xiao wei & leo big day

In January, Xiao Wei and Leonard tied the knot. She is not only my work buddy, she is my chatting friend who I can say anything to, she is also a close friend to me at work. I really feel sad that she left the company. Anyway, in the other hand, I am happy that she took the brave step and went back to study.

The lovely wedding was held in Flamingo hotel, Tanjung Bungah. The place looked wonderful that night, what can you say more, a pool side wedding. The bride is fabulous as ever.


This is the solemnization part that I missed because I was in charged of the receptionist that evening. Looking at the photo below, I saw her mom disbelief look that Leonard really kissed the bride so hard.


A nice photo of me taken with WL by the official photographer.

I didn't send this photo below to herhau because the actual photo is really blur. It looks good below because I resize it smaller.

With colleagues; current and ex.

Despite the humid and hot weather that night, we had fun. This is the last photo taken with the happy couple before we left.

Recipe : Sup sayur

If we go to the malay stall opposite Seagate for dinner, we will sure order sup sayur which in English is vegetable soup. We like the soup taste as it is sweet with a little hint of sourness. I googled everything I can find yesterday but from the ingredients these people list down, I don't find the sourness. Therefore before I went home, I told WL this : I will try to cook sup sayur today but there is no guarantee that I can make the same as the malay stall's one.


I gathered some vegetables I took from home last weekend and washed out the juice from tamarind and made this! He said this is the best food of year 2010 after the last stewed pork with salted fish. I think this is called a success.


Sup sayur ingredients
Small bak choy- small pieces
1/2 carrot - your fav shape
napa cabbage -small pieces
cauliflower - small pieces
1 tomato - wedged
button mushroom -sliced (This is my extra ingredients to add the kick to the soup)
fishball (This is my extra ingredients to add the kick to the soup ;))
2 cloves garlic -sliced
1 red onion - sliced
chicken boullion 1/2 cube
salt
grounded pepper corns
3 bowls water
Tamarind juice

Garnishing
fried onion

Saute red onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon of oil until fragrant
Throw in fish balls, button mushroom and all vege except small bak choy because we want to mantain the texture of the greenies. Crunchy greenies taste better
Add water, salt, chicken boullion and grounded pepper corns.
Wash out the juice from tamarind after you soak 2 tamarinds in water. Pour the juice in for the sourness.
Boil for 10-15 minutes until carrot soften
Throw in small bak choy, boil 2 minutes and serve hot.

Stewed pork belly with salted fish

I am glad to present you my favourite dish "ham yu fa lam pou". In English it shall be called something like stewed pork belly with salted fish. I made it on Monday all with my own recipe (scream proud) and I am so happy it won the best dish 2010 award by Weeliem.

Recipe below

Ingredients:

600 gram pork belly, cut into thin slices

salted fish. Erm, small piece?

garlic 2 cloves

2 shallots, wedged

ginger, the size of thumb, cut into pieces

2 teaspooon dark soy sauce

6 tblspn light soy sauce

1 tblspn osyter sauce

5 tblspn water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tblspn corn flour

shao xing wine 3 tblspn

pepper

2 bird eyes chillies (if you like)

2 dried chillies (if you like. it adds fragrance)

Easy steps:

Marinate pork with, corn flour, 1 tbspn light soy sauce, shao xing wine

Throw everything into a stew pot. Stew for 20-30minutes. If the gravy dried up, add more water.

Big baby, small baby

My sister visited me over last weekend and it was a thrill to hear the babies calling ah-yi here and there. Home filled with cute baby voices, used baby napkins in rubbish bin, potty outside the bathroom, baby milk bottles, foot step sounds when they ran, I miss those already.

Big baby loves umbra with sour plum drink.

Small baby can't sit still all the times

Come again!!!

PHOTOLOG #32: 20100224

After seeing photos of garlic butter shrimp in herhau's facebook, I was tempted to try it. So I went back home and took the 7 large shrimps I had frozen in my fridge, unfroze them. Threw generous amount of butter, minced garlic, parsley and salt at the shrimps on the aluminium foil, I had them baked in the oven for 20 minutes. Remembering the herb rice Fang Fang made for us 2 years ago, I tried to make one myself creating my own recipe. Haha. Weeliem came back home and told me that the food smelled so good. We had the combination of herb rice, baked shrimp, stir fry cauliflower and lotus root+groundnuts soup for yesterday dinner. All ready in 30 minutes minus the baking and cooking rice time. Okay, I heated the soup from previous meal. :P Yummy CNY!

