anyhow, no pictures taken at this place as no photography was allowed at the museum. These purple-sand teapots are extraordinary as purple-sand can only be found on Ding Shan Mountain, Wu Xi.

After the lengthy morning visits, we were all hungry and headed to Su Zhou for our lunch.

Su Zhou’s residents are no strangers to Camphor tree (樟樹). In fact, it is named as the city tree of Su Zhou. Camphor trees are very lively as its leaves are green all year round. It has proven benefits in traditional medical cures of insect bites, burnt, muscular pains and etc. In the old days, a Camphor tree will be planted at the front garden of a house if a girl child is borned. So, the quantity of Camphor trees planted represents the number of daughters a household has. Each tree will remained until one day, when daughter got married and her father will trim down the tree representing the daughter being sent off to the husband’s family. Usually, daughter’s mum will cry on the wedding day. A contract will be signed by the daughter-in-law in agreement to be tied to new family rules, and mother-in-law will then award daughter-in-law with a set of pearl jewelries.

After lunch, we proceeded to the ever popular Lion Forest Garden. Lion Forest Garden is the only garden survived from Yuan Dynasty till today and it is also the only garden visited by the Emperors Kang Xi and Qian Long in Su Zhou. The garden portrayed natural-shaped-rocks brought out from Tai Lake and it is compactly and harmoniously spaced with winding walkways, caverns, pavilions and towers.

- Hall of Peace and Happiness -
- The Nine Lions' Peak -
- The Mid-Lake Pavilion & The Pavilion of True Delight -
Guan Qian Street at Su Zhou was our next stop. It is a shopping pedestrian street mainly for tourist to grab some China tid-bits as souveniors. Variety of street delicacies were also sold there, including “Chao Tau Hu” (Fermented/Smelly SoyBeancurd)! Yucks….smelly smelly

We only tried this freshly pan cooked cake, which had a choice of either red-bean paste or their famous rose wine paste. It tasted just like “kuih”.

Next, we went to a very beautiful water village called Shan Tang Street. Shan Tang Street is a village where the oriental ladies of Su Zhou can be seen. The wooden heritage residences here are still being nicely preserved for its uniquely beautiful outlook. It is also wonderfully decorated with numbers of superb red lanterns. Regretfully, we didn’t have the chance to observe its night view. I bet it will look amazing with all lit lanterns. (^o^)

Before heading for dinner and check in into hotel for rest, we dropped by at a pedestrian bridge to enjoy a good evening view at part of The Grand Canal (1794km). The river banks were nicely built and beautified.

Day 5 - Nan Jing/ Wu Xi (Jade Museum, LingShan Giant Buddha, Tai Lake, CIty of Three Kingdom)

2009-06-27T11:43:00.025+08:00

Day 5 morning we woke up in the city of Stone, Nan Jing with great choices of food varieties ranging from Chinese servings to international servings.

Nan Jing has been popularly called the Stone City for over 20 years. The name was well given for its sturdy Ming Great Wall, which can be seen across the city. This elongated 22 km Ming Great Wall was built using blocks of carved-stones.

On top of this, Nan Jing is even more popular for its JADE. Jade is considered as the stone of heaven in China and Chinese has been using Jade for more than 5000 years. There are plenty of meanings that drive people to use/own Jade, but the two most basic and common reasons are mainly due to its natural healing remedies and also for protection against bad incident. Well, I personally do not favour Jade too much since it is bright green-in-colour and usually, you know, only those older people will like it…. :p …. China took the golden opportunity to proudly introduce its Jade across the globe during Olympic Games 2008. Olympic Games 2008 medals are all purely made of carved Jade plated with gold, silver and bronze.

We visited Nan Jing’s Jade Museum in the morning before leaving for Wu Xi. At the Jade Museum, we were educated with ways to identify between real and fake jades, as well as between good (old Jade) and average (new Jade) jades:

1. Real/Fake Jade

depends on the degree of hotness when you held to the Jade. Real Jade is warmer by ~6.75-8.00 degree.
depends on robustness. Real Jade is scratch-proof, while fake jade is not.

2. Good/Average Jade

depends on the generated sound when you hit with a metal stick onto a Jade tied to a string. Good Jade produces clear high pitch tone, while average Jade produces lower pitch tone.
depends on visual view under bright light. Good Jade is clear and translucent, while Average Jade is misty and opaque. Good ones are usually stones from the valley/water, while average ones are from the mountain.
depends on colour of the Jade. Good quality Jades are usually translucent green.

After exploring Jade, we moved on to Wu Xi for lunch. We had Wu Xi’s well-known ‘Honey Spare-Ribs’. It was red like ‘Char Siew’, but a lot juicier with its generous serving of sauce. However, I preferred it dryer, just like the smoked/grilled char siew. :)

Next scenic spot was the Ling Shan Giant Buddha at Wu Xi.

The Buddha statue here is the highest Buddha statue, standing at a height of 88m on a lotus flower. It has a history of only 12 years since it was built in 1997. This statue is made of bronze and it cost China approximate RMB 1million. For this expenditure, China is charging an entrance fee of RMB 150. Quite high huh??? Anyhow, this is a very nice place to visit for Buddhist as we could admire the giant statue, while we perform our prayers.

There are also huge statues of Buddha’s Palm, Laughing Buddha with Children, and Baby Buddha in Lotus.
Here in Wu Xi we were able to see the Tai Lake again. I was told that Tai Lake is the third largest lake in China, but it happens to be the most famous lake among all. One complete round cruise on Tai Lake will takes up to 3 days!

Wu Xi is also popular for its honey peach. Honey peaches are planted on top of the one and only volcano land in China. This richly nourished soil produces very juicy honey peaches each year during its harvest period in August. The tour guide told us all that 1 piece of those honey peaches weigh almost 1kg and it can be taken just with a straw! Imagining how juicy can it be ….hhmmm….can’t believe la…

By evening, we proceeded to city of Three Kingdom. This is where Red Cliff 1 and Red Cliff 2 were filmed. (^o^) We managed to catch a short, live show of Three Kingdom upon arrival. The show reflected on how Liu Bei, Guan Gong and Zhang Fei defeated their enemies in Three Kingdom. It was an eye-catching event at this stop.

We were then brought surrounding the Three Kingdom to enjoy its magnificent sceneries. We also boarded onto a war cruiser that took us for out for battle? Haha… no la… out to catch more beautiful sceneries and sunset.

And what’s for dinner after war victory? :p We ate a dragon…oh yeah…a dragon-look-alike dish made of mashed potatoes covered with great linings of cheese! Who don’t love cheese!!?? Argh, who cares … It was absolutely delicious. What about other dishes? Errm…so-so.

After dinner we checked in into hotel and rest for the entire night as Wu Xi is a peaceful and quiet city at night. There were barely any entertainment center open at night.

Day 4 - Hang Zhou/ Nan Jing (Tai Lake, Purple-sand Teapot, Dr.Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, NanJing YangTze River Bridge, Crystal Painting, Confucius Temple)

2009-06-13T20:15:00.024+08:00

Day 4 was an extra early rise day. After breakfast, we began our long 4-5 hours journey to Nan Jing. As we were travelling from Zhe Jiang province to Jiang Su province, we were able to observe part of Tai Lake (Tai Hu). Tai Lake is a known huge natural lake with only 2.3m depth and it happens to be part of the Grand Canal. It is 3 times as big as Singapore!

On that particular day, the viewable distance from shore wasn’t far as it was a complete misty morning. Fogs covered Tai Lake just like a flat-laid blanket and the weather seemed too good to be true after 3 superb hot days in Shanghai and Hang Zhou. We also passed by a place called Yi Xing, which is famous for its well-known purple-sand teapot. We had a quick look of various purple-sand teapots at one of our stop at rest area since Yi Xing was not part of our itinerary.

Well, our lunch at Nan Jing tasted a bit different as their serving of Chinese tea smelt different from ordinary tea, their white rice doesn’t look ‘white’, and the fish was unique as well. The fish had a look-a-alike duck beak mouth, but its meat was very smooth. I don’t even know the name of the fish. (-.-“) That’s not all. We also had the main specialty of Nan Jing, which is no other than the Salty Duck. It was a cold dish and tasted normal only.

We proceeded to our next visit, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s Mausoleum (中山陵). Dr. Sun Yat-Sen passed away in Beijing and was buried in Nan Jing. At that time, Nan Jing was the headquarter of China and he was well-known as “Father of Modern China”. He fought against imperial Qing Dynasty, spreading his idea of everyone is ‘equal’ and China belonged to everyone, not only to one family, the Emperor Dynasty. After 1911 revolution where 17 provinces declared independent, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen was selected and he became the first president when Republic of China was found.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s Mausoleum was built at a reclining mountain slope consisting of 392 stairs that lead to a marble gate inscribed with 天下為公, which means “Everything under the heaven is for all”. A few more steps up and we reached the sacrificial hall, where a 4.6m high Italian-white-marble statue of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen can be seen. We had a good work-out climbing up hundreds of stairs and luckily the weather was excellent that particular afternoon.

After that, we continued our journey to the famous historical Nan Jing YangTze River Bridge.

During 1950-1960, China had a good relationship with Russia and Russia had helped China to build the first and second bridges over YangTze River, which were WuHan YangTze River Bridge and ChongQing YangTze River Bridge, respectively. However, after their relationships decreased gradually due to Cold War, China was on their own. China seek help from US, but US was unable to build the bridge as they commented that it was an impossible mission as YangTze River at Nan Jing was too wide, too deep (35m depth) and the water flow was too strong. The Chinese didn’t give up, but unified together and built the bridge themselves. It took them 9 years from 1960-1968 to complete the Nan Jing YangTze River Bridge. To build the bridge’s pillars alone for this 35m depth river already took up to 3 years and many of them lost their lives, drowned due to strong water current that washed them away.

