The Toro Family

2011 in review

2011-12-31T21:26:00.000-08:00

2011 seems to have come and gone. People says that happy time flies. So we decided to look back in our photos to see what are the highlights and make sure it wasn't just another episode of missing time. Turns out, happy time did fly. But also baby did suck out half of 2011.

Back in Feb, we decided to take our "last" vacation before the baby comes. So we went to Puerto Vallarta. Had a great time there! Stayed in a nice hotel Garza Blanca in our own suite. This is our "babymoon". I highly recommend it.

Sensing that next year's valentine will be different, my wife decided to make me a nice valentine bouquet.

Then in April, Pei-Yean came to visit us in the US. We took a weekend trip to Napa, enjoyed beautiful spring weather there and some nice wines. Wait, did we? Pei-Sun was pregnant if that's not obvious in the pictures.

Chuen-Howe visited us from Singapore. We went on a day trip to Carmel. The cats were sensing the arrival of the newborn, they were especially cuddly...

Soon it was about time for baby showers. 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Also the year of babies for many of our friends here. The first baby shower belongs to Zainab's. Pei-Sun hosted the baby shower in our house. Note that I said year of the babies...

Then Lynn and Jocelyn hosted Pei-Sun's baby shower at Lynn and Jack's house. This was where we got a lot of the goodies and it felt real that Wei Yang is finally coming.

Then Pei-Sun's mom came in time for the delivery of Wei Yang. Well, she came a bit early, and we had time to make a trip to Monterey. Getting ready, but not yet!

Long story short, we missed the delivery because she had such a quick delivery. So quick that everyone missed it including the husband, and doctor. The nurses were in charged. It's all good. All that matters is that mom is safe and baby is healthy. Our Wei Yang was born on June 7th 2011.

After much sleepness nights, it was time to celebrate Wei Yang full month. Friends and family gather to celebrate the happy occasion. We also took the opportunity to follow the tradition and shave Wei Yang's head. It is believed that by shaving his head, he will grow thicker hair in the future.

And shortly after that, Wei Yang's other grandparents visited from Malaysia. The first thing they noticed was how dark is his skin tone. We blamed that one sun bathing that he had to do to get rid of his Jaudice.

On Sept 16th, Wei Yang's cousin Nathan was born. He is a big baby. After Nathan's birth, Wei Yang's grandparents moved to stay with Chin Ping. I thought our first month was tough, sounds like Matt and Chin Ping have quite a bit of hard time early on as well. And soon it was time to celebrate Nathan's full month.

Flowers for our wedding anniversary.

Then it was time to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. Chin Ping and Nathan gave Wei Yang a dinosaur's costume. We thought he was too young to go out, so we just stayed at home and prepared candies for all the kids in our neighborhood.

This year's Thanksgiving was different. Not only because we have a family now, but we also hosted an American family, Matt's parents. We invited them over, and prepared traditional turkey thanksgiving and served it to our American friends. We were glad that they enjoyed the lunch. Even complimented the food as one of their best thanksgiving turkey and stuffing.

Winston unwilling to move...

Weather is getting chilly... :P

Enjoying swing at Cuesta Park.

We decided to take a vacation to Florida as a practice run for our upcoming trip to Malaysia. Florida was fun, the flight wasn't. We spent a night in Conrad Miami. Wei Yang really liked hotel bed, he also liked his own bed. For the rest of the 5 nights, we went to Marathon in the Florida Keys. P'ng and Judy came down from New Jersey. And Dave and Xiaoli came down from Toronto. All the kids came and had a blast. It is our belief that during this trip, Wei Yang learned how to crawl from Darren. Since Darren is 3 months older than Wei Yang, they ended up interacting with one another quite well. :) And then Kai Yi is also super cute, always asks for Wei Yang and cuddles with him. Amy also loves hanging out with Wei Yang, treated him like his little brother. Cute! During the trip, I also have 5 kids singing Happy Birthday songs to me. How lucky was that! There were many first in the trip, Wei Yang actually dipped in the hot tub(more like a warm tub). He enjoyed himself. Sounds like we should go to the pool when in Malaysia.

Enjoying complimentary buffet breakfast!

Conrad Miami

View from our room

Dinner at a fancy restaurant in Miami.

Having fun at hot tub... actually warm tub :)

Kai Yi & Wei Yang

Darren & Wei Yang

Kids singing birthday song!

Amy & Wei Yang

my birthday cake.. :)

Hemingway's House w/ a polydactyly cat


Hemingway's House at Key West

Strolling along the street at Key West.

Diaper Cake that I made for Jocelyn's Baby Shower

Christmas is finally here. We are in town. So we party again. This time, we had a small party, had some steaks and other food. Yummy... Have to admit that with Wei Yang, it is harder to throw parties, have to simplify on the food or ignore the decorations. Well, we managed... I think.

Yummy Christmas Eve's Dinner :)

Wei Yang's first Christmas Gift!

The day after Christmas, we went to watch a concert by Sandy Lam. Wow! My favorite singer of all times. She is still the best. She kept me company for the past 20+ years. Never expected I would ever see Sandy Lam in person. But I did, so fair to say that my life is now complete!

Introducing solid food...

2011-12-06T00:26:00.001-08:00

Introducing solid food to your baby is a really big milestone. The American Academy of Pediatrics gives the green light for solid food to be introduced between four and six months of age, preferably six months. As much as one can read about the guidelines and the information on the web regarding introducing solid food to infant, those recommendations will fit most infants, but just understand that each child is different and may be ready to transition from one stage to the next at a slightly different time.

At about 5 months, Wei Yang showed interest in the food that we were eating. He stared at me while I was chewing on my leftover kebab and tried to mimic the way I moved my lips. Cute indeed! We were excited to reach this milestone. Finally, it was about time for Wy to dine and sit with us at about the same level; instead of laying down on the bouncer... looking at our elbows, nostrils, legs... :P So Happy that I could start using one of my baby shower gift from Judy, a food mill. :) We bought a booster seat and some silicon spoons as well. With the "Amazon Mom privilege", it all came in two days! On November 14, 2011 onwards, Wy is no longer breastfed exclusively.

Here're some videos that we took....

Introducing first solid food - apple. Didn't like it as much... he barely managed to get much into his mouth.

This video clip is long. Introducing sweet potatoes - do u think his whining were prompted by our not feeding him fast enough? Guess he just couldn't get enough huh? :)

Introducing banana - he loves banana...

We only introduce a new food every three to four days, so if there's some sort of reaction or rash, we can narrow down which one likely caused the problem. Keeping these recommendations in mind, introducing the solid food experience can be an exciting adventure. I know that it was for me... but not the spit out food, and the screwed up faces. Messes are a part of this new experience. Keep lots of towels/bibs on hand!

Right now at 6 months, I have Wei Yang eating pureed apples, pears, sweet potatoes and bananas. Coming up will be carrots, peas, butternut squash, and avocado... in no particular order. :P So grocery shopping time... I know we can buy the instant baby food off the shelves. But hey, it's California! It's all about homemade, fresh and organic stuff... hehe... Regardless, I love making Wy's food. It's really fun playing with the food mill... like playing "masak masak"! Don't know why I don't feel it the same way when preparing food for adults :(

ok. Time to get ready for Wei Yang's peds appt... vaccination time. Will see how much he has grown since last visit. After that Choon Ping will be leaving to SFO; 2 days in San Diego. Alone with Wy again. :(

Hiatus for a while...