Chinese New Year pictures

I took some pictures during Chinese New Year and here they are. I didn't have any pictures with my elder sister and her family because I was lazy to take out my camera to snap some the other day when went back home.

As usual on every year, my mom will persuade us to go to Dong Chan Shi in Jenjarom because it is on our way back home from our grandparents house. All of us hate this place because the weather is so damn hot during chinese new year and it is nothing really spectacular to us the young. Anyway it is lovely attraction for the older people because it is all lights and flowers.

Lantern decoration



Mom and I in my new cheong sam

On the 2rd day of CNY, we drove to Penang because my mom never visit Penang before in her whole life. It was a rush trip as we have to go back home on the next day as my dad has to start working on the 4th day. I wanted to bring my mom to Thai food so I picked Bt Genting Thai restaurant.

That's my sister playing with her phone while we walked around camwhoring.

With parents and sister

We also made a short trip to Kek Lok Si despite the heavy traffic jam and hot weather.

After some makan, my mom suggested that we visit snake temple. There are not many snakes left in the temple and it was so hot and sweaty day.

Anyway, when my elder sister and her family are here for the weekend this week I will remember to snap some photos with the babies... :D

PHOTOLOG #31: 20100209

What came to me.. is the glow of future

On the last day of my vacation to Hangzhou and Shanghai, it snowed! I have seen snow before but that was post snow. This time I saw it snowing but...... I was in the airport, already checked in! The flakes were so tiny and they melted once they were few metres from the ground. I tried snapping a few pictures and to no avail, I caught nothing big. It cheered the kiddy side of me a little while waiting for our flight. I am so triggered to go again to somewhere when it is snowing. That's the reason why in the early morning of the day, it was super cold. Weeliem and I were freezing when we walked a few blocks down the road from our hotel. We made a turn and got back into hotel because of the coldness.

Can you see it snowing from the above pic? No? Me too.

There is a little change of status to me recently. I am engaged. Nothing change. I mean, my life is still the same. The difference is the tiny thing on my finger. In the first place, I was a bit confused on which finger shall an engagement finger goes to. I heard various belief and ideas. My married friend said she wears her wedding band on the ring finger of her right hand and engagement ring on the middle finger of left hand. I searched from the internet, the westerners said wear engagement on left hand contrary to Chinese rule, left for the women, right for the men. They said wear engagement ring on the ring finger of right hand. When you got married, slip on the wedding band at the outer side of your engagement ring. I am confused. After trying to put the ring on my right hand ring finger, I realised that it is not convenient in everyday life because I keep banging the bling-bling when I open the door, put something on table, grab things and do all sort of things. So now I have it on my left hand middle finger because it looks pretty there! or sometimes on my right hand ring finger. So which one are you going to put on?

Since everybody is freeing up, I begin to get busy. I have so much things to do. Setting up new environment, evaluating the tool, conducting trainings, setting up exercises.... Hey! and it is Xwei and Leo wedding tomorrow! I am going to be at the receptionist table (proud). It means I have to arrive really early because I am supposed to pick the flowers from florist and make it on time for the vow session. So here it goes, I will be at somebody's wedding again and don't get me wrong, I am still excited over these stuff. Not bored yet.

PHOTOLOG #30: 20100124

Sticky and exhausted

Another day in Hangzhou

We started early the next day in Hangzhou by walking to West Lake again to take some scenic photos. It was not as cold as the day before.

After short discussion, we agreed to meet with another 3 friends who were going to take another cab at Pao Chu Pagoda but their cab dropped them at another entrance which was not the correct one. We were officialy separated into 2 groups and visited the places that we had planned. We could not afford to walk to meet with each other because the 2 places are far apart. We will meet up again at another place in an hour. Climbing up the stairs to this pagoda is really a hard job for me as there is so many stair cases in China and later on there are more stairs to climb!!!

