What's For Lunch?

Usually, when I am at home I cook a simple meal for lunch. Very often it's noodles and some vegetables.

Two days ago, I helped Rachel prepare dinner. It was a very simple meal. The ingredients were button mushrooms, lots of garlic, some Italian spices and spaghetti. Simple right? It was delicious.

Today, I tried making something like that, but with different ingredients.

First I boiled the spaghetti, the broccoli and some sausages.

Then I chopped the garlic (the garlic chopper makes it so easy) and yellow onions and fried them separately. Once the spaghetti, broccoli and sausages were cooked, I fried them together with the onions and garlic. I added some Italian spices. Rachel told me no to put thyme in, but mine came in a premixed bottle and I thought it should be alright.

My pasta dish looked good. The smell was right. I would love to boast of my fine cooking but I have to admit, the taste was horrible. It was bitter and had one kind of funny taste.

What went wrong?

Was it the oil? I used extra virgin olive oil.

Was it the broccoli? I should have stuck to the button mushrooms.

Was it the onions? I shouldn't have added the onions.

Was it the thyme spice? I'm not sure. Probably.

It was an awful lunch and I ate some Chipsmore biscuits after that to take away the weird taste. :(

Goodmaid Warehouse Sales

Where in the world can you buy detergent for so cheap?

Last Friday Matt announced in Facebook that Goodmaid was having a warehouse sales in Senawang. I asked him for the goods and price list and found the products to be very cheap. (50-70% cheaper than what we usually pay). They had the sale on for 2 days only - Friday and Saturday.

I went to the factory in the evening with Mctc and bought a bunch of cleaning products. Fortunately, I brought my little for-luggage-use trolley which I bought in America some time back. I bought some detergent for my mother too who once told me that she uses the dishwashing liquid like it water. She had to buy the 5 liters bottle so that she needn't think of buying them so frequently. I had no such problem. I usually purchase the 1 liter bottle and it could last me the whole year. I don't cook very often. :)

The next day, Minch called up early in the morning and asked if I wanted to follow her to the warehouse sales. She wanted to buy some detergent for her friend. Feeling excited, yet lazy, I told her that I would go with her. So I went.. with my trolley.

We bought so much stuff. My trolley wasn't big enough for all our purchase. I bought more dishwashing liquid for my mom and a few other items I didn't see the day before.

While heading towards the car with our stuff, I saw my church friends. I asked if they wanted to borrow my trolley. At first they said they didn't need one because their mom will only get a few things. Knowing that they would buy more than a few things, I told them to take the trolley and return it later.

Then later in the evening, I asked my aunt if she needed anything from the warehouse sales and she said she wanted the fabric softener. Minch was willing to go there again and she called another friend to come along too. We dropped by at church to pass Minch brother something. I saw my friends - the ones who borrowed by trolley earlier on. I asked them if they had it in their car. They said they saw another church friend in the warehouse and pass edthe trolley to her. Umm.... ok, I thought.

I didn't get many things this time. A lot of the stock was sold out. I could see many empty boxes. Minch's friend brought quite a lot of the same item.

When I reached home, I place them all in a plastic box.

So here they are... enough to last me at least 6 months (for some items) - 2 years. :)

Plucking Rambutans

When Mctc suggested we go to a friend's house to pluck rambutans, I wasn't really keen. First of all, I don't really know the owner of of the house and secondly, I wasn't dressed to climb up the trees. Later I found out that there was a third reason - there were lots of mosquitoes.

When we reach the place, I saw Christine happily cutting bunches of rambutans off the trees. She told me that she love doing this.

The guys were just standing around doing nothing. Haha.. no lah, I came quite late and I'm sure Eddie did his share of work too. Steven was at the back doing his fair share of making the trees lighter.

There were at least 6-7 boxes/bags of rambutans and so many still waiting to be plucked. Eddie told the owner that he and his team would come back one Sunday for a 2nd round of harvesting.

Never be deceived by the colour of the skin. The yellow rambutans were just as good as the red ones. The bag of rambutans that I brought back had more than 100 seeds. I gave them all to my parents.