The Nan Jing YangTze River Bridge was proudly announced to be the first and foremost bridge wholly built by only Chinese community. However after completion, there was no maintenance on the bridge as money was insufficient. So, the Chinese people gathered again to donate some $$$ from time to time in order to maintain this memorable bridge. An artist named Gong Liang, specialized in crystal painting donated his 20 years old art painting to earn an amount of $$$ for the bridge’s maintenance as well. The characteristics of this bridge are as follows:

A double-layered bridge for road transports and train railway track.
~4.5 km highway lanes at upper-deck bridge made up of ~1.5 km main-bridge portion and ~3 km bridge approach.
~6.7 km railway track at lower-deck bridge.
9 pillars of 80 m height each were built on YangTze River to support main-bridge portion.
Same designer as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Estimated usage of 100 years.

After admiring and enjoyed the cool breeze on top of Nan Jing YangTze River Bridge, we moved on to have a look on artist Gong Liang’s masterpieces.

By then, it was time for dinner.

After dinner, we checked in into hotel and went out for a walk at nearby streets of Nan Jing Confucius Temple for some night sight-seeing.

We bought some chestnuts for supper while enjoyed our best hotel stay in the new, largest and nicest hotel room at Nan Jing city throughout the whole trip. :>

Day 3 - Hang Zhou (WestLake Cruise, Dragon Well Tea Plantation, Lingyin Temple)

2009-05-31T19:54:00.032+08:00

Breakfast at the highest floor of Hang Zhou Tower opened our eyes to part of developed areas of Hang Zhou city. While mum and dad went to grab some food, I managed to capture some good views of Hang Zhou city from our table.

We started off our beautiful sunny day with a short morning walk at the WestLake garden. It was already crowded when we reached there. Beautiful sceneries of flora and fauna were seen while we made our way on foot towards the WestLake (Xi Hu).

We boarded onto a boat to cruise around the WestLake and enjoyed its stunning sceneries surrounded by natural mountains, hills, and bridges. There were various types of boat to select from. We cruised around Westlake, while our tour guide shared some magnificent stories of WestLake.

WestLake (Xi Hu) is as beautiful as its name. Marco Polo once called Hang Zhou, “the most beautiful and magnificent city in the world”, mainly due to its beautiful WestLake, which was rich with historical values and ancient cultures. WestLake sceneries are different during every 4 seasons throughout the year with some hints of uniqueness.

The most obvious landscape from afar was the Six Harmony Pagoda. It stood at a height of 60m with 8 floor levels. This pagoda was extremely old and was then rebuilt with elevator to cater older tourists’ needs.

Next were the Stone Pagodas. There were 3 Stone Pagodas of 2m height, situated on 3 strategic locations of WestLake. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, these 3 Stone Pagodas will be well lit up with 5 lantern-lights each. These 15 lights reminiscence 15 moons and reflections of them on WestLake will total up to 30 moons. Incorporate them with the one and only moon in the sky and its reflection as well, there will be 32 moons seen during the Mid-Autumn night. How wonderful!

Broken Bridge was famous due to a well-known Chinese love story that I had mentioned earlier, The Legendary of White Snake. The pretty girl, who is actually a white-snake met his love, Xu Xian on this bridge during a rainy day and since then, the Broken Bridge had became their symbol of love. Standing on this bridge, the best view of entire WestLake would be experienced during the snowy winter season.

WestLake used to be the core water supply to all Hang Zhou residences about 900 years ago. It was only 1.8m deep and as the lake was too shallow, muds used to pile up easily. Su Dong Po, the governor during Soong Dynasty, had this lake dredged for the goodness of Hang Zhou residents and made a 2.8km causeway, which was then named after him, the Su Causeway.

Day 3 lunch was good. We had an individual serving of the famous Dong Po Meat. It was extremely oily, but excellent taste. For once, I omitted the oily concern and finished the meat and sauce, except for the soft fatty parts of the meat. :p My mum didn’t have hers, so my dad had 2!

After the hearty meal, it was time to have some Chinese tea to flush down all the fats and the oils and also the cholesterols….Hahaha

We visited the tea plantation and input some very useful knowledge of Hang Zhou’s famous Loong Jing Cha (Dragon Well Tea) at MeiJiaWu Village. Loong Jing Tea is best-known as the delicate green tea, which used to be savoured by the emperor. The only place in the world, where this Loong Jing Tea can be found or grown, is in the WestLake of Hang Zhou. The tea leaves resemble jade-green colour and are meticulously prepared from tender leaves during spring season for its best quality, using a traditional hand-drying technique, rather than machine. Tea tree oil is used during the tea leaves drying process in order to prevent the tea leaves from burnt.

Loong Jing Tea, also a type of green tea, is best consumed anytime, anywhere. It is different from the Japanese green tea as Japanese green tea is a high mountain tea, which is very cooling to consume, while Loong Jing Tea is a valley tea, which has limited cooling effects. Therefore, Loong Jing Tea is more appropriate to be consumed by most ladies for all time. :> Other than the Japanese green tea, other high-mountain green teas (no fermentation), Oo Long Teas (half-fermentation) and Pu Er Teas (full-fermentation) are also very “cooling”. So, which is the best, is for you to judge on your own. I, personally have just fallen for this soothing and refreshing fragrance of Loong Jing Tea.

Loong Jing Teas are divided into various grades depending on periods when the tea leaves are harvested or picked. The best tea leaves are found during spring season. The earliest harvested Loong Jing Tea leaves during the earliest of spring season are categorized to be the best AA-grade of all, followed by a later pick of A-grade and then, B-grade. There is also AAA-grade tea leaves, which are picked from the wild. In terms of colours, lighter green is better, as people believed that darker ones might contain colouring, and those that are a little brownish (B grade) in colour are those that are harvested in later spring under the hot burning sun.

We were presented Tea ceremony in 2 different rooms for both Mandarin and English versions. For sure I joined the English group la….

(1) For an average glass, fill in with 2 pinches of A-grade Loong Jing Tea. Add in a small amount of hot water just sufficient to cover the tea leaves. **Please do not use boiling water at 100 deg C as it will kill all good properties in tea leaves, tea leaves will turn brown and the taste will become bitter. Use hot water below 90 deg C only.
(2) Try to have a good refreshing smell from the glass of tea. Oomph…You can even refresh your eyes with the warm steam.
(3) Fill in more water to enjoy a glass full of tea. The water should be poured in 3 pulls. **To thank the person who served you, just tap your 2 fingers on the table, twice.
(4) Wait for the water to cool down a little and then, you can have sips of good Loong Jing Tea. Water can be refilled 4 to 5 times and the taste will remain the same. **Do not cover the glass of tea as glass doesn’t have a breathable property. As for sand-made teacups/teapots, it is okay to be covered as sand-made items are breathable.

We can observe that most tea leaves float on the surface. These are tea leaves being dried by hand. Mass production tea leaves will sink as they are all dried by machines. This drink is perfect to be consumed ½ hour after your meal. Loong Jing Tea can also be eaten directly and it tasted really good.

Besides, it can be used in your cooking as well….fried egg with loong jing tea? Boiled tea egg? Sauté vege with loong jing tea? …..very very healthy. Mixing it with dried orange peel and SanZha (Hawthorne) will help to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Ladies can also use it as mask by mixing with honey and egg white. :>

Lingyin Temple, also known as Temple of the Soul’s Retreat, is the largest Buddhist temple in Wulin Mountains. It has a numbers of grottos and religious rock carvings.

There are a few halls in Lingyin temple. We visited the Grand Hall of Great Sage, which has a historical Buddha statue carved from Camphor wood and coated with gold. Buddha statue’s hair was painted in blue, which resembles that Buddha’s position is as high and heavenly as the sky. At the back of Buddha statue is the Guan Yin statue, backed by carved images of150 Buddhist personalities. Along both sides of hall are statues of 18 principal arhats (罗汉).

There are also Hall of the Medicine Buddha and Hall of the Five-Hundred Arhats (五百罗汉堂).

After a long tiring day, we had our dinner and then back to the hotel for an early rest as we need to wake up earlier the next day for a longer journey to Nan Jing. However, since it was just after dinner, we went for a short walk along some shop-houses, then to McD … to tapao McPork for supper … wakakaka

Oooh, this is the public bicycle station I mentioned in previous post. All are in red and there are special lanes for bicycles and motorcycles.

Day 2 - Shanghai/Wu Zhen/Hang Zhou (Wu Zhen Water Village, Impression of WestLake)

2009-05-24T00:37:00.028+08:00

Day 2 was a refreshed day for all of us as we had sufficient sleep to start another interesting day. After breakfast in the hotel, we checked out and proceeded travelling a little to the South to Wu Zhen. It took approximately about 1 ½ hours. While heading out of Shanghai, our tour guide enriched us with information about development of Shanghai city. Shanghai used to be a slow developing city 10 years ago. With its great growths in developing more and more sky-high commercial buildings to accommodate its rising population, magnificent multi-layer fly-overs to reduce daily traffics and improved education of their citizens toward cleanliness, they showed a huge progression for China. In just a short period of 10 years, Shanghai is now covered by uncountable high commercial buildings and they are still developing in years to come. Shanghai 2010 Expo next year will be a great event! But, if you’re thinking to own a property in Shanghai, think twice. The price is absolutely competitive with RMB 20,000 per 1 sq-m. A tiny condo of 90sq-m will cost you roughly about RMB 1,800,000 (~MYR 900,000). :-S

As we travelled along the road, we saw a number of rivers. Most of them are man-made rivers. These rivers were made by ~700 people to connect all main rivers and Tai lake together, and it took more than 5 years to complete. Lots of heavy goods were still being transferred through The Grand Canal River and the Emperor used to travel in boat along this canal from BeiJing to Shanghai during Dragon Boat Festival.