Pao chu pagoda was built from bricks/stone and has no door. There were many old people hiking up the stairs and do some simple stretching or tai chi here and along the way walking through the jungle, we could see some groups playing badminton, rock climbing (the ancient way, just climb up without any help, touches the top of the hill and come back down) and yelling on top of their voice (to exercise lung I supposed).

I forgot what's this. It was some rocks where they said there should be water flowing, but I didn't see any water flow. It must have dried up.

This was the place we were going to meet the rest. Yue Fei mausoleum. I just learnt from the Song city show the day before that Yue Fei was a hero in during Song dynasty.

There were 4 statues there, they said those were the prime minister of somewhere and his wife and 2 guards that betrayed Yue Fei causing his death. They 4 were chained up, stripped and kneeled down. People used to spit on them to show disgust, so now the management of this place put up a board asking people not to spit there.

Lunch time, we went to try this local famous restaurant called Lou Wai Lo. We had "dong po rou", beggar's chicken and etc. The food was yummy but super expensive. That beggar chicken if not mistaken cost somewhere around RM80.

We took ferry ride (sort of) to a small man-made island in West Lake and spent about 3 hours there. We were allowed to spend unlimited time on the small island and later we chose to leave the island through lei feng pagoda ferry terminal.

Once we got down from the ferry, there was a park nearby. We saw these plants, I think is cabbage plant which is not edible. :P

We were supposed to go "lei feng" pagoda but the time passed too fast. It was getting darker and by the time we reach there (by walking) the sun is already down. So we just took some photos from far at the same time admiring the sunset from bridge nearby and discard the intention to visit "lei feng" pagoda. This bridge is along "Sudi", another famous road around West Lake.

I think this is called Hefang jie where there were a lot stalls to buy stuff. Expensive, blood sucker, for tourist - explain all.

West Lake, Six Harmonies Pagoda, Tiger Spring and Song City in Hangzhou

We were back to Hangzhou on the third day and going to spend the rest of our vacation days in Hangzhou. We stayed nearby West Lake (Xi hu) about 10 minutes walk from hotel to the lake. The first thing we did once we refreshed after check-in hotel was to walk to the lake. The weather was pretty good that morning. West Lake is about 5.68 square km and 1.5m average depth, a beautiful lake compared to Xi Zi, the most beautiful woman in ancient China as described by poet Su Dongpo from Song dynasty.

In picture below, I stood on the map of Hangzhou with the details on each bridge and exit/entrace to this city.If I was a general in ancient China, this map is very useful in war :)

Then we walked about 30 minutes to Tiger Spring (Hupao spring). This place is famous for its spring water also known as third best spring in China. It produces excellent natural mineral water and is also the burial place of monk Jigong.

Then we walked again. This time we went to Six Harmonies Pagoda. To enter the pagoda, we had to pay 2 times of entrance fee. One to get into the area, another one to enter the pagoda. The pagoda is made of wood and brick, plus the staircase is very narrow. I had hard time climbing the staircase due to my knee problem. The guard spat in the pagoda. Basically everyone in China spits. Yucks.

We quickly grabbed a cab and rushed to Song city before it gets dark. Song City is an imitation city build on a land similar to ancient China days.

There was a girl on the stage performing in the super cold weather. Salute.

The streets with shops and stalls.

Puppet show. Song city is like a theme park. The guys all went into haunted house and came back laughing. I don't know what happened in there.

Road side performance, just like in movies.

The Buddha statue. There is a shallow tunnel below the statue. People can go in there and experience some swirlings wall making one dizzy.

We purchased the ticket to watch the prestigious Song city show. We got the RMB220 seat which is equivalent to RM110.

It has five different performances. First is Song dynasty performances in the castle.

Then we watched Yue Fei's legend. Everything was in 3D. We got real horses in the battle in front of us and arrows archered from top and also cannons.

Hangzhou is famous for its Long Jing tea. The next show was on the tea dance and some Korea. Indian cultural dances too.

West Lake.

Last but not least we watched the green and white snake legend show. I didnt take any photos on this performance because I took a video. They made it rain in the arena on the part where they showed white snake flooded the fountain. Anyway, the show was nice and worth the price. Maybe for only once. :) I learnt some Chinese history from this trip seriously, like who is Yue Fei, the white and green snake, West Lake, who is Su Dongpo and some others.