2011-12-01T15:34:00.001-08:00

Hi there! So sorry that I haven't been able to maintain the blog over the past 3 months! Only time will tell whether this break has sufficiently replenished my motivation to write. So much has happened during these pass 3 months. Choon Ping's parents were here to help us out for about 3 weeks from late August to mid September; until ah girl gave birth to baby Nathan on the 16th of September. It was great not to worry about food during that period. :)

So glad that the grandparents were here to help bouncing the baby, changing diapers, and entertaining Wei Yang here and there! :) It definitely helped out with our sleep deprivation as Wei Yang was only getting at most a 3-hour stretch of sleep at that time; not to mentioned that his day time nap was no more than an hour! :( Fortunately, his sleeping schedule has improved significantly... from waking up every 1.5 or 2 hours when he was 2-3 month old to now having one stretch of 4-6 hours of sleep at night. His day time nap now varies between 1 to 3 hours. :)

Our little boy loves cats really. He would smile at Toro and Winston excitedly, and attempt to pat them (more like grab them) with both hands when he sees them walk by. Both cats loves taking nap in his crib! Here's Toro napping in his crib...

Born without brows; finally started growing in early Sept.

Choon Ping was away to Asia again around mid October for 1.5 weeks, and it was just me alone again taking care of the little one. Everything went well except for 2 days... food poisoning! ...had diarrhea and vomited. :( Thanks to Arif! He took half day off so that he could help taking care of Wei Yang. I lost quite a bit of fluids that my milk production was almost halted. So for once, I made some formula milk for Wei Yang. He simply refused to drink it; spitted it all out. ...ended up only drinking very diluted breast milk and water the entire day. Obviously he was extremely fussy on that day. The next day, I heated up the defrosted breast milk, which he hated as well. But at least he took some in, about 50ml... too hungry I supposed. Guessed he rathar had this than the formula.

Lynn and Jack came over to help out the following day. While Lynn and I were making brunch, Jack became the baby sitter. Wei Yang snoozed away in his arm while he was surfing on the internet. Sooo cute!

Abi was here around end of October. Wei Yang has grown a lot bigger (4.5month) since he last carried him. He was 2 weeks old then.

It was the last weekend in October (30th) that we finally managed to have all the family members went out for a meal together before the grandparents and abi went back to Asia. Pizza we had... That same night, we decided to shave Wei Yang's head again for the second time; and the final. He's just too cute with a bald head! It suits him well; looked just like a little monk or little buddha. :P Like our friend Jackie, said "it's not just the bald head... he has the aura." HA!

Didn't like this little 'cap'...

Fell asleep during shaving.

Around mid October, Wei Yang began to try rolling over. His first successful roll over happened on our bed on October 30th. We were surprised to see him already on his tummy... For the next few days, he often cried for help in the middle of the night finding himself stuck in his "tummy time position". So he was back to waking up every 2 hours again at night for a few days. :( He is now very good in flipping over from his back to his tummy. His arms and back muscles are obviously stronger and has better control. He does the 360 turn on his tummy all the time now. So we change his diaper on the floor nowadays as he has become a squirmy little guy.

Wei Yang is a stomach sleeper. As soon as I put him inside the crib, he would rolled over immediately and then Zzz on his stomach right away. I was a bit worry the first few days... kept checking on him to see if I hear his breathing sound.

Here's a photo documenting his first solid food adventure (November 14th, Monday)... apple it was. He didn't like it at all. It seemed like he's trying to spit the food out... which reminded me of Jack Jack, from the movie "The Incredibles!" :) We tried sweet potato 2 days later... he liked it! (Will post a video later). Tried banana last week. He loved it. Next one was pear... he "lau sai" the following day. Luckily only once but an explosive one. :( The poop went right up the back side of the diaper onto his outfit and all over his back! Yuck!

Getting ready to have dinner with us. His daily routine...

Dinosaur costume on first Halloween!

...woke up just in time to join us!

Thanksgiving feast this past weekend... Ah girl, Matt, baby Nathan, Matt's parents, and Cammy came to our place. Food was yummy!

Baby's development is amazingly fast! Wei Yang has begun recognizing people since early October... separation anxiety coming up...! So far, Wei Yang's height and weight is still slightly above 50 percentile. We'll see how he does on his 6-month check up; which is coming up next week. His first tooth peeked through his gum on November 11. Cute! Saw a second one coming 3 days ago, and he begins to have better control in seating position.

Seeing him smile at me while I echo back his enthusiastic coos and playing with his chunky thigh and cutie feet are my past time these days. It doesn't matter that I smell like milk or his spit most of the time, or simply spend WAY too much time focusing on how am I going to "dig" the crap out of all his body orifices, I am just happy and grateful to be spending most of my time with my family these days!! ...and yes, merbie, I finally feel like a mom. :P

Thanks to those of you who stuck around and waited out my absence. Until next time (whenever that may be...) :P ...ok, a video on next post. :)

Pei-Sun birthday

2011-10-02T15:43:00.001-07:00

Hung out with Hasnain's family on Pei-Sun birthday.

Grandfather and son

2011-09-24T01:01:00.001-07:00

Daddy misses Wei Yang after 3 days of being apart.

Steam meat with salted fish

2011-09-24T00:58:00.001-07:00

Such a home cook dish that I managed to order in a Chinese restaurant in Mt View... :)

Lots of attention or what?

2011-09-18T18:57:00.001-07:00

Santana Row

2011-09-17T19:53:00.001-07:00

Wei Yang is out from noon till 9pm that day. His longest day out ever!

Grandparents walk around the neighborhood.

2011-09-17T19:49:00.001-07:00

Friends dropping by...

2011-08-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

We've been blessed with good friends that are dropping by to help taking care of Wei Yang while Choon Ping is on his business trip to Asia. Arif and Tahera dropped by last Friday night. They brought dinner over, and later were having fun carrying Wei Yang. He enjoyed having them around. hmm... good babysitter candidate :P

Wei Yang's sleeping schedule has improved quite a bit recently. He hits a few 3-hour straight of sleeping at night. The longest hour he had so far was 5 hours 55 minutes. This was when Xin and Shwe came to look after him that night. After they left, I kept checking on him at the door just to make sure that I hear his breathing sound. It seemed unbelievable... However, his sleeping schedule for the following day was horrible! Back to square one... waking up every 1-1.5 hours for the whole night! Guess I need Xin and Shwe to drop by more often. ;P

Wei Yang's day time nap is still bad; each session lasts no more than an hour. I can't really do much or sleep. On top of that, he just loves to see faces when he's awake. The minute I walk away from him... he starts making noises, and eventually progresses to a full blown screaming/crying if I don't attend him. He loves being held constantly indeed!

Yesterday was a great day for Wei Yang, I did get some good rest. Plus I had 4 placenta pills the day before and another 2 capsules in the morning! mmm... the power of the pills! I ended up having lots of energy, thus bringing Wei Yang to San Mateo visiting Hasnain, Zainab, and 5-month old Khalil. Khalil smiles a lot and is really cute! He's skinny and long... which makes Wei Yang quite chunky when compare with him. They were sooo cute when both of them were placed on the play mat! Wei Yang tried out Khalil's swinger. He loves it! Guess it's time to shop one from Craigslist!