On our way, we stopped by at a toll rest area. We were told that the place served famous Glutinous Dumpling (Bak Zhang) as Dragon Boat Festival is approaching. But he did remind us that it won’t be as good as the one in Malaysia (very honest tour guide :p). Most of us tried and truly it wasn’t good enough because it had extremely little ingredients and for different selection of ingredients, they were priced differently. The place was also selling cooked chestnut and ‘Chao Tao Fu’ (Smelly Beancurd)….smelly smelly

Wu Zhen is one of China’s top ten popular towns portraying history of attractions spanning over 1300 years. It is an ancient water village located in the southern part of YangTze River. Wu Zhen stayed as it is till now and has never changed its name, address, water system and residences’ lifestyle. Well, Wu Zhen is also named the Eastern Venice by Westerners due to its graceful water town sceneries that lie just beside stretches of houses.

These houses’ windows open their daily views to the canal and residences living here are still using small boats/sampan to travel along the canal. The traditional buildings are also still well managed and preserved after so many years. They even maintained the traditional Chinese medicine ‘clinic’ (or what should I call it d?) in this water village till today. However, only the older generations reside here and they do receive some appreciation income from their government through the entrance fees that we, tourists paid to visit this ancient place. The entrance fee cost RMB 100. :> During previous National Day holiday in China (7 days), it was estimated about 40,000 visitors gathered here in Wu Zhen water village to perceive its natural beauties. (40,000 x RMB 100 = RMB 4,000,000???) Phew…..

Day 2 lunch was at a restaurant nearby Wu Zhen water village. We had the so-called famous Chinese Stewed Lamb in dark soy sauce…not too bad, but Pork Belly with Mui Choy was extremely oily to every touch.

We bought some Mulberries and Loquat (Pi Pah 枇杷) fruits from a lady selling outside of the restaurant. Mulberries were juicy with thick dark red juices, just like the colour of red wine, while Pi Pah was sweet depending on season. We haven’t seen Pi Pah fruit in Malaysia, but Pi Pah Gao (枇杷膏) is famous among us as a Chinese medicine cough syrup that soothes your throat.

An hour later, we reached city of HangZhou. Most houses in HangZhou are 2 to 3 storeys high and all have typical Chinese architecture roof. Emm…looks nice and unique, but if we were to build that in Malaysia, people will think that it is a temple at first glance.

We checked in to hotel upon reaching HangZhou and it was at free & leisure for 3 hours before dinner time. Our hotel is situated inside a high commercial shopping center called HangZhou Tower. Surrounding this building are more choices of shopping centers. (*good*) Loitering around few complexes and we realized that China-brands clothing in Hangzhou are way too expensive. Averagely, the clothing cost about RMB 500 to RMB 1000++. So, no shopping for the day and it was freaking warm inside all the malls. HangZhou’s weather temperature was at 34 deg C, but their shopping malls air-conditioners were not cold at all. Why??? China government controls the temperature for every building’s air-conditioners, even hotels as it was still Spring season, not Summer yet. And when do they declare that Summer has arrived? When they experience 5 days in a row, continuously of high temperature more than 30 deg C!

Since the weather was super hot, we went back to the hotel earlier to get some rest and took a shower before dinner. Day 2 dinner in HangZhou was at a restaurant inside WestLake park. It is a very clean and nicely designed restaurant. :)

Night fell and we headed to WestLake for a live outdoor performance called "Impression of WestLake". I love this event the most throughout the whole trip! :) This performance consists of hundreds of casts presenting dynamic artistic cultural show through singing, dancing and martial arts, exactly like those we saw during the opening and closing ceremonies of 2008 Olympic game. Both were lead by the same director, Zhang Yi Mou, who is fascinated with this new form of visual arts. It felt really extraordinarily impressive to watch them present live on the world famous landscape with natural mountains and waters as its backdrops. Each show is unique and non-duplicable. The show we enjoyed that night is from a chapter called “Legendary of White Snake”.

Hmmmm....the story line is too artistic and sophisticated for us to understand (I’m not Chinese-ed), but the overall presentation was …one word…IMPRESSIVE. I would say that this is a must-visit performance when you step into HangZhou. The entrance fee varies for different seats. We were all seated at the highest final row with very good views and the ticket cost RMB 220.

If you’re interested to know about the story line of “Legendary of White Snake”, you may visit:-
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_White_Snake
· http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/WhiteSnake.htm

Day 1 - KL/Shanghai (Maglev Train, Nanjing Road, ChengHuang Miao, Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai Acrobatic)

2009-05-23T15:25:00.027+08:00

This was my first time travelling with Reliance Travel to Shanghai, China for an 8 days trip.

An hour before midnight and we were on our way to KLIA to catch our 1.40am early flight to Pudong International Airport, Shanghai. I was very excited and kind of sleepy at the same time. Upon checking in and meeting up with our lovely lady tour guide, Jo, we wandered around a short while before it was time for us to board.

Light snacks and a cup of refreshing orange juice were served in greeting us on board. The flight was rather bumpy after it took off, causing nausea in some of us. I tried succumbing the queasiness with a few sips of red wine. By 3am, we were served with a complete meal. Well…extremely late supper?? or too early breakfast?? Hmm….not in the mood for food due to the uncomfortable feels. I just took a few bites of the main course and a quick touch on the dessert. That’s it and off we go to sleep after the lights were dimmed. The Ferrero Rocher chocolates??? For sure keep la :p

Awaken at about 5.10am and the sun had rise. By 5.30am, the sky was brightened.

Upon reaching Pudong airport, we proceeded to claim our luggage and loaded them into the tour bus coach.

Our Chinese tour guide in Shanghai, Tom, brought us to our first destination, Pudong Airport Shanghai Maglev Train station and impressed us with its fastest high-speed train ride in the world. The Maglev train can occupy up to 500 people and travels averagely up to 301km/h. For a distance of about 30km from airport to LongYang Road station, it only took us roughly about 7 minutes. Just imagine if we were to travel in KTM, it’ll take about an hour journey…how frustrated. There’s always a price for every good. The short 7 minutes ride cost RMB 50. It wasn’t expensive to Shanghainese as travelling in a taxi will cost about the same price or perhaps higher.

Here are some snapshots of Shanghai city while we were on our way to NanJing Road. As you can see, there are four parallel-lanes with four individual traffic lights, heading to four different directions. Cool rite… but confusing at times. What impressed me the most is their public transports. Most taxi/cabs are either Volkswagen Santana, Volkswagen Passat or Hyundai Sonata. (-.-“) Malaysia is still using Proton Iswara.(>_<) Well, they have public bicycles for rent at every area too. It’s so convenient. If you missed the bus, no worries, just rent a bicycle from one stop at RMB 1 and return it at the nearest stop to your end destination.

NanJing Road is one of the famous tourist spot for mid-class shopping citizens. Mostly are China-brands attire, street-food and tid-bits. Nothing much to shop there for Malaysians. Both Nike and Adidas are way more expensive compared to Malaysia. Can you see the cute blue mascot? Yeah? That’s the mascot for Shanghai 2010 Expo. There’ll be more than 10,000 cultural shows for this Expo in May next year portraying different architectures. Since there was no plan for breakfast on day 1, we headed to McD for….McPork la of course :p. McPork is cheap, only cost RMB 6. Yummy yummy ….

Next stop for us was the well-known City God Temple (ChengHuang Miao) at Shanghai Old Street, originally named as FangBang Middle Road. ChengHuang Miao is not a temple; it is just a given name to the place. There are dozens of tourist attractions here which made the place a busy commercial neighbourhood for gold jewelleries, handicraft items, tea leaves, as well as all sorts of snacks/street-food just like pasar malam. What a crowd!!! All buildings’ layouts and architecture-styles were unique, maintaining residentials’ characteristics from the late Ming Dynasty with some hints of improved Western designs.

We wandered around this place for an hour plus, taking photographs and walking through the Nine-Corner Bridge to have a better view of all surroundings. Oh yeah, there are many restaurants selling Shanghai Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) here. However, there is one famous choice among tourists, where the queue to purchase as take-away was extremely long, so we gave up without trying them. Somehow, people used to say that it’s not that good after all as the dumpling’s skin is thick compared to our all-time favourite, Dragon-I. The restaurant owner has a very good marketing scheme, promoting the Xiao Long Bao at different prices on different floor level of his/her restaurant at different speed of serving them. So if you’re very impatient and strongly need to try this Xiao Long Bao, just proceed to the highest floor for the highest price and they’ll serve you at the shortest time possible. :-S …. I don’t think it’s worth trying though :p.

We had our first lunch meal in Shanghai at a restaurant nearby ChengHuang Miao. A short walking distance under the hot sun and dry weather. Well, it’s just the first-day, tolerable. Food wise was rather oily and extremely salty. A serving of tea helped to balance off the saltiness and beer to balance off the heat. :>

There is a story behind the oiliness and saltiness of their food. It is just a saying, not a 100% true fact. Well, in the old days, meats and salt are rather expensive. The poor Chinese people only consumed porridge with salty vegetables daily. There were no meat and no oil. In order for them to consume more plain porridge, more salt need to be added to the vege to give it a better taste. So, the more salt a person could add, it showed that the richer the person would be, as salt was expensive that time. The same thinking was applied to meats/oil. Ermmm….kiasu people would want to show off, so the saltier and the oilier their food were, the richer they’re known to be. Since then, the food in China has been served salty and oily.