Eddie calls my mom's house the town hall (or community hall) because there is always something going on there most the time. It's a good and fun place for gatherings, and meetings. :)

Durian Party

Oh yummy, yummy durians.

Some 2 weeks ago, Eddie suggested having a durian party in my mom's house. Most of us were durian lovers and we only eat the best ones. A few days ago we set the date for our durian party. It was held yesterday at 8pm. We were warned not to have our dinner, otherwise we would be too full to enjoy the durians. Eddie said that he would supply the durians. He told me that there were 19 durians weighing more than 30 kilos.

He brought only 14 durians to my mom's house and we had expected about 15-20 people coming to this party. Even when Eddie told me that there were 19 durians, earlier on, I thought they weren't enough for everyone. When he brought only 14 durians, I thought I'd better have a light dinner first before the party started.

The durians looked and smelt wonderful. They taste yummy but they are probably the worst fruit to consume. They are super sweet and causes blood pressure to rise. People who are diabetics or have heart problems should minimise their intake of durians and if possible, avoid eating durians at all cost.

As usual, my dad had the honor of opening the durians. Actually none of us (my immediate family) knew how to open them. Aunt Chris helped to open some of them too. Although she loved durians very much, she didn't have any. She didn't want her blood pressure to rise. We all marveled at her will-power.

Gosh.... the durains looked so inviting.. I didn't have much will-power when it came to bitter-sweet durians. I had about 6 seeds.

There were about 20 of us who were at my parents' house, and we only opened 13 durians. Some didn't like durians and the rest of us ate about 5 or more seeds.

When we were younger, my parents would buy like 5 or 6 durians for us to eat. My dad wasn't a wealthy man but he always tried to buy some every durian season. During those days, there was no guarantee whether the durians were good or bad. Sometimes half of the durians had worms in it.

Now that the quality of durians are better and more people are willing to spend a fortune just to eat good durians, we are all so choosy. They have even given names for different types of durians like Red Prawns and D24. The cheap ones cost about RM2-3 per kilo and the expensive ones ranges from RM10 per kilo onwards.

I am now willing myself not to eat any more durians. I have reached my quota of durian intake this year. :(

Sarawak Trip 2009

I have written 16 posts concerning my 4 day trip to Kuching this month. Click each one of them to read about my experience. Enjoy :)

Kuching, Sarawak, Day 1

Sarawak Cultural Village

Damai Beach, Sarawak

Cat Museum, Sarawak

Kuching, Sarawak, Day 2

Sunday Morning in Kuching, Sarawak

St Thomas Cathedral

Riverboat Ride in Kuching, Sarawak

Kuching Waterfront, Kuching, Sarawak

Tunes Hotel.com, Kuching

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 3

Sarawak River Cruise

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 4

Jong's Crocodile Farm & Zoo, Sarawak

Pottery Factory in Kuching, Sarawak

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 4

On our final day of our Kuching trip, we've decided to hire a couple of taxis and visit the orangUtans and the pottery factory. Initially we wanted to do this on the 3rd day, but I reminded Esther that we had to check out of Tune hotel by 10am and it would be better if we hire the taxis on the last day of our trip and ask them to take us to the airport at the end of the day. This would save us the taxi fares from the city to the airport. :P

It was decided the day before that we had to get up early today if we wanted to go out for breakfast at 7am. Aunt Annie, Aunt Chris and Brian decided not to go. The rest of us were looking forward to have another famous-only-in-Sarawak meal called Hor Thien Hoo (not sure if it was spelt or pronounced correctly). Sze-En's dad told her that she must try this food. So for the first few days we went around hunting for this food.

The day before, after our heavy breakfast, we passed by a restaurant selling this food. Actually, it was by pure chance that we stumbled upon this restaurant. My mom saw the cook making this food and asked her what it was. It was so uniquely made and my mom couldn't resist asking the cook what was this food called. When she realized that this was what we were hunting for all the while, she and the other aunties wanted to order a bowl and shared among them. But they were so full from breakfast and everyone thought it would be better to try it the next day.