Being a mom is indeed hard work; especially if it's only one person taking care of the baby. Imagine those single mom out there... plus they need to work. I salute! While Choon Ping is away, my average cumulative sleeping hours per day has been between 4-6 hours. Unfortunately they are all interrupted. I wish they're not. Else, think I won't be that sleep deprived. I can totally see my accelerated aging complexion! My wrinkles formation is increasing exponentially everyday!! My panda eyes are so obvious... *sigh* me sooo sad! :( On certain days, I do wish I could be like Toro the cat, just flop on anywhere, anytime and go to sleep. Ok, maybe not anywhere, but flopping on the bed sounds good to me.

Two more days, Choon Ping will be back... along with his parents. :D Yay! I can't wait to have a 4-hour straight of uninterrupted sleep. It's been a while since I had that.

hm... think I'm done unloading my brain for now... thanks to Jocelyn & Albert again for bringing me dinner... and bagels too! Signing off now... Zzz

Peking Duck

2011-08-19T04:24:00.001-07:00

Yummy Peking Duck in Xindalu @ Hyatt

Like father like son

2011-08-17T07:50:00.001-07:00

Eating out :)

2011-08-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

After having Wei Yang, eating out has somehow become a little luxury for us. No more fancy restaurants at regular hours, no more hanging out late. 'Da pao' the food back home and eat has become our usual chore nowadays just because it's easier. Funny that now we always say, "we're like Ah P'ng liao...." We rarely have meals together at the same time, as one of us usually has to entertain the little one or keep him occupied. Else he will fuss and fuss and fuss... unless he's in a good mood or already dozed off. We go to the restaurant early; preferably a family-friendly place.

However, this past weekend we decided to indulge ourselves with loads of yummy sushi at Sushi Tomi at Mountain View. We went there early. (Hmmm.... sounds like P'ng and Judy again... :P ) It takes a little forethought to dine out at 5 o'clock. So 6pm is good. The worst thing one can do is to take a tired, and cranky baby to a restaurant around his bedtime. We did it before past bedtime... at home, having dinner late; obviously passed Wei Yang's bedtime. One minute he's happily laying on the bouncer entertaining himself, and the next he's screaming like a banshee. It then took us slightly more than 2 hours to put him to bed. *ouch!* Imagine dining out.... it would be like dining with a ticking time bomb! Don't even want to go there! So for the time being, we're stuck eating the early bird specials.

So there we went to our 6pm reservation at Sushi Tomi. To our surprise, it was crowded at that hour too! They just renovated the whole place. It's nice. I think now it can fit slightly more people. We got a good seating place; where Wei Yang were actually placed at a corner. This seems obvious. Nobody wants to sit next to a potential screaming baby in a fancy restaurant.

We ordered quite a bit: salmon, amaebi, hotate, and hamachi nigiri, spicy tekka donburi, tempura, soft shell crab roll, and beef tataki. I freaking love the beef! Haven't had it ever since I got pregnant. We finished all the raw food stuff, with some left over of tempura and soft shell crab roll. Breastfeeding exclusively does get me hungry all the time. I don't think I get THAT hungry during pregnancy. I'm usually sleepy and hungry in the middle of the night. So cold sushi is fine with me at 3 or 4am after feeding Wei Yang. It's yummy still!

We were very happy that Wei Yang behaved quite well at the restaurant. Snoozing most of the time. guess he loves the wide noise then. :) By the end of our meal, he started to make noises, and we knew... it was about time to go. He did end up having a small bottle of milk before we headed home. I guess he decided to save some stomach for some sushi milk later from mama. :P

The day we left the hospital

2011-07-30T23:04:00.001-07:00

TGIF @ Google

2011-07-30T20:03:00.001-07:00

TGIF at Google this week allows the employees to bring guests. So, Pei-Sun brought Wei Yang to socialize. :) As usual, lots of food. But this time round, they have the flowrider/surf simulator setup! It is a surf simulator that shoots water across a cushioned surface so that it simulates real surfing. Lots of people lined up for it. Frank did it. And we watched him did it from the office 3rd floor to have a good bird's eye view.

Frank carried Wei Yang, so light compares to Anabel. Look she is trying to stand-up. She is 9 months old now. I carried her when she was 2 weeks old.

Visit Lydia @ Rich and Carol

2011-07-30T19:58:00.001-07:00

Lydia is 5 weeks old. 2 weeks younger than Wei Yang. She eats twice as much as Wei Yang at each feeding. Maybe that why his sleep is still so bad at night.

Both are communicating in baby gesture.

Just the three of us

2011-07-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well, wai po left last Thursday night, it is now just three of us. Choon Ping took last Friday off so that we could ease off our schedule with just two adults taking care of Wei Yang. He behaved very well the night wai po left. He actually gave wai po a smile during sleep at the airport... which left her a good impression. It was a bit sad, it's been great having her around taking care of Wei Yang.

I am now taking over the night shift until 5am, and Choon Ping will take over wai po's 5am shift until he goes to work... like around 10am. Then I will take over. Wei Yang smiles a lot in the morning, which is great! This gives a good opportunity to video conference with gong gong and po po before they go to bed. :) So, this Monday was my first day taking care of him alone during the day time. Turned out that it wasn't that bad... survived. But I do look forward to weekends, even though I'm at home all the time. It's nice to have Choon Ping home, and some time with just the three of us. It was my first time bathing him as well on Monday. It used to be wai po doing it. :P Just as he did when wai po was here.... he did get nervous and would grab my clothes tightly before putting him into the tub.

Wei Yang is doing great, growing like a weed, and getting heavier! ...just wish that he sleeps longer stretch. He's 7 weeks 1 day now, but somehow he still has a very short sleeping cycle; now average at 1 hour 40mins per sleeping/feeding cycle. This past weekend, he had one 3-hour sleep, and we were sooo happy! During the day time, it's less than an hour, thus my time gets interrupted very often. Often times, I need to keep the bouncer bouncing (with my foot) when he's about to start fussing. This practically imprisons me. However, he sleeps longer if we go out, especially during the car ride. I guess he is very 'hong soo' lah... just like his dad, gong gong, and po po ? ;P In fact, we went to Lynn and Jack's house for a BBQ party this past Saturday... of course we brought the little guy along to meet their parents and relatives. Another baby boy who's 2 days older was there as well. Wei Yang behaved quite well! Didn't scream his head off, but slept most of the time during the party. I guess he likes the wide noises. Of course he pooped, peed, and fussed a little. We ended up being at their place from 1pm until 7pm; finshed all the diapers that we brought along... it's time to go home....

Our cats begin to get reaallly comfortable with Wei Yang's presence... except when he cries, weeee.... off they run! Winston loves to cuddle on his bed! ... somewhere close to his sleeping spot. This morning, Choon Ping said Toro wanted to snuggle on top of him... but of course, was stopped by him.

Here's a picture of Wei Yang taken yesterday while he was snoozing during the day time. He's 7 weeks exactly; roughly about 12 lbs in weight, ~23 inches in length.

Ooo... gotta go attend the baby now. Winston just stood beside him, then "meoW...meoOWW...", next thing i hear... "wuaaAAHHH...!!"

Ang ku

2011-07-17T02:42:00.000-07:00

All done. The steamed purple ang ku!

Red one!

Of course, red eggs!

Night before Wei Yang's full moon party July 8th 2011

2011-07-17T02:40:00.000-07:00

Making ang ku!

Pei-Sun's mom wants to take over because she thinks Pei-Sun made it too soft. I am staying out of this...

The red version is made by Pei-Sun's mom.

Pei-Sun is making the purple kind. Purple color came from purple yam.

We go for the peanut filling instead of traditional mung bean.

Toro is bored that night!

New 'night' life...

2011-07-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

Alas, it has been a while, as usual. I started to write a post about my birth story last week, but never finished it... Choon Ping posted a short version of the story instead, and a feeding experience already.

So Wei Yang is now 4 weeks old. It’s quite funny and surprising to me that now I am still reminiscing about the whole labor thingy once in a while. I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it... but it was quite an experience. :) Boy, I am GLAD that it was a super fast delivery; about 2.5 hours of labor, but only less than 30 minutes of active labor! Not long after the water broke, it was time to push. I couldn’t believe it... it DID feel like pooping. To me, that pooping feeling is worst than the contraction! I cursed the process and the pain, desperately wanted a way out. But I lived through it, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. In hindsight, it was an absolutely amazing experience, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Luckily, after 2 pushes he was out. It’s just too bad that Choon Ping and Merbie missed out the whole thing.

I just nursed Wei Yang about an hour ago. Choon Ping and Merbie are now sleeping. For some reason, Wei Yang has been having 1 ½ hour stretch of sleep when it is my shift taking care of him; either in the middle of the night or during day time. He had only one 3-hour stretch of sleeping since the past week. He can be very fussy, eats a lot, put on some weight (which is good!), and he has acne!! He’s very demanding indeed! Definitely cries a lot more, and louDER if he doesn’t get his food right away! With the frequency that he demands to be fed, all I can say is that my poor boobs has been ‘suffering’. Thanks to an extra help of Merbie and the rented hospital grade milk pumping machine, Wei Yang get to be feed via bottle by his dad and wai4 po2, so that my ‘assets’ could get some rest! :). ...as long as the milk supply is enough to be expressed.

Anyway, even with all the fuss, he is quite cute indeed, especially when he's sound asleep. :) It's late... I better go Zzz before the little one wakes up again soon.

Feeding at night

2011-07-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Wei Yang is 3 weeks + 5 days old now. I am back at work, we are still trying to adjust our lives to the lifestyle. We sort of have a routine now, when I work I don't take care of Wei Yang in the day time. I usually take care of him in the middle of the night. I am starting to like the shift from 1-5am.

So far Wei Yang's sleep schedule goes like this, he will sleep sometime between 9-10:30pm. Then wakes up around 12:30am. Depending how tired I am, I might go to bed when Wei Yang goes to bed too. But when it is a holiday like this weekend, I usually don't. Contrary to what most people say, I find waking up in the middle of the night more rewarding part of being a dad.
For a mom, she has the ultimate weapon of the breast. When the baby cries, she just have to pull this out, and the baby stops crying. Whereas for the dad, when the baby cries, you have to look for the mom so that he can have his milk.

For the night, it is different. Pei-Sun pumps her milk and stores them in the bottle. When Wei Yang wakes up, he is usually hungry. And he wants milk immediately. The trick is to heat up the milk for him in the shortest amount of time. So we usually store the milk in a small and big bottle. Small bottle contains 20ml of milk, and the large bottle contains 2oz(60ml) of milk. It takes only 1-2 min to heat up the small container, whereas takes about 5min to heat up the big one. For all the dad out there knows that 5min is eternity to a hungry baby. So when I start to hear Wei Yang making noise before he gets up, I will start the routine of heating up the small bottle. Usually before he has a chance to cry too loud, I am ready with the milk. I take the small bottle and feed him, meanwhile heat up the big bottle. Usually he finishes the small bottle in 2-3min, I have to distract after that for a bit like try to burp him. At night, he tends to be sleepy. So he will sleep after finishing the small bottle. But dad, don't be tricked! He is not done yet. When the 2oz bottle is ready, I feed him that. Even if he is sleeping, I will tease his mouth, and he will wake up and start drinking the big bottle. This feeding will take a while, like 15-min to finish. Usually he will fall asleep during feeding. No problem. Burp him when he is half way through, then check/change his diaper. During this process, he will wake up and remembered that he is still hungry. so I continue to feed him after changing diapers. By the time he is almost done with the 2oz bottle, he is so full and also sleepy that he is sound asleep! Wow! Success! Go back to bed, and be ready in 2.5 hours.

Not exactly sure what it is. Maybe I feel like we can communicate during this time. Or his innocence and the way he sleeps is so tranquil. Newborn don't really interact much yet, but I find feeding him at night the most fulfilling experience of being a new dad... :)

New addition to Toro family - Wei Yang 莊偉揚

2011-06-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

On June 6th 2011 8pm, Pei-Sun checked in to Sequoia Hospital. She was prep for her induction that night. At 1:57am June 7th, Wei Yang was born. Pei-Sun had a 2 hour labor before water broke. After the water broke, 30min before Wei Yang pops out! He literally pops out as you can see in the picture below where his face is bruised by popping out so quickly! He couldn't wait to see the new world! 5lb 15.4oz and 20in length.
That night, Wei Yang slept soundly with mom checking on him occasionally.
Pei-Sun has been requesting for spicy tuna hand roll all throughout the pregnancy. She resisted it, so once the pregnancy is over, she had spicy tuna donburi for dinner... :) (From sushitomi of course!)
The guests started to visit Wei Yang. Even Dr. Thein checked him out once more to make sure everything is all right!
Wei Yang slept soundly on me! Enjoying a bit of father-son bonding...
The big long sleep after delivery. I wished he still sleeps like that.
He is a bit yellow from the billirubin. So poor Wei Yang needs to be wrapped in the bili-blanket. It is basically LED as UV source, and bunch of fiber optic cable connected to a "blanket". Blanket is a misnomer, it is more like a foldable piece of plastic material. Extremely uncomfortable! Wei Yang hated it, we hated it because he could not sleep properly on the 2nd night. His eyes are protected from the UV light with the little mask which he hated too.
Well, on day 3, we are ready to go! Packing things up, and everyone is happy to bring the newborn home.
Wei Yang likes the car seat!

Quick stopover at HK and makan

2011-05-05T03:21:00.001-07:00

Dim Sum for Dinner

2011-05-04T21:46:00.001-07:00

...Couldn't resist after seeing Choon Ping via Skype having his breakfast dim sum at the airport lounge before he left to Hong Kong from Shanghai! So I decided to have dim sum as my dinner!

Yummmm... sooooo good! Really enjoyed the Char Siu Pao, Har Gao, and Nai Wong Pao. 3 items for $10! It's "after the 9pm" special deal. Think the baby enjoyed it very much as well. He's been kicking like mad... making a huge bump on the left side of my abdominal region repeatedly. I actually could "press" it back in, but he kicked back out again! Kinda interesting. :) Of course.... I've to have a cup of Pearl Milk Tea from Tea Era as well with my meal. :P

Tree trimmed!

2011-04-23T15:26:00.001-07:00

6 hours later, not bad at all... was expecting to take longer...

Tree trimming

2011-04-23T12:26:00.001-07:00

Time to give the incense cedar trees a good trim!

Meal before leaving HK - Yakitori

2011-04-03T07:36:00.001-07:00

This is a place Ah Bee recommended. Its within walking distance from his apt. Food was great. Managed to take some pictures of a few dishes. The lambchop was really good, so good that I have forgotten to take a picture before I ate it all.

Note that I took a bite out of the Yaki-onigiri also before I snapped... haha!

Victoria Park

2011-04-03T05:31:00.001-07:00

Took a walk in the park since weather was super nice.

Hang out @ HK

2011-04-03T05:25:00.001-07:00

Meet up with ah bee after work on Friday after a long long week. Times Sq @ HK

Sunday @ East Coast Park

2011-03-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

Ge ge & mei mei are having fun @ SG East Coast Park on a sunny breezy Sunday. =)

Meals...

2011-03-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

We had a yummy dessert after dinner at home on Monday evening. Fresh coconut and raspberry cream cheese croissant! mmm.... very satisfying!

On Tuesday evevning, we decided to have our dinner at Udupi Palace, Sunnyvale. It serves Southern Indian vegetarian food. We haven't been to this place for ages! Seems like the business is not as good as before. Maybe it's just a regular weekday. Food was still very good... just as we remembered. We enjoyed it!
... but the 'after dinner effect' was not good at all! About an hour or two later, Choon Ping started complaining about his stomach being quite bloated. Right before he went to bed, his quite 'tune' (bloated) status has already up to an uncomfortable level 'tune'. Luckily we managed to find a bottle of "ru yi you" (some sort of oil) and had it rubbed on his stomach... hehe... just like a little baby! :P Glad that he felt much better after that. :) As for me... I was ok until in the middle of the night! Stomach was soooo bloated that it woke me up in the middle of the night. In addition to that, the baby was kicking a lot especially if I laid on my left side. I ended up half awake/sleeping in a seated position for an hour, then in a recumbent position leaning to the right until early in the morning! During this period of time, I kept hearing Choon Ping letting go gasses!! ... about 4-5 times within an hour! It was my most restless night so far since pregnancy. Conclusion: no more Udupi Palace when I'm pregnant!

Cuisine close to home

2011-02-26T19:22:00.001-08:00

Hi!

2011-02-24T14:32:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been ages since we wrote anything on this blog more than a wee thingy under the photos. I don't really remember when last I did the writing for pleasure... hmm... not my thing really. They do say picture is worth a thousand words. But hey, here I am!

Maybe it's just me, but it seems as though the pace of events has picked up significantly over the last two weeks after our baby-moon at Puerto Vallarta. My belly has becoming more obvious and now people can really tell. Lately, I've been keeping myself busy with all the unfinished mini home projects as I do have a 'deadline'. :( So many stuff to do on my 'to-do-list'! It is amazing how productive we can be if there's a non-negotiable time line coming up! So far:

We finally hung up the huge mirror onto the wall after laying it against the wall for ~2 years!
Finally 'debugged' the annoying banging sound coming from the air return every time the heater kicks in. (Thanks to the darn air filter. We taped it onto the duct! And now... no noise! yay!)
Done sawing the curtain rods to my desired length and installed them in the living room.
Just finished modifying/sewing 2 sets of curtains in the dining area, it's now up!
Done modifying/sewing the roman blinds that we got from Malaysia. Should be up by this weekend.

Had an OB visit yesterday. Nothing much to report. Baby has been kicking a lot everyday... especially at night around 11. I guess the second trimester's OB visits are indeed quite boring. Baby's heartbeat is normal: ~140bpm. After the OB visit, Choon Ping suggested to have lunch at some other Google cafeteria that he hasn't been. It's a bit far out from his office building. The parking lot was full! ... but we had an excellent spot. How nice of Google! :)

Lunch was yummy indeed! mmm... I had tons of Gouda cheese! The sushi line was long but worth the wait. The poor amigo was making the handroll non-stop! Loves the vegetable handroll, and the seafood/crab meat handroll! Guess you can tell which one was Choon Ping's dish... he said the seared Tuna was very good! *envy* :(

Planeto Vegetariano

2011-02-08T18:00:00.001-08:00

Hotel Garza Blanca Puerto Vallarta

2011-02-08T17:59:00.001-08:00

Nice hotel , big rooms, and great service.

sunset @ Puerto Vallarta

2011-02-08T17:55:00.001-08:00

Suzhou

2010-12-19T08:12:00.001-08:00

Had a great impression of Suzhou. Beautiful gardens and canal. Love the old town feel.

spider infestation

2010-10-31T17:32:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Delicacies 美味, 佳餚

2010-10-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

牛肉火鍋
Rojak 豆腐
Curry chicken + puff
炒冬粉

Garden at home

2010-06-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

Ya, this beautiful nest shown is the empty one, left by the bulbuls, after the babies grew up last week.

So nicely built. Wonder why they don't use it any more....

However, I noticed a bulbul flying out from the bamboo leaves again yesterday.

Looking closing, I noticed that the male bird is building a new nest, just about 1.5 feet away from the old one. However, it is so close to our main door, and we may frighten them whenever we go in/out to our house.

This morning, again I saw him working so hard.

Perhaps the female bird is asked to take a rest as she is pregnant ;)

This second photo shows the semi-completed nest.

Some more effort needed.....

Just see how many nests are there within such a small angle of the jambu air tree.

The Dragon fruit flowers withered, but the young fruits are beginning to form at the base.

I have wrapped them up this morning to prevent fruit flies from attacking them.

Unfortunately, the recent heavy downpours have destroyed the 2 new buds :~(

Meanwhile, our chili plants are yielding some good hot staffs....

Have you seen this 'rounded loofah'? 絲瓜

I trust they are available in US too.

These are the baby loofahs, and the yellow flowers are bright and beautiful.

This one is approaching maturity.

The longest we harvested is around 15".

Too much for our own consumption, so we have been giving away....

If ripen fully, it is used for washing.

Cheers....

Dragon Fruits flowering again

2010-06-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

2 months ago, we chopped off some sugar cane and jambu air branches to allow more sunshine onto our dragon fruit ( pitaya, 火龍果/火龙果 ) plant.
So far, we harvested 3 fruits just before ChinPing's wedding in June last year. John and Diane had the honour of savouring our first harvest.
With the long drought and recent rain, our effort seems to be yielding some good results.

These are the 2 flowers which I shot this morning. They are huge, measuring about 15" each!

Tonight, as expected, these 2 flowers have a full bloom.
BTW, they only bloom for just for 1 night.
The flowers measure around 11" in diameter!

Using a different mode I catch these flowers for a better view....

Focusing on one of the flowers, you can see that the long stigmas are very nicely arranged in a vertical ring at the center.
Mummy was so excited to see them.

However, their beauty will not last.
This withered flower was blooming last night too :)

So we will be having 3 fruits in some 3 weeks time.
I also noticed another 2 small buds sprouting out. They are just about 1/4 inch in size..... ;)
Soon they will stand 15" high, like the brothers.....

Home sweet home!!

2010-04-12T20:42:00.001-07:00

5 Gu+ 5 kim's 30th Anniversary weekend celebration

2010-03-30T22:08:00.000-07:00

Lee Sze Qi, Shannon Lee, Nicole Chia, Kai Yang (A different kinda Fantastic 4!)
5 gu + 5 kim with ah kim, 5 yi & 4 kim
Karaoke session - 5 gu
The old time buddies with wives + kids

HK visit 2010

2010-03-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

Kheng Chong go-go's wedding

2010-01-23T07:34:00.001-08:00

Animals near Thatch Caye

2010-01-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

Here we were... stayed at this private island called Thatch Caye (Pronounced as "Key"). We were here for 4 days/3nights. We saw lots of various animals on this island, but they are all not from local... all are brought onto this island.

First, there is a peccary named Pumba. Certainly our favorite of all. When we walked by Pumba's home, he would look for us as he heard our noise. If you call his name, he will look at you and come towards you waiting to be fed. Very cute indeed!

Here is the coati. These are racoon like animals. We saw them in Tikal. There are probably a couple dozen of these things on Thatch Caye. They come around in herds. Very cute and friendly animals. A bit edgy...

Then there is the mouse looking animal and a bird. Both I don't know what they are called. They are definitely super friendly and they would come up to me for some pineapple... and allowed us to pet them. Even the bird!! We heard from other guests saying that this bird keep following them hoping to be fed... He walked so closed to their feet that they nearly kicked the bird. Definitely not afraid of people. :)

This magnificent fish is a type of sting-ray called Spotted Eagle Ray. They are probably the most majestic sea creatures that we saw in our trip. They swim so elegantly near us. We saw 14 of these rays in a single snorkeling trip near Tobacco Caye, which is about 15min boat ride from Thatch Caye. The snorkeling on that day was truly amazing!

On the last day of our stay in this island, we went for a 2 tank dive near South Water Caye. The quality of the dive is better than San Pedro although still not as good as Half Moon Caye in Lighthouse Reef. There were some sea turtles during that dive. We saw a big loggerhead turtle and a hawksbill turtle. Love to see them swimming... very cute! :)

Thatch Caye Resort

2010-01-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

This is our last destination in Belize trip. It's called Thatch Caye, 8 mi off the coast of Dangriga. Beautiful little private island. This is an ecolodge where water are locally collected and treated and electricity powered by solar panels. A storm was impending when we first arrived. So we didn't do much for the first 2 days that we are here. Just walk around the island, checking out the animals here and enjoy the scenary. We stayed in this 2-story Casita. The cool thing about them is that there are hammock on the 2nd floor where we get to enjoy the view of the entire island while catching the seabreeze.

San Ignacio to Dangriga journey

2010-01-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

New year day, we have to travel from inland to coastal Belize. Usually there is an express bus, but not today because it's a holiday. So we took the local bus to Belmopan, then transfer to another to Dangriga. Because of the lack of bus during the holiday, the buses were more crowded than usual.

We met a Canadian couple who also wanted to head south to Hopkins, but they had bad experience the last time as the bus got too full and they didn't make it onto the bus. So the wife was really keen to share a cab with us. But that's going to cost US$40 instead of US$6. We declined the cab idea and decided to brave the bus experience. And yes it was full. The bus was an hour late. I had no choice but to do what the local does. I had to push myself through the crowd to the entrance door. Before the door is open the bus driver told us there are only 15 spots. When the door opens the gatekeeper only let 5 people through. I managed to go through but not peisun. I tried to get her, but they wouldn't let her out. I was told to find her a seat first.

So I figured, 15 spots should be easy. But not, there were no more seats when I get into the bus. People have placed their bags to reserve their spots. So I just took a random spots and placed my bag in another random seat. Then I waved to the gatekeeper to let pei sun come aboard to join me. Later the people came back from break and returned to their seats. Peisun's seat already had 2 people. Fortunaely they are willing to share the seat. And it is a 2 hour bus ride.

After lots of commotion , someone was kicked out of the bus and i don't know why. Something to do with not paying, then peisun got her seat. Awesome! Finally, our bus was cleared and ready to depart. After that I knew we were safe. I am glad the Canadian couple didn't come with us to the bus, I am sure they won't make it.

The bus driver was trying to be accomodating and told the overflow passenger to wait outside the terminal. But the authority was there checking, so he had to drive on without picking up those guys whom he told them to wait in front of gas station across the bus terminal. I am glad we didn't do that. Some smarter passengers walked further so that the authority won't see before hopping onto the bus. It was quite a journey and experience.

Christmas in Meadville 2009

2010-01-01T14:50:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Tikal

2010-01-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

We signed up for ATM(Actun Tunichil Muknal) tour. But it got cancelled because of the rain and the river is too high to swim across to the cave entrance. Instead we ventured into Tikal, Guatemala. Tikal is a huge Maya ruin in the middle of the jungle. It's awesome!! Pictures may not do its justice. We will have to post detailed description later.

Happy 2010

2010-01-01T06:28:00.000-08:00

Happy new year! We spent our new year in San Ignacio. We could hear lots of fireworks from our room. It's like Chinese new year!

Blue hole and Lighthouse Atoll

2009-12-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

5:30am!!! The boat picked us up to go out to Blue Hole. We had half a papaya each for breakfast, so we had to get up at 4:30am. We went out with Aqua Diver instead of our regular Ecologic Diver. We were told that they have 17 last night. But by the time our boat picked up all the guest in Caye Caulker, we had 30 on board. As soon as we got outside the barrier reef, we entered the open ocean, and thing became rough very quickly. Some swells were probably 6-8ft. The boat rocks left and right and we had to climb the waves one at a time for 2.5 hours. It was treacherous! We came prepared with seasickness pills. Peisun took 1 before we got onto the boat. But it already expired in 2006. Turned out the papaya that we took didn't help. Peisun had to puke during the journey. And I did not do that much better. It felt like the papaya was almost coming out a few times. We drove passed Turneffe Reef on our way there, that offered us some shelter for 30min before rough sea was upon us again.

The first dive wass the Blue Hole. It's 130ft deep. We decided to skip this dive as we are beginner. Instead we just did some snorkeling around around here; nothing really to brag about here. Heard from some divers that the blue hole dive was very cool, people enjoyed it.

The next stop was Half Moon Wall. This is a dive which starts at 40ft on a sandy patch. While we swim outward through some coral canyon, we came across this steep wall that plunges into the ocean floor beyond the visibility allows us to see. There are huge sponges here, and many other type of corals. We could dive down as far as one can see, but we stayed at most at 60ft. It definitely beats the diving of Ambergris Caye.

Then we stopped at Half Moon Caye for lunch. Lovely little island, there is some bird sanctuary that we got too lazy to walk. After lunch we dove in a place near Half Moon Caye called Eagle Ray Wall. Somebody saw 2 eagle rays, we didn't. It was a fun dive too but visibility wasn't as good as the earlier dive. Probably 60ft. This was the last dive for the day. Long day, we came back around 6:30pm. Took a shower, went for dinner , and wrote this post.

A few thoughts, I think this journey was long, diving was great. Is it worth it, I think that depends on how hardcore you are. For snorkeling, definitely not worth it, some places are just too deep. Another dive shop called Amigos Del Mar, has a bigger faster boat which might be more comfortable, we never tried them so don't know.

Best meal so far

2009-12-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

Lobster kebab and lobster with coconut cream! Usd16 each!

Pass

2009-12-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

Yipee, we passed our scuba lesson. On our 3rd and 4 dive, we went outside of the reef where it is deeper... We start at around 50ft and gradually swim deeper. It was pretty scary at the beginning as the ocean floor seemed so far away, but gradually we made it down to the bottom. the formation is pretty cool, it is made out of canyon that formed by rock and Corals, between the canyon are sandy area. That's where we do our skill tests. At the beginning it is harder to concentrate on the surrounding, instead just focus on scuba diving and where the divemaster and buddy is... On the subsequent dive, we got better at the bouyancy and more comfortable.

After that we signed up for our 1st dive after we pass the class. Because of the peak season, many dives are booked so we sign up for a night dive. I think it's the octupius that sold us.

Since it's a night dive, we got some time to checkout the island, we rented a golf cart to drive up and down ambergris caye. Drove south to checkout a bunch of resorts there. Our favorite is called Victoria house. It's the nicest down south of san Pedro. Then we venture north cross a bridge. The road became much worse with deep puddles. And the golf cart don't have the beat suspension. To put it lightly it is a bumpy ride. It's more like pei sun cursing at my driving the whole way up. We wanted to checkout a resort recommended by lonely planet called Capricorn. But we didn't make it! Our cart couldn't start after I stopped to check out an iguana by the road. Eventually it started after I use the choke. Scared by the pptential of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and puddles are turning onto pool, we abandoned the mission and returned to San Pedro. Bought ourselves some fruits and then return to the motel for a bit of rest before the night dive....

2009-12-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

When Madonna sang about San Pedro in the 80's, we could see why she calls it la Isla Bonita. Although there is plenty of facility these days, the coral reef is still in decent shape... Better than Pulau Payar! The people over here very Eco conscious.

In general Belize is still a pretty poor country. The so call highway is just a regular 2-lane road. Another surprising thing is the Chinese writing on shop fronts... Not sure if it is because of Taiwanese influence or what?

Then there is the food... I think the classic dish is rice and bean with chicken or fish. It actually tastes pretty yummy. The rice is cooked with some bean and coconut milk. Stewed chicken tastes a bit like curry, fish is red snapper, yummy!! We also had other seafood here like shrimp, lobster, and conch fritters. All are very well prepared, either the Jamaican jerk style or some local Belizian style. The only gripe is we have to pay American prices... :(

Speaking of American, we are probably the majority here. And within that 70% that we met are from sf!

Well, time to go scuba, gotto go!

Raining

2009-12-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

It has been raining like cats and dogs since the night, so it became a
lazy day and enjoy some pineapple
juice...

Going for our scuba diving class in the afternoon... After that we
graduate, yeah!!!

Merry Xmas from la isla Bonita

2009-12-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

Merry Xmas to all! Took our first scuba class, was great! Saw 2
stingrays and some fan corals

Beijing Nov 09:Miscellaneous

2009-11-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

How I wish this happened just today!

-Our welcoming dinner, hosted by Dominick.

This is a nice courtyard restaurant called 花家怡园 in 簋街.

The original name of this street was 鬼街( Ghost street ), as any time of the night, you will find someone eating here.

However, this sounds crude. A more appropriate word 簋, which sounds exactly like 鬼, was used in stead.

Every restaurant along the street is well decorated with Chinese lanterns.

Oriental atmosphere is very strong.

Served the Best Peking Duck, as voted by the Tan family :)

Well, very good, but portion was a little too small lah ;)

Ok Ok, that's because we ordered so many other dishes.

One interesting activity, especially for HK, is shopping, as China made goods today is of reasonable quality.
This place is called Guan Pi, a whole sale market, 官员批发市场

The exciting part was watching how Dominick used his charm to sweet talk all the 美女to agree selling us at very cheap price:)

2 years in Beijing had made him street smart, and ???hehe.

This is an instant changing room in the stall ;)

Interesting walk in this very old, well preserved lane, called 南锣鼓巷.

A peep into a courtyard house, cozy.

Interesting to see they have a letter box for newspaper and mails,

and a separate white box for milk

A visit to the old residence of 宋庆龄, the wife of Dr, Sun Yat-Sen.

It has a nice garden.

Had tea in this place called, 9 meng xiao zhi

九门小吃（北京小吃）

Experienced local Peking food, and also halal

Chinese Muslim food.

Sorry to say that they did not dance to our taste buds.

Lamb innerts were supposed to be a local Muslim delicacy, but not for HK, me and Julie.

Dominick consumed almost the whole bowl ;)

Read from the Internet that 香山看红叶 is such a beautiful sight.

This is the main entrance to take a ski lift up 香山

We were so excited!

Riding this ski lift was equally thrilling.

However, we were 2 weeks too early, despite this excursion being arranged till the last part of our Beijing visit.

Leaves were just beginning to change their colours.

Most trees were still green ;(

This was the only autumn leave experience we brought back ;p

The second most popular Beijing tourist spot is now the 'Bird Nest'

So we went......

As we walk nearer, we could only see these huge steel bars.

Our impression: huge, strong, solid but nothing much to offer.

It's just another modern engineering display.

Perhaps 2 thousand years later, people look back, and say, " Interesting over - designed project.

where the hell did they get all these steel those days?"

The cube, where Olympic swimming competitions were held

The world famous Peking duck.

Any visit to Beijing will never be complete without eating here:)

We went at 12:00+, and the formal restaurant only had vacant tables available at 4:00pm!

So we opted for the 'only duck' section.

Well, it's OK, after all, we came here only for Peking duck.

We ordered half a duck per person, yummy!

Still the same old good taste as we had 5 years ago.

Sorry I remembered to take this photo after consuming half a plate of duck ;p

This famous little eating street in Beijing was different from what I saw 5 years ago, more organised.

and the scorpions were all alive and moaning in pain!

Still did not gather enough courage to eat them.

Yet, this place was still packed with tourists

Dinner at this Hubei restaurant was an interesting experience.

江湖一家（湖南湖北菜 )

especially this chili fish head with mee made from tofu.

Surprised to learn that near to Beijing, there is this limestone cave

This cave is huge, and 7 levels deep underground.

So far we could only go down till level 4.

However, as we had a number of similar cave experience, it was not so fascinating for us.

I think the colour lightings made the cave looks artificial....

A visit to this flea market in 潘家园古玩.

There were so many antics being sold there, real?

Ended up buying the set of 4 chinese paintings on the 4 prettiest ladies in history. 中國四大美女。

Huge place.

Walk till my left leg almost broke!

Had to sit down for some exotic and expensive coffee.

This is one photo keep sending my saliva dripping.

3 layered pork well marinated and prepared to the right softness. Yum yum!

This was taken in a Shanghai Restaurant, 圆苑（上海菜）

The most impressive was their male toilet.

It has 4 LCD panels displaying various channels: CNN, Bloomberg, sports and news.

Couldn't help taking this memory back to share with all.

This is one place near Beijing which I could never expect-龍慶峽.

龙庆峡 - 既有南方的妩媚秀丽，又有北方的雄浑壮观，被人们称誉为“塞外小漓江”、“中国小三峡”

A long escalator moving in the dragon's body brought us up to the dam above, and we boarded a boat for the river cruise.

Scenery was so cool.......

Looking up, a lone gazebo sat on the mountain cliff.........

We then took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, and in this little bell tower, we hit 10 times, citing some verses, bringing peace and prosperity to the whole family, friends, and the whole world ;)

We did some hiking......

This place is supposed to be so high that we could admire clouds below, and listen to rain drops passing by......

A further climb towards the peak brought us to this highest plateau of the mountain.

The gazebo could be seen higher up.

When I shot this picture, HK whispered," Sau Kuan, how I wish you are here :~("

On our way down, we need to pass through this narrow gap, which allowed only 1 person to go through at any one time.

This is how it looked like inside.

We came down at about 12:30pm, and entered this nice big restaurant, rejecting many restaurant promoters who volunteered to chauffer us to their restaurant lower down.

We discovered that we were the only customs in both the first and second floor!

Grill fish was good, but the egg plant was so salty that we requested for 1 bowl of hot water each, soak the egg plant for a while before they became edible, or rather tasted good!

See how thick the water became.

Price was cheap, but service was bad!

Later, we found out that this was another government operated restaurant.

No wonder.......!

Every good thing must come to an end.

This was the last dinner we had in Beijing, an excellent Korean BBQ, in this popular restaurant, 火炉火, selected by Zane.

Shaun and Zane has grown up, yet still remain so handsome :)

Dom's mum is an excellent cook.

We really enjoyed her cooking.....

It was a pity MeiLing could not join us, as she had to go for another compamy outing.

By the way, we missed all those home massage by Dominick's angels a lot.

As I cannot send my love to them, let me redirect our love to Lily .......the new addition to the Tan family :)

Cheers.........

Thank you, Dom & Karen.

See you in Penang soon.....

Beijing Nov09 part4: Tianjin

2009-11-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

Tianjin ( 80KM south ) is linked to Beijing by a High Speed Train which cruised at a maximum speed of 333 KM/hr during our ride.

Time taken was about 25 minutes, departing every 15-20 minutes.

However, we were shocked to find the station packed with travellers, despite being on a Thursday morning.

We arrived at 8:15am, planning to board the 8:45am train, but all seats were sold out, even first class.

The earliest available seat then was 9:55am ;(

Upon arrival, Ms YangLing Li was there, welcoming us with a 5-Series BMW :) Dominick immediately volunteered to be the chauffeur, and impressed us with his Beijing driving skill.

We first took a cruise on the Haihe, 海河, and passed through many well designed bridges. This is probably the maximum number of bridges I passed through within such a short distance.

This bridge won a prize for the best bride design.

Over this steel bridge, we could see the Millennium clock.

I was so happy to catch this photo of a "Hundred Happiness", or " 百福", which is essentially my name :)

Then we visited the ever popular 文化街, and bought 3 Chinese paintings from this shop. Again Dominick used his bargaining technique to twist the arms of our shop owner :)

Lunch was an experience! Now we understand why Dominick, the gourmet, insisted that we must eat Sea food in Tianjin. This Sea food restaurant is huge, with ton's of fresh and swimming seafood. The cooking was good, and flower crabs were especially delicious!

However, we passed ordering those ' Sea Intestines' 海腸子. They are fat earth worm like swimming creatures.

Took a little drive to witness the Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, which took 4 years to construct. This was a venue for Olympic 2008 football matches.

Caught this UFO shaped stadium which housed the 43rd International Table Tennis Championship in 1995.

We then took a time machine, 馬車, back to the olden days where the rich and famous stayed.

The tourist guide explaining as we rode by the 5 famous historic lanes.

An evening tea was planned in this little Italian town, and the atmosphere was fantastic.

Very nice boutique hotels and Italian style restaurants flourish this well kept small lane.

If you stare long enough, you will see 'Chiang Kai Shek' sitting right at the Center of this photo.

He waits for tips from tourists who wants to take a photo shot with him;)

This was where we sat down to have our afternoon tea, 意式風情街.

Many wedding couples came to take photos here. We saw 3 pairs within a short while.

This is Ling, MeiLing's staff in Tianjin, with her RMB30000 camera.
I admire her posture while shooting a bride nearby.

A short detour to a food street to try something like our 'putu piring', but coated with jam, instead of brown sugar & coconut.

Also we waited for this 'Hum Chin Phen' to be ready. They are called 耳朵眼 in China ;) Filling inside is also red bean paste.

Meanwhile, we wanted this drink, only to find out that the worker had clocked out.

Oh, this is a government operated 囯營 restaurant, no wonder ;(

On the dot, the workers stopped working!

Finally, the 'Hum Chin Phen' arrived, and you can see how simple was the restaurant.

As we were in Tianjin, we must take the world famous dumpling, 狗不理包子. This is our 3rd trial, still not impressed, except by its price.

However, by all fairness, the 包子 were very nicely wrapped.....

After dinner, we adjourned to Tianjing Train station, which is just beside the Haihe explanade.

The extent of the lighting here were far beyond our expectation. Tianjin has really changed so much, since we last visited 5 years ago.

Here we saw the well lit Millennium Clock!

Time had come for us to bid farewell to Tianjin.

Bye ......and Julie looked sad while posting in front of the High Speed Train.

Good night....

Beijing Oct 09 Part3: Xian2- 華山

2009-11-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

Finally, we were at the foot of Hua Shan, 華山.

Thank God, our driver did an excellent job negotiating through some small village path, after1.5 hours dead stop on the highway.

We were contemplating hiking from the foot of the mountain, following this path?

We voted. Result: 0-3.

So we happily opted for the cable car for the first part of the journey.
What a relief!The cable car took us straight up, while I could see tiny hikers below, panting and sweating :)This saved us some 4 hour hike!

After alighting from the cable car, we immediately looked for a nice place for a photo shot.

Yummy cool, unpolluted high mountain air!

This place reminded us of Mount Serrapt Monastery near Barcelona, Spain.

After a short walk, we came to this place, a path turning toward the North peak, 北峰, 1615M.
Though the tourist guide recommended that we scale this peak, as it is the lowest and easiest, we decided to go for the tougher challenge:)

The thousands of locks with names of couples engraved, were locked onto track side chain to symbolise their united undying love!

As long as Hua Shan stands, their love never fade......:)

The first narrow path we negotiated was this path next to a big rock.

As the name," Rubbing ear lane" suggests, the path is narrow, bending along this big rocky mountain.

Next, we had to do a vertical climb!

Looked dangerous, but we were equipped with hand gloves:)

Julie's face could tell you how tense she was.

But HK sailed through with a breeze.....

We could afford to smile a bit after successfully performed the vertical climb!

However, the journey was only getting exciting........

The trail seemed endless!

Yet, step by step, we moved on....

From far, we could see this exciting, famous, dangerous long trail- the one we used to see in the Internet!

For the first time, we were a little worried ;(

We still had to clear another long narrow ascending trail, before the ultimate climb.

Perhaps, due to the severe traffic jam on the