Jade Buddha Temple is an actual temple located along AnYuan Road. In 1882, an old temple was built to place 2 Jade Buddha statues brought from Burma by a monk named HuiGen. These statues were made of sparkling crystal-clear white Jade found in Burma. However, the old temple was destroyed during revolution in Qing Dynasty. Both statues were saved and current Jade Buddha Temple was built, which took about 10 years to complete from 1918 to 1928. To visit this temple, there is an entrance fee. How much? I’m not too sure. I was still a guinea pig there on the first day. I didn’t realize that there’ll be an entrance fee for every tourist attractions in China until the tour guide told us so. China government is making a whole freaking lots of money from collecting these entrance fees all around China. Just imagine the large sum of people travelling there every day…$$$$$

After a long day visits and sleepless night on the plane, our thoughtful tour guide brought us all to our hotel for a short rest and a good refreshing shower before we head for our dinner.

It’s dinner time! We were greeted with some local melodies at the entrance of the restaurant. All customers are mainly from tours. There were Korean groups, Japanese groups, and we were the Malaysian Chinese groups. It was a little cooler and more comfy weather when night fell.

After dinner, we sat back and had a good watch of Shanghai’s famous Acrobatic performance. It was an inspiring 1 ½ hours live performance. A really good show and sentiment to watch it live with surround sounds compared to staring on your TV at home. This is worth your $$$.

Blogging from Nan Jing, China

2009-05-13T00:45:00.007+08:00

I'm blogging from Nan Jing, Jiang Su province, China!!! (^_^)

It has been good that I'm able to go online and stay connected to Y!, MSN, facebook, emails, blogs and certain updated news, in all of the hotels I'd stayed so far. Two of previous hotels in Shanghai and Hang Zhou provided free high speed internet access for its' customers from their rooms. However, current hotel in Nan Jing is charging its customer for this service in the room. It sounded awful that a 5-star hotel is charging customer for this. Fortunately, the free WiFi signal from the lobby is sufficiently strong enough to provide me a wireless connection in my room. Despite the trade-off of internet charges, Nan Jing hotel stay is the best till now...advanced touch'N'go card for room door (I was too blur looking up and down on where should I slot the card -.-" paiseh), very very spacious room, great LCD, extremely comfortable mattress and what I loved most is the excellent bathroom...really....I do...trust me...modernly designed and they even have a weighing scale in it....wait till I upload the photos as I'll have to do some 'leng leng' editting first before I blog further about my trip here. :>

Day-4 in Nan Jing was the most comfortable weather throughout my trip for now. Cooling temperature at about 22-25 deg C during the day and 18 deg C at night. Previous stays at Hang Zhou and Shanghai were much more unsatisfying as weathers for both stays were hectic due to the high temperature at about 34-35 deg C and low humidity which were kinda unexpected. Gosh, it's even hotter than in Malaysia! Can't believe it...It's only Spring! Why? Global warming ma.....haihhh

I'm hoping that the weather will behave better with at least temperature below 28 deg C for the rest of the trips. *Crossed fingers*

Tomorrow will be another long, but interesting day... moving forward to Wu Xi, located in between Nan Jing and Su Zhou.

26th Birthday @ Kirishima Japanese Restaurant, Cititel Penang

2009-04-26T15:53:00.017+08:00

I had a great birthday dinner this year with three of my dearest friends at Penang Cititel Hotel's Japanese Restaurant - KIRISHIMA.

Kirishima is well-decorated potraying various types of genuine sake. And, the food served were simply fabulous and irresistable. However, its environment was kinda choke due to its open-smoking dining area.

Pictures paint a thousand words...:)

Herbal Soup Duck Meat Noodles @ Lucky Garden, Bangsar

2009-04-09T21:22:00.010+08:00

The one and only famous coffee shop at Lucky Garden, Bangsar serves the best herbal soup Ark Tooi (Duck drumstick) noodles I have ever tasted. Even the Penang well-known Sungai Pinang Ark Tooi Noodles can't beat this heavenly boiled herbal 'dong guai' soup. The stall has been selling for years at Chun Heong coffee shop, which is always packed and crowded during lunch time. Cars are usually seen double-parked in front of the shop due to limited parking lot in this area.

So, what should you do when you double-park here? Leave your contact number at your car's deskboard so that people can contact you whenever they need you to move your car. Good idea eh? ...Don't they worried about 'kena saman'? I guess not cause most of them are loaded...oh yeah, really...just look at those cars that double-park there...Mercedes, BMWs,... :p

The herbal soup looks clear, but the taste is simply superb. The auntie is great enough to prepare the soup with generous amount of herbs at the right combination of them all. Just love it!

There is also option of chicken or pork meat, and different types of noodle varying from mee hoon, yellow mee, kuay teow and mee suah (vermicelli). A bowl of this herbal soup noodles with drumstick meat costs about RM6. The coffee shop is located same row of shop houses as Bangsar Domino's Pizza at Lorong Ara Kiri 2.

Kozue Japanese Restaurant @ Gurney Plaza, Penang

2009-04-07T23:39:00.013+08:00

About 2 weeks ago during Gurney Plaza sales, WT and I went there for a long walk to waste our Saturday leisure time together. Haha.....

I managed to grab the RM10 oven toaster for first 100 that spent RM150 above or RM100 above only for HSBC card owner. Duh, never expected that the queue would be so long even 15 minutes before the redemption time. We were there an hour before, but there were no tables/redemption counters being set up yet. We queued for almost an hour past redemption time before getting the product purchased at extremely low price of RM10. Phew.... There seemed to be a bit of chaos as those in queue complained about other irresponsible shoppers cutting queue before them. (-.-")

By that time, it was almost 3pm and we have not had our lunch! Luckily we had decided where to dine in before we headed to the shopping mall earlier. We quickly made our way to this Kozue Japanese Restaurant, located opposite to Kim Gary at Gurney old wing.

Both of us ordered individual meal set that includes a bowl of rice, a cup of miso soup, a serving plate of side salad vege and 2 pieces of fruits as dessert. The miso soup was way too salty, not a good one, while the rice served isn't the genuine japanese rice, even without the fragrant scent of japanese white vinegar. Kinda disappointed ...

As for the main dish, we had teppanyaki chicken and baked chicken with cheese. The baked chicken with cheese tasted okay, but the teppanyaki chicken's sauce was slightly too salty for us. Additionally, we ordered one side dish of grilled bacon with asparagus. At first glance, we were totally disappointed as the serving differed so much as compared to the illustration on the menu. Luckily, the taste was still acceptable, but it was not worth it.

I guess I wouldn't be stepping into this restaurant again although the environment there is good and the place is well designed.

Kocha Taiwanese Delight @ Burma Street, Penang

2009-04-04T23:47:00.010+08:00

I've been dining in this taiwanese cuisine restaurant for more than 2 years now and only realized that I haven't make a proper introduction to you all. So, here goes ... :)

Kocha Taiwanese Delight have been here at Burma Street (Jalan Burma) for quite some time already and have been popular among Penang diners. The corner unit restaurant can be located nearby Him Heang and it is next to Heritage Hotel. It opens at 12pm and it is usually crowded by 12.30pm. So remember to be early if you want to reserve seats to have your lunch here.

There are variety of taiwanese cuisines to choose from the menu. Recommended would be their set meals, that come with starter fruits, a bowl of fragrant rice/noodles, a bowl of appetizing soup (sometimes herbal soup), 2 plates of side dishes (veges, tofus, mushrooms, etc), dessert (pudding, agar-agar, redbean soup, mungbean soup, etc) and a glass of tempting Taiwanese bubble milk tea with pearl (may opt for green tea, red tea or coffee). Three highly recommended set meals would be the '3 Cups Chicken', 'Salty Chicken with Basil' and 'Fried Spare Rib Pork'.

You must be wondering why '3 Cups Chicken' and not '2' or '1' or '4'?

Well, the 3 cups refer to 3 main ingredients used in cooking this chicken dish, which are 1 cup of chinese wine (Tsao Tsing Jiu), 1 cup of sesame oil and 1 cup of soy sauce. Hmmm, simply irresistable ...

All these 3 set meals cost RM15.80 each, which I think it's totally worth it to fill up a superb hungry stomach. :p ... No other hidden cost, no service tax and no government tax charges.

The environment is good and well decorated with aquariums of colourful eye-catching fishes, shrimps, sea-horses and beautiful corals.

KLANG Fatt Kee Yong Tau Foo Loh Shi Fun

2009-03-04T22:03:00.008+08:00

My parents used to bring me to this Fatt Kee Yong Tau Foo for Loh Shi Fun. I've been eating this simple, yet tasty fish ball yong tau foo with flavoursome minced pork loh shi fun for decades since I was a little girl. Every now and then, my family and relatives will still go to this stall for its signature dish. Besides, there are also next-door stalls selling drinks, ice-kacang and loh bak. There is also chinese-medicated herbal tea that will help to relieve cough, phlegm, flu and sore throat. This hawker place was previously popularly known as 'Emporium Makan' located below GAMA supermarket, in Klang town area. It was always crowded with diners especially during the weekends. However, since GAMA supermarket shut-down, usual diners are getting lesser years by years.

There is also another similar stall run by their relatives. It is located in a coffee shop nearby Klang Parade off Jalan Meru, Klang.