The restaurant was situated very near to the "great cat."

The "noodle" was made of rice flour and they just added some water and cooked it flat on a wok. Once it was cooked, they peel it of the wok and mix them with a bowl of soup. The soup contained all kinds of nice ingredients like fish, mushrooms, white and black fungus. A bowl of this cost RM4.50, a very reasonable price because of the ingredients.

The "Hor Thien Hoo" looks like a bowl of meen fun koh, but it sure taste different. I had my usual teh-si.

After breakfast, we walked back to our hotel and started packing up. Once we have finished packing, my parents and aunties saw that they had at least 1/2 an hour to kill, so they played their card games again.

The day before, my mom went out for a walk alone along the waterfront. She met someone, a driver of a van-for-hire and he said that he was willing to hire his 11-seater van for RM200 (USD57, EURO 40) for the whole day and he would chauffeur us wherever we wanted to go. My mom was thinking - if we hire 2 car taxis , it would cost us the same, but we would be in 2 different cars. To have all of us in 1 vehicle could be better right? And so, she got then man's contact number and gave it to Esther.

Esther called him to confirmed the hiring of his van. He agreed to take us up from the hotel at 9.30am. Umm... for all who are thinking of doing the same thing if you have a big group, be sure to check out the van first. The van that we booked was old and the air-cond was pathetic.

Anyway, we have already agreed to take his van, we shouldn't complain too much. The driver suggested to go to the Crocodile Farm first. We weren't so keen but since he suggested it, so we went.

This is the Jong's Crocodile Farm and Zoo. Like I've mentioned in my earlier post, the idea of visiting the crocodiles weren't very appealing to me. It was one of those "been there done that" kind of thing.

It was already passed 12pm and we were hungry.... at least I was, watching the crocodiles fight for their food made me hungry. The driver took us to a place to have lunch.

I must say, the food here is very good. I had nasi hailam (Hailam rice) and the others had chicken chop rice or rice with mixed dishes.

The driver suggested us to go to a bird's nest.. um farm or shop, but we said we didn't want to go there because we wanted to spend more time at the pottery factory.

Here at the pottery factory, the kids had so much fun. They declared that of all the places they visited, the pottery factory was the best. I think that they just love to get their hands dirty. hehe.

Our next destination was the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. We arrived there a little too early to see the orang utans so what did was to check out the area.

Apart from the orang utans, we saw pepper and pitcher plants too.

Our next destination - the airport. We told the driver that we wanted to reach the airport by 5pm, but we were too tired out to go anywhere else. We arrived at the airport at 4pm. It wasn't time to check in yet and so we waited till 5.15pm for the counter to open.

Once we got our boarding passes we went straight to the waiting area. We had to go through the international flight entrance. Over here domestic flights means places like Miri and Sibu.

The kids had a light meal at the Mary Brown restautant. I think this is the only restaurant once you get pass the immigration counter.

We had over an hour to kill before boarding the plane. After the kids had their meal, they wandered over to look at the planes while the aunties and my mom played their card games again.... in the airport. Sigh! What would they do without the RM3.80 cards, I wonder.

Oh this was our fourth day and by the time we reached the airport, Brian was so fed-up with Sze-En's presence. Did I tell you that she is a real chatter-box? Anyway, sometimes it is nice to hear what she had to say but other times... gosh.. I'm glad I'm not staying in the same house as her. hehe..

We separated the kids and there was peace. :)

The plane took off a little bit later than its scheduled time. It was alright.. as long as it wasn't like 1 hour or more.

This was what I had in the plane - nasi goreng with satay (fried rice and barbequed chicken). Esther had the Air Asia's famous nasi lemak.

Sze-En ordered maggi mee (at last her mom allowed her to have a cup of instant maggi mee)... but it was such a shame that she couldn't eat it because she was airsick. She slept most of the journey back and my mom ate her maggi mee for her.

Well... that's all. My Kuching trip ends here. All in all it was a good trip. I enjoyed my time in Kuching and didn't really mind the complains and grumbling made by the rest of my family members... hehe.