Untitled 1

2009-03-01T23:28:00.002+08:00

I was about to make a last minute booking on AirAsia for my trip back to hometown as sales is ending today. But, something else came up on mind, oh ya, at least my memory from the pre-waking up stage still lies in my brain; the sms from AirAsia Citi that woke me up from sleep this morning. AA citi-cardmember is offering a priority booking “from RM1” on the next day, March 2. Well, since the economy isn’t really at the good side, why not waits a day and saves a few RMs? Oh gosh, okayyy okayyy … I know it doesn’t really make a difference, but considering myself being underpaid (no increment, no profit sharing, no blablabla), I do think there’s indeed a need to save that few RMs. Errmmm, perhaps at least I can reward myself a better meal with that little savings? It’s definitely wiser than flushing it down the toilet-bowl, isn’t it?

2 ½ years … Yes, 2 ½ years! I’ve been in Penang for almost 2 ½ years now. It’s neither a short nor a long period. Comparing to those 5 years struggling in Univ life with studies and exams, 2 ½ years are just half-way through, but it seems much longer. Univ life was hectic, but fun, or at least I could be home almost every weekend and during semesters break. Working life is average, considering there are no ups and downs from burning mid-night oil to face exams, but being in an island with only 2 megamalls to pick from, is kind of bored. What else can I do? Weekends at home are hot hot hot, counting times of cold showers needed to balance off the heat. How I wish there is an air-conditioner in my room, and when the wish really do comes true, the bill will burn a big hole in my pocket.

It’s always better to be at home. I meant home at hometown. I can just freely run up and down, up and down, to my room, to the living room for astro, to the kitchen for food, out to the garden for fresh air, talk to anyone, complain whatever I have on mind, rather than facing the 4 white walls in my room right now. Errmm, actually I’m facing the laptop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and so on, … whenever I’m not sleeping I guess. The laptop never gets to rest … not even when I’m sleeping … what a pity! I wonder how long will it last …

9th-day of Chinese New Year ~ Pai Ti Gong (Jade Emperor of Heaven 天公)

2009-02-18T23:26:00.014+08:00

The Ninth-day of Chinese New Year, traditionally known as birthday of the Heaven Jade Emperor, is a very significant day to all Chinese Hokkiens. In Hokkien, it is called as the "Pai Ti Gong" day.

Passing the midnight of eighth-day to early morning of ninth-day (~12am, 1am), Hokkiens will get prepared to offer prayers to the Jade Emperor of Heaven 天公. Traditionally, offerings will include 'sugarcane', which was known to have protected the Hokkiens from assassination decades ago. However, due to numbers of sugarcane are wiping out and troublesome of transporting them to house, most modern household chose to skip from offering this item nowadays. Other than that, incense joss stick, candles, tea, wine, dried spring food, sweet spring food, vermicelli (mee suah), 'Huat Ke', 'Ang Ku Ke', 'Nian Gao', red-coloured eggs, fruits and folded incense papers are among common items present as offerings to the honoured Jade Emperor.

As usual, on the 9th day of CNY this year, my family and I made our offerings to the Jade Emperor of Heaven too. On top of those common offering items, we offered sweetened longan agar-agar (jelly) made by my mum and the new Secret Recipe Hazel Cheese Cake bought by me. (^_^)

This Australian Haselgrove red wine tasted good. Maybe it's not because of the brand, but the year of harvested grapes. 2002 red wine seems to be pleasantly good to savour, unlike 2004 red wine.

Chinese New Year Lunch at Jaya Palace Restaurant, Petaling Jaya

2009-02-12T21:50:00.011+08:00

Every year during Chinese New Year, my aunt will call and gather all our relatives to have a CNY lunch together. All adults and kids, together we happily 'lou' 'yee sang' as high as we can, wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year ahead.

This year, we celebrated our CNY lunch at Jaya Palace Restaurant, which is located in Menara LYL, Petaling Jaya. The restaurant can be obviously noticeable when you pass along Federal Highway approaching Menara Axis/ Armada Hotel/ Asia Jaya Putra LRT station.

It's time to 'louuuuuu' the 'Yee Sang'!!!

Have you tasted genuine shark fin served in such a big piece? Hehehe...

The restaurant is nicely decorated and lots of presentable chinese teapots and vases are placed as ornaments. Mini brown chinese teapots were meticulously arranged on every steps of rack surrounding few huge pillars in Jaya Palace.

Chinese New Year 2009 vs Chinese New Year 2007

2009-02-10T19:54:00.008+08:00

Chinese New Year is the time where all relatives gather and meet each other to 'keng kai' and share all the laughters. For some of them, we only meet once a year, but for some of them, I see them grow.

These are two of my youngest cousins. I've not seen the youngest one for 2 years till the late CNY gathering. As for the second youngest girl - the smart mischievous girl, we meet almost everytime I'm back to hometown Klang. She loves to come over to my house ... haha :D play games, kacau kacau ...
Sometimes, she shared her interesting stories of what happened in school when we met. She once told me that she missed her long hair as all her cute hair accesories could not be put-to-use ... (>_<) so small wanna pan leng leng liao ...

Sunway Pyramid's Chinese New Year Decoration

2009-02-08T18:22:00.005+08:00

Pre-Chinese New Year wasn't too good for me as I was down with dry-throat, phlegm, runny nose and cough, and I need plenty more rest than usual. In fact, I'd been sleeping many more hours than I usually did. Weekends were a no-no for me to get out of my room, and there and then, I have not done any CNY shopping at all.

The only CNY decoration I managed to view was the one at Sunway Pyramid, as my journey back to KL for Chinese New Year in Aeroline Bus dropped me off there. Well, I was burdened with my luggages, so it's not a shopping day for me neither.

Bagan Hailam Seafood Restaurant, Port Klang

2009-02-08T16:03:00.004+08:00

Bagan Hailam has been famous for seafood for quite a long time. However, due to the place is situated at quite a deep location of Bagan Hailam fishing village in an island nearby Tanjung Harapan Port Klang, people who are unfamiliar and haven't been there before will have a hard time locating the seafood restaurants there.

No. One (Number One) Bagan Hailam Restaurant is one of the seafood restaurant serving reasonably cheap and finger lickin' good seafood dishes. As the environment there is windy and peaceful at night, there'll also be soft-english-music playing on-air to entertain you while you're mesmerizingly tasting every bit portion of your food.

How do you get there?
Follow the wikimapia map until you observe the signboard at its carpark. The road leading you there is quite bumpy though. Once after you park your car, you'll have to complete your journey by foot into some wooden residential houses, where you'll observe the second signboard of the restaurant as below. Make your way into No.One Bagan Hailam Restaurant through a wooden-bridge pathway.

John King Egg Tarts from One-Utama

2009-02-05T13:12:00.006+08:00

John King famous egg tarts are originally from Hong Kong since 1965. On the question why is it made to be and labeled as lard-free? I guess the main reason is to satisfy all Malaysian eaters among races and being a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian. (-.-")

These John King egg tarts can now be purchased at One-Utama shopping mall. They serves the ordinary egg tart, which is good for everyone, and for particular cholesterol-watchers, you may opt for the milky white-egg tart instead. Egg yolks are extremely high in cholesterol!

These tarts tasted pretty good when eaten hot freshly after baked, and even when eaten cold after refridgerated for days. No kidding!

BELATED Merry Christmas 2008! ~ h0h0h0

2009-02-04T23:37:00.018+08:00

Well, this is yet another out-of-date post as I'd been 'enjoying' my company's shutdown holiday (forced leaves ler) back at hometown Klang, accompanied by long-unseen Astro programmes (don't have Astro to watch in Penang ma), as well as trying out in baking some Chinese New Year cookies!

A week after that, sick sick sick ... antibiotics, lozenges, paracetamol, runny nose tablets, cough syrups ... I've taken everything and until today, I'm still sick ... *cough* *cough* ... Plus, when I'm ill, I'm too lazy to update my blog :p

Before I post anything about CNY, let's look into what I'd seen and captured for Christmas last year. Well, X'mas came before CNY right? ... Hmmmm

As an annual event, my division SSD in Agilent Tech had organized another gathering and gifts exchange for Christmas 2008 celebration. We had lots of fun sharing all the good food, games and everyone earned a present for themselves during the event. Towards the end, we had groups photo for those dressed in reds, and greens & others.

These were some of the Christmas decorations I managed to capture at few shopping malls:

The Curve at Damansara,
Queensbay Mall at Penang Island
Sunway Pyramid at Sunway

Mochi and 'Tang Yuen'

2008-12-27T14:26:00.009+08:00

Mochi is a type of rice cake made of glutinous rice, pounded into paste and molded into shape, generally rounded. It's almost similar to the chinese 'Tang Yuen' (Glutinous Rice-Ball) celebrated during Winter Solstice. Both differ in one being the dry-version, and the other one being the soup-version.

Mochi (dry-version) - Taiwan vacation trip's souvenior from NY.

'Tang Yuen' (soup-version) - Chinese dessert during Winter Solstice.

2008 Penang Bridge Run

2008-12-17T23:26:00.009+08:00

A week before I was admitted to hospital, I was extremely healthy! I completed the 10km fun run for this year's 2008 Penang Bridge Run and was qualified for the lucky draws. Unfortunately, there was no luck to grab any lucky prizes. Penang Bridge Run this year was initially cancelled in June, but was glad that it was re-organized in November as thousands of people are looking forward to it.

Starting point at Jetty to Jerejak Island.

Moving up the path to Penang Bridge.

Morning sceneries from the bridge.

Ending point at AEON Jusco Queensbay Mall.

Admitted to Pantai Hospital

2008-12-17T20:43:00.005+08:00

My days had been busy, and I'm really very tired physically and mentally since the day I discharged from the hospital. I even missed this year's STARWALK as I wasn't physically fit. It has been nearly 3 weeks now, and I'm glad that I'll be able to go home soon enough to have a good rest due to the year-end plant shutdown, plus a few extra days of leave, which I'm going to apply for. It'll be a perfect 2 weeks for me to have sufficient rest and to be fully recovered.

I have never been admitted to any hospital since the very first day my brain could store permanent memories of myself. So this was my first time in. It wasn't that scary to be alone there at night, but I was definitely suffering from the kidney pain and the severe high fever. I was admitted for 4 days due to Pyelonephritis. 4 days before I was admitted, I consulted Agilent in-house clinic's doctor and he put me on 5-days antibiotic medication, plus panadols for the fever. After 3 days, I went back to the in-house clinic as I wasn't feeling any better. Another on-duty doctor, a she, refused to gave me an GL letter to consult a specialist and told me to finish the medication. Fine! The next day I went to the clinic again, the same she doctor kept asking me is it really that pain? Duh....Can I sue her for that? I demanded for the GL letter that evening and when I got it, I planned to consult the specialist the next day while I waited for my parents to arrive that night, but on the night itself, I was already admitted. Fever ... fever ... fever ... nausea ... fever ... I barely can sleep at night. Doctor put me on constant panadol pills to eliminate fevers. Then, sodium chloride + glucose drips and IV antiobiotic drips as I was too weak to consume the antibiotic pills. It was an 8 suffering nights and days. Luckily, my parents came and had accompanied me throughout the week. WT visited me the day after she drove me to the hospital. ML sent sms to convey a get well soon message. NY called to ask. Thanks all!

Okay, I was too bored early in the morning, so I took some photos. Why? Cause nurses woke me up at 7am everyday to change the bedsheet and I don't have my laptop, the only thing I can play with is my hp.

MT & LW's Birthdays Celebration @ Black Canyon AEON Seberang Perai & OldTown Kopitiam

2008-11-16T20:30:00.009+08:00

Last weekend was the 3rd time I celebrated MT and LW's birthdays in Penang. Time passes so fast as if everything happened in quick glances and it marked that I have been in Penang for more than 2 years now. So and so, it’s my third year working/residing in Penang.

This year’s celebration was planned at the new Bandar Perda AEON Jusco Seberang Perai. We dined-in for dinner at Black Canyon, which serves combination of Thai and Italian food. I ordered the hot basil stir-fry spaghetti, expecting the dish to come with lots of deep-fried basils as shown on the menu itself. However, it doesn’t look any like it. But taste-wise, it wasn’t bad. :) Simply nice and reasonably priced below RM8. The variety of tom yum noodle dishes there were appetizing too. On the other side, drinks were more costly. The ice-blended Hazelnut Mocha I had cost higher than the food I ate. (>.<) Black Canyon coffee looked mesmerizing as it was served with a single shot of after-coffee tea, plus a small serving of mini-biscuits. That's how you should enjoy your cup of coffee I guess.

After filling our empty stomachs, we headed to another place, OldTown Kopitiam at ermmm, somewhere … duh, I’m not familiar with Seberang Perai ler.
We had some chit-chat sessions there and finally, the so-called-donuts (BIG APPLE Donuts) birthday cake was placed out with plenty of candles as …..below!

HP, Dell & Toshiba recall Sony-made notebooks' batteries!!!

2008-11-04T10:49:00.016+08:00

As I was browsing through The STAR online, i came across this news reported on 31st Oct, with headline 'Faulty notebook batteries being recalled'. According to it, HP, Dell and Toshiba are currently recalling their notebooks' batteries made by Sony Corporation. Up to date, there have been 40 global overheating incidents which involve these product models. Some incidents observed smokes/flames/burns, while some resulted in property damage. Sony Corporation made a press statement reporting that the recalls will expect to include ~100,000 notebooks using the 2.15Ah lithium ion cells battery packs..... Such a huge amount!

Here is the list of affected HP models notebook:

Free replacement for certain affected/faulty batteries of these models are confirmed. Please visit HP website for more details:- www.hp.com/support/batteryreplacement or you may call the HP Service and Support at 1-800-88-4848.

As for Dell models notebook, the list is as follows:

Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810, D530, D620ATG
Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90
XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710

Other than that, some potentially affected batteries were sold with the following Dell notebook models or sold separately as secondary batteries:
Latitude: 110L, D530
Inspiron: 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150, 5160

The batteries may also be used in the following models:
Latitude: D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610
Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M
Precision: M20

For more details on replacement for Dell's faulty batteries, do visit its website:- www.dellbatteryprogram.com

Do You Love Gardening? ... Prosperity Flowers, Money Plants & Japanese Bamboo

2008-11-01T23:28:00.005+08:00

So, do you love gardening?
My father does. These are some of the plants in my house's garden at Klang. Well-grown ...

Prosperity Flowers / Adenium Obesum / 'Fu Kui Hua' (富貴花)

Money Plant 1: Pothos / Epipremnum aureum
Money Plant 2: Zamioculcus zamiifolia / 'Jin Qian Shu' (金钱树)

Japanese Bamboo Plant

Dragon-i at AEON Jusco Bukit Tinggi Klang

2008-10-21T20:22:00.009+08:00

Laksa... curry mee... tom yam... rojak...
Laksa... curry mee... tom yam... rojak...
What else can you find in Penang? (>.<) ...

Well, after 2 years, of course will be bored abit la :p ... Once in a while, will eat in restaurant lo...

Since I had tried Dragon-i in Penang, definitely I would like to share the good food with my parents in Klang too. So, during my last trip back in Klang, I brought my parents to Dragon-i at AEON Jusco Bukit Tinggi Klang for lunch.

From my previous experience of being too full, I made a wiser choice by ordering just 2 bowls of 'La Mian' with fried pork ribs to be shared among 3 of us. In addition to that, we ordered the 'Xiao Long Bao' as starter dish and Yam pastry as dessert. I love the yam pastry very much. The yam paste was tasty and smooth. This time around, the Gingko Barley Soybean Beancurd with quail eggs dessert is not in our list, as my mum can prepare this dessert much better with more gingkos, lotus seeds, lily bulbs and other ingredients in it, but without quail eggs. :> The quail egg is high in cholesterol ma... :p As for drinks, my dad opted for chinese tea, while I shared a cup of Barley Lemon with my mum.

Morib Beach, Selangor

2008-10-17T19:30:00.010+08:00

Do you know what I did last summer?
... Ooops, I meant holiday... last Hari Raya holiday...

Well, my little cousin was jumping up and down happily shouting, "I want, I want" when my aunt suggested to go to the beach. So, Morib beach was where we headed to, on the first day of Hari Raya.

Morib beach is situated approximately 45 minutes drive along the coastal road from AEON Jusco Bukit Tinggi Klang heading towards Banting. The preparation started off with myself making some fried onion tuna sandwiches and also some pan-fried breads covered with eggs and milk. As for the drinks, my mum brought along her huge thermos filled with ice cubes and a bottle of syrup juice. These simple yet appetizing food and drinks would kept the kids energized from running around building sand-castles and playing in the water. However, to our disappointment, the water level had raised quite high in height and the waves were strong when we reached. There were totally no sands in-sight.

We chose the best place we could locate and laid down our mat just like a mini picnic session. All food and drinks, as well as playing tools were placed around the area. As everyone was just warming up enjoying the breeze, we finished off all the sandwiches even before going down into the seawater (>.<) ... insufficient of sandwiches. I shall prepare more during our next trip there. :)

This cute little girl was disappointed as she was unable to play in the seawater. Moreover, there were no chance for her to build up her architectural skills. Too bad. (-.-") Only the guys went down into the seawater, which were my dad, my uncle and his 3 sons (my cousins). The youngest boy out there was apparently floating on the seawater with a float. His brother held tightly to him and the float in his arm as the waves were strong. Poor boy, he might had swallowed down few mililitres of salt water there. But I guess, he did enjoyed himself.

After the boys took their shower, we kept everything in the car and went for a short walk along the beach. Half-way through, we noticed lots of monkeys hanging around the trees. Few of them came down to look for food, and this old wicked monkey was one of them. Why? It tried to attack me after I captured all its 'leng leng' photographs . (>.<)

On our way home, we stopped by at our after-beach-usual-dine-in-place at Jenjarom for a hearty meal. This restaurant named 'Restoran Sin Kim Leng' serves the best chinese food at Jenjarom. We had been been loyal to them for years now. The prices are reasonable too. (^o^)

As all of us were extremely hungry and tempted to the food, I did not capture any photos of the food we had. Maybe next time...

Kuala Selangor Prawn Crackers

2008-10-15T19:44:00.004+08:00

Kuala Selangor has been popular due to its well-known historical fort, Kota Melawati and also its fireflies attraction. Despite these 2 attractions, people who visit Kuala Selangor will definitely try the seafood as they're fresh and cheap.

How well do I know Kuala Selangor? Hmmmm...my dad would know much better than me for sure. Kuala Selangor is my dad's hometown and it was the town where he grew up in. Therefore when I was small, I used to travel with my parents to this place quite often to visit my grandparents and relatives.

Kuala Selangor is also popular with its dried shrimps for being larger in size and its huge white prawn crackers. Both are selling at reasonably low price.

Let us focus on these scrumptious huge white prawn crackers. As you may see, this prawn cracker was measured at approximately 18cm before it was fried. After applying into a pool of super hot, boiling cooking oil in a large frying pan, this prawn cracker grew into a huge eatable snack measured at about 28cm. (^o^) hohoho....

Well, whenever I look at it, I can't withstand from not having at least 1 piece. That's it! And there I ended up activating pimples on my face. Why? Prawns ma....somehow, I'm just allergy to it... :(

P/S: Do not use non-stick pan to replace frying pan as the prawn cracker will not grow as large as 28cm!!!

Home-made Caramel Egg Custard

2008-10-13T23:55:00.002+08:00

Smooth caramel egg custard... looks good? Tasted good for sure....Very very sweet too! My mum made it. :)

Home-Cook Lamb Steak

2008-10-13T00:10:00.003+08:00

My first attempt in cooking Lamb Steak turned out to be not bad after all. The taste was not bad too. :p

It is as easy as 1 2 3.
Just heat up a non-stick pan and pan-fry each side of the lamb shoulder at 3 minutes each. After 6 minutes, VOILA ... done!

If you prefer to have some sauce to go with it, black pepper would be good enough. The cooked lamb steak can be cut into smaller pieces, as well as removing all fats so that they can be consume easily on dinner table. :>

Mee Hun Kueh (Hokkien cuisine) at Taman Berkerley, Klang

2008-10-12T18:12:00.005+08:00

Mee Hun Kueh is one of the famous dish among Hokkien people. It is mainly made from wheat flour, eggs, small pinch of salt and some water. It may looks simple to make, but in fact, it is not. There are techniques in making this hand-kneaded wheat cake, as well as the tasty soup base and crispy fried anchovies that mix well with it.

During my last trip back to Klang, I had my Mee Hun Kueh at Taman Berkerley, which is next to Taman Eng Ann. This particular shop has been famous for its Mee Hun Kueh and signature drinks of Barley CinCau and Barley Soybean for a long time. The shop would be packed and crowded with people most of the time, and not to mention the situations during peak hours. Some may opt to purchase the kneaded 'dough' home and cook themselves rather than waiting for the long queue. But for those who are from outstation, I'm pretty sure they'll patiently wait for it. :)

Usually, I'll have Mee Hun Kueh at my previous housing area in Taman Chi Liung whenever I'm back in Klang. It tastes good too. In fact, you can easily find Mee Hun Kueh at any coffee shops in Klang. On the other hand, I find it hard to locate this dish in Penang. Probably...it is not popular among Hokkien people in Penang??? Hmmmmm......

Reclaim, reclaim, reclaim Lands of Penang Island

2008-10-12T00:08:00.007+08:00

Penang Island used to be a tiny little island. As decades passed, Penang Island had been expanding larger steps by steps, reclaiming lands to enhance the development of this used-to-be a small historical island. Up to date, more and more lands reclaimation are progressing nearby Bayan Lepas, as well as Tanjung Tokong.

What are these lands for? Mainly, they're for major projects expanding commercial lots and of course residential homes. Residential homes ranging from apartments, condominiums to landed properties are always in high demand, which lead to an unexpected increase in the pricing of almost all properties. But, will the recent economy crisis play any impact on those properties' investment? Hmmm, doubts ...

Dragon-i at Queensbay Mall, Penang

2008-10-11T11:31:00.006+08:00

Dragon-i in Queensbay Mall is located at the top floor of centre court. The restaurant had a very good view, where it oversees a seaview surrounding Jerejak Island. I'm not too sure whether Penang Bridge will be in the picture or not, but I guess it may be seen at certain angles/seats in the restaurant itself.

The overall look potrays a well-managed design as there are few 3/4 rounded red couches, which are sufficiently comfortable for some workaholics to gather and have a short direct meeting over there.

Firstly, a must-try in Dragon-i is their famous signature dish, the Shanghai Dumpling filled with sips of soup, or popularly known as the 'Xiao Long Bao'. These Shanghai dumplings are best eaten when they're still warm, and they goes well with some sliced-ginger, as well as few drops of black vinegar. (^o^)

Secondly, let's introduces the main course. Since it is a Shanghainese restaurant, it would be best to try their 'La Mian', which is the hand-made Shanghai Noodles. A simple but great in taste 'La Mian' comes in a pool of clear fragrant soup that blends well with fried pork ribs. The pork ribs are not just nakedly fried. They are rolled over with some flour consisting of some unknown spices before being thrown into the hot boiling oil. Well...anyhow, the most important thing is that they tasted pretty good. Worth a try! Few maybe. :p

And oh, the serving portions are quite huge indeed. May need to consider bi-sharing if you plan to try their other delicacies and desserts.

Lastly, there's always an option to skip a drink and order a dessert instead. Their 'Ginkgo Barley Soy Bean Curd' serves well with quail eggs. At least with 2 floating quail eggs, the dessert presentation doesn't look plainly dull. (-.0)

Amy's Birthday at Aji Noren Japanese Restaurant

2008-10-09T23:55:00.008+08:00

Another post on Aji Noren Japanese Restaurant!
Why again? Cause it was Amy's birthday and we're running out of idea where to dine-in for dinner.
Since all three of them have not been to this place yet, so ... and so, we agreed and headed to this japanese restaurant at Tanjung Tokong.

Upon reaching there, the place was already packed with diners. (0-0) Seeeee...how good their business is! Kidding you not.

While waiting for our food to arrive, we presented a piece of printed warm birthday wish, which is a masterpiece drawn and emailed from a friend at far far far away in Shanghai....hehehe

This time, I didn't opt for the Unagi set, but the three of them did. I wanted to try some other dishes, so I chose the Teriyaki Fish set that came along with stir-fry tamago (egg). As I had expected, the teriyaki fish tasted absolutely irresistable...yumyum...the taste of the teriyaki sauce hit exactly right at the point, where it wasn't too salty nor too sweet.

The 'set meals' servings are quite large in portion. If you do plan to dine-in here, at least make sure that you're superb hungry for that moment (definitely for ladies).

After all of us had finished off our extremely full set meals, we continued to chat, chat and chat, while enjoying the free-flow servings of green tea. By the time it was getting late, we presented the birthday girl with a cute mini- birthday cake, a wrapped-up birthday present and finally, the birthday card filled with wishes from all friends. :)

Aji Noren Japanese Restaurant, Tanjung Tokong

2008-09-16T20:49:00.005+08:00

One of my favourite dining place in Penang is Aji Noren Japanese Restaurant at Tanjung Tokong. It is located at a row of shophouses facing Ivory Property, which is opposite Island Plaza.

Aji Noren serves variety types of yummy and irresistable japanese cuisines. It's menu is spoilt with numerous choices ranging from many ala carte dishes to plenty of special set meals. And trust me ... their special set meals are worth the $$ you pay! You'll definitely have a good satisfying hearty meal. :)

Fly Fly Fly with AirAsia

2008-09-15T13:08:00.007+08:00

To clarify, I'm not blogging during my work time. It's my lunch time and it's meant for me, not for my work. :p

I used to browse through the AirAsia website seeking for offers from time to time so that I can plan my trip back to hometown at lowest price, or at least at an affordable price. (I'm not $$ loaded k....) And as I was browsing through the AirAsia website today, it reminded me of some photos I'd taken during my last trip travelling in AirAsia Jet back to Penang from KL. Well, the photos were taken with my handphone as I do not own any digicam and you know what, I 'think' I didn't violate any rules onboard gua...since I switched it on in "FLIGHT MODE", only at times when electronics items are allowable to be switched on for sure.

Puddles of puffy clouds, but the sky was still bright!

After landed at Penang International Airport, planes' parking bays could be seen to be having some minor renovations/ upgrades.

2008 Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節 - Lanterns & Mooncakes

2008-09-13T15:47:00.009+08:00

Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節 is just around the corner. During my last trip back to Klang, my family and I went to Jusco AEON Bukit Tinggi Klang to hunt for some mooncakes as there were merdeka sales. The shopping mall is wonderfully decorated with plenty of huge lanterns hanging above the centre court, while countless of people beneath the decorations were busy selecting mooncakes from all range of mooncake brands, moving from one booth to another.

Most brands were offering a good deal of 'Buy 4 Free 1' for a one-day merdeka sale, however the only brand we were interested to buy and had bought didn't have such a good buy. Only certain selected flavours offered a 20% discount.

Penang Adventist Bakery Breads

2008-09-13T15:17:00.003+08:00

For those who favour healthy food, you should try the Adventist Bakery Breads. They have all sorts and plenty varieties of breads/ buns, inclusive of tasty cinnamon rolls and non-flour wholemeal buns.

YakiTeppan Japanese Cuisine, Sg. Nibong

2008-09-13T14:47:00.005+08:00

Few weeks back, before sending WT to the bus terminal to catch a bus back to hometown, we had our dinner at nearby YakiTeppan Japanese Restaurant. YakiTeppan serves average priced Japanese cuisines for average food quality.

The garlic fried rice that came with the set meal was good and tasty. However, the main dish of teriyaki chicken and fish with sliced cabbages are overly too salty for me. It made me hydrated throughout the night. :(

Herbal Duck Drumstick Mee Suah Soup and Air Itam Pet Shop

2008-08-14T23:36:00.003+08:00

Last Sunday, WT, NY and I went to Georgetown for breakfast together. We had the so-called famous Herbal Ark Tui Mee Suah (Duck Drumstick Vercemille) Soup at Sg Pinang. Despite its popularity in Penang, I still do prefer the Herbal Duck Meat Vercemille at Lucky Garden, Bangsar. The Penang version was somehow too oily with lesser herbal taste, while the Bangsar version was much much nicer with a clear-look soup base, which has the 'umph' of exactly the right portion of herbal soup taste. My family and I had never miss to have the Ark Tui Mee Suah whenever we visit Bangsar. :)

After filling our empty stomach, we went to a pet shop at Air Itam as NY needed to buy some skin illness medicine for both his doggie, Bebe and also his gf's little doggie. When we were there, this cutie squirrel caught my eyes. It was jumping between 2 spots non-stop and it was so difficult for me to capture a photo of it. At last, these were what I managed to get.

There were also a few little hard-rounded shell tortoises caught enjoying their PAPAYA lunch! How surprising??? Hmmm, maybe it's only me since I used to think that tortoises eat vegetables only, such as kangkung, spinach, etc., but not fruits. (=.=)

IPOH Famous Ngah Choi Kai (Bean Sprouts Chicken)

2008-08-03T01:25:00.007+08:00

We stopped by Ipoh town to have our dinner after visiting Teluk Intan. Most of us opted for the Ipoh famous Ngah Choi Kai (Bean Sprouts Chicken). We placed orders for 3-person Ngah Choi Kai (bean sprout chicken), a plate of juicy bean sprouts, meatballs and 4 bowls of Hor Fun (rice noodle) soup. However, the meatballs weren't served eventhough we had finished our meal. Therefore, there's no photo of meatballs. :p

The Ngah Choi Kai and bean sprouts didn't taste as good as they were several years back and the Hor Fun soup had an excessively strong pepper taste. If you don't favour pepper too much, remember to inform when you place your order next time.

Other than this famous Ngah Choi Kai, I'd always missed the Kai Xi Hor Fun (Shreded Chicken Rice Noodle) soup at Ipoh's Kao Kai Cheong (Old town of Ipoh), which ML and WT brought NY, Vic and me there for lunch during our visit there last year for Chim's open house. :>

The Leaning Clock Tower of Teluk Intan (Teluk Anson)

2008-08-02T22:57:00.006+08:00

After visiting Bukit Tinggi, our second plan was to visit The Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan before we stopped for dinner at Ipoh town.

Teluk Intan is a small town situated at the lower part of Perak state and slightly above Selangor state. In the old days, the place was more popularly known as Teluk Anson.

The weather didn’t seem to be pleasing while we were on our way there as it was raining throughout half of our journey there. However, as we reached the actual spot, it proved our lucks good. The weather was just perfect at the time we reached there.

Brief history about the Leaning Clock Tower of Teluk Intan:

The Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan has been one of the most curious landmarks. It was built in year 1885. Back then, it was initially known as the High Clock Tower due to its magnificent clock, which is still working fine till these days. Standing at the height of 25.5-meter and on the base of ~13-meter, the tower has 110 built-in steps connecting 3 floors. At the top, there is a water storage tank, which was used to secure water in the event of draughts and fires. However, in years 1889 and 1895, two major floods had submerged the base of the tower, causing prior solid base turning into soft-ground.

Adding to this factor, heavy tonnes of flowing water from the water storage tank to water outlet at NorthWest side of the Clock Tower caused it to lean slightly to the NorthWest. Since then, it was called the Leaning Tower.

Distinctly, the design of this tower has similarity to elements of Chinese architectural. The observable elements consisted of the barrier, mortar strips, eves and drippers.

We explored the Leaning Clock Tower by reading the interesting stories on history panels, observing those eye-catching photos, counting our steps up from bottom to the top floor and re-counting our steps down back to bottom again. It was definitely a new finding for us to survey one of those historical towers in our country. A minute or two after we decided to leave, heavy rains came pouring down. Well, I guessed our timing hit the correct spot, or else we might ended up terribly wet!!!

BUKIT TINGGI - Rabbit Park, Colmar Tropical (French Village), Japanese Garden and Botanical Garden

2008-08-01T23:45:00.018+08:00

After having our buffet breakfast at First World Hotel’s café, we decided to check out early and headed to our planned destination: BUKIT TINGGI. It was my second visit there.

Our first stop was the Bukit Tinggi Rabbit Park, which cost us an entrance fee of RM 3 per person in order to gain access into the park. So what can we do in this kiddy park? Hahaha….chasing around with those cute flabby rabbits before you’re able to grip and catch them. Those rabbits were so weighty and no doubts that they overate and overslept most of the time. The place had changed from the first time I was there 4 years ago. Obviously, the amount of rabbits was lesser and the area of the park had been minimized. Besides rabbits, a few donkeys and mouse deer can be discovered as well.

- RABBIT PARK -

Driving upwards leaded us to the main entrance to Colmar Tropical (French Village), Japanese Garden and Botanical Garden. We paid another RM 13 per person to visit these 3 beautiful places. The scenery of French Village, Japanese Garden and Botanical Garden were simply inspiring and spectacular.

- COLMAR TROPICAL (FRENCH VILLAGE) -

- JAPANESE GARDEN -

- BOTANICAL GARDEN -

First World Hotel & Theme Park @ Genting Highlands

2008-07-31T09:21:00.015+08:00

The last time I went to Genting Highlands was way back about 4 to 5 years ago. Obviously I'm not addicted to gambling! And how do I remember it was like 4 to 5 years ago? Well, I was stopped by the guard at the Genting Casino entrance for being underage, (-.-") although I was there with my granduncle, grandaunt, aunt and dad. But I manage to sneak in a while later. :p During the visit, I didn't manage to discover the new First World theme park since we headed off straight into Genting Casino in the morning and return home straight on that night itself.

My real venture around Genting Theme Park with my fellow high school friends right after secondary 5 was even earlier back in year 2001. We had a good time screaming our lungs out in the countless corkscrew roller-coaster rides, bumping/attacking into strangers with bumper cars, racing among ourselves in the go-kart race and etc.

As years passed by, more and more exciting rides, games and leisure activities including shopping centres in the theme park had been set up. The landscaping looks amazingly favourable to kids as well as adults. I'm already thinking of bringing my small little cousin there. She'll definitely love it.

NST FIZ Genting Highlands Treasure Hunt 2008

2008-07-30T23:13:00.010+08:00

Waking up at 4.30am was easy as I was keenly looking forward to this NST FIZ Treasure Hunt race. It was my 2nd time participating in this event. In previous year 2007 race, we had explored Langkawi Island. This year 2008, our race began from Penang and the tulips brought us around exploring Tambun town, as well as Ipoh town before we finally reached to our end point at Tapah rest area. After declaring every possible answers and treasures to the facilitator, we were free as birds for the next few hours to plan any outing for ourselves before heading off to check-in into First World Hotel at Genting Highlands.

On that night itself, we had our grand NST FIZ Treasure Hunt 2008 dinner event at Genting Highlands GICC (Genting International Convention Centre) Hall 4.

The event started at 7pm and dinner was served in buffet-style. After filling our superb empty stomach with juicy/fresh salad as appetizer, hearty main meal of rice, sphagetti,curry chicken, lamb stew, etc., and colourfully decorated sweet desserts, lucky draw winners and treasure hunt winners were announced. Although my team didn't manage to grab any determined places in this year's treasure hunt, we were somehow or at least glad to grab home a lucky draw hamper sponsored by Guardian Bayan Baru. :)

Inflation vs Standards of Living

2008-07-23T19:51:00.005+08:00

Inflation isn’t a new news to all of us now. Mainly, it is due to the recent price hike in petrol, which eventually caused price increased in almost all other consumers’ daily products and food. But why are prices rising to such a high level as compared to previous years? And I do believe that some irrational people out there had taken the advantage to increase costs and charges due to the petrol price hike even though they were not a concern to them.

An email from a colleague today had ringed the bell on how horrifying inflation had been causing an imperfection in our societies since 1970s.

v A 1.3L Japanese car was about MYR 7,000 back then. Today, it is about MYR 60,000, which is roughly 8.5 times higher in price.
v A double-storey terrace house was about MYR 45,000 or less back then. Today, it is about MYR 300,000, which is roughly 6.6 times higher in price.

For over 35 years,
v An engineer’s pay was about MYR 1,000 back then. Today, it is about MYR 2,000, which is roughly 2 times higher ONLY or perhaps to the maximum will be 3 times.

Obviously, the inflation is growing in an exponential up-curve while salary is only growing linearly.

How did we gauge our standards of living over these past 35 years??? Okay, fine, we survived!
But, how are we to weigh our standards of living in years to come??? …

Top 5 America's Cheapest Cars

2008-07-23T18:43:00.006+08:00

When I was browsing through Yahoo a while ago, this particular news caught my eyes.

Yahoo announced top 5 America's cheapest cars for year 2008 as below:

2008 Kia Rio - Base MSRP: $10,890, Combined EPA MPG: 29 manual
2009 Chevrolet Aveo - Base MSRP: $11,460, Combined EPA MPG: 28 automatic
2008 Toyota Yaris - Base MSRP: $11,550, Combined EPA MPG: 32 manual/31 automatic
2008 Smart Fortwo Pure - Base MSRP: $11,590, Combined EPA MPG: 36 manual
Kia Spectra - Base MSRP: $12,895, Combined EPA MPG: 26 manual/27 automatic

Practically, I was aiming at the Toyota Yaris since the photo of it was attached to the news, plus the low Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of USD 11,550. Converting this amount to MYR will only result in less than MYR 40,000. An expected total sad case for all Malaysian I guess. I'm still in the mist of nowhere, wondering why am I paying MYR 45,000 for a locally-made-car, PERODUA MYVI as I can actually owned a TOYOTA YARIS instead, which costs MYR 92,000 here. *sigh x infinity*