Our next trip? Not sure, but one of the aunties suggested Langkawi. Hmmm.... I'm not too sure about that. :)

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Ah... the orang utans at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. I was so looking forward to visit this place. This is a rehabilitation centre and if I remember correctly, we were told that initially there were only 12 orang utans here, but now they have multiplied to 24.

The entrance fee was RM3 per adult and there were no charges for the children. Our van driver told us that we could purchase the tickets cheaper as a group. The entrance fees for a group of 5 adults cost RM10 (meaning RM2 per adult) and the 6th adult had to pay the normal price - RM3.

From the car park, we had to walk quite a distance to where we thought the orang utan would be. It's not that far actually, but one of my aunts who had knee problems thought it was too far for her and she said she would wait for us at the car park.

The dos and don'ts.

We were told that the feeding time was at 3 - 4pm. We reached here at 2.30pm. So what we did was to look around. There was an exibition of some sort. I wasn't too keen on that and didn't take any pictures of them.

We saw the crocodiles again. Aunt Chris said that she had never seen a real live crocodile before, and she finally got to meet some of them here.

We saw some orchids and pitcher plants.

The kids were getting restless. It was almost 3pm and they were wondering when will the orang utans make their appearance.

At 3pm, a park personnel asked us to congregate in another place. He gave us some rules to observe. Among them were no flash photography, no feeding the orang utans, be quiet at all times, keep away food and water bottles out of sight from the monkeys and be prepared to have a sudden hot shower (a.k.a pee from the orang utans). Naturally as we entered the jungle, all of us were looking at our surroundings, not wanting to have hot showers from the orang utans. Oh... the park personnel also said that we may not see the orang utans if they were not hungry and didn't want to come out and grab a bite from where the food was prepared for them. He asked us to be patient and not go off in a huff after waiting only for a short while.

We were told to go into the jungle to the feeding area, about 200 meters from the roadside. Going inside the jungle reminded me a lot of climbing Gunung Datuk, the only thing was, here the ground was flat with the occasional tree roots patterning the ground.

We reached the feeding area in probably 3 minutes or so. We waited and waited.. and scanned the trees above us (you know, just in case..) and looked at the feeding area. The kids were waiting patiently too, and I think it was harder for Sze-En because she loves to talk and it was so difficult for her to keep quiet for too long. Just before the trip to this place, we told her that the orang utans won't come out and she would have to call out to them by speaking their language. I guess she was also all prepared to make her monkey's call but that was before we knew that we had to be quiet.

After waiting for 10 minutes, the park personnel (he was on a walkie-talkie with someone) said that the orang utans were at the car park area.

So off we went out of the jungle to the carpark. Aunt Chris phoned Aunt Annie to tell her that the orang utans were seen at the car park area. Aunt Annie said yeah, she was looking at them now. Gosh, the amount of walking we did (actually not much, but we were all so tired by then) and all along we could have waited for the orang utans in the car park area. Aunt Annie was laughing at us. She thought she gave seeing orang utans a miss (because she had knee problems and couldn't walk fast and far) but in the end she was the first one who saw them.

Here's the orang utan, posing for the camera. My camera wasn't good enough to take nice shots and the sky didn't cooperate either. We could hear the thunder and the sun hid behind the clouds most of the time. I had to zoom to take this shot. There were so many people wanting to take a look at the orang utans. So many cameras were focused on them. Knowing the weakness of my camera, I left the scene so that others could have a better glimpse of the monkeys and probably get some good shots of them with their DSLRs.

There were 3 orang utans. We even saw a mother with its baby.

While we were in the jungle, Aunt Annie made friends with the taxi drivers and they told her how a pepper plant looked like.

Here's how they looked like. They were planted along the roadside. The taxi drivers also pointed out the orang utans nest to her. When we reached the car park, she told us that she made the right decision of staying in the car park area.

I really enjoyed this visit very much and would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Kuching. Nothing beats looking at wildlife animals without them being caged up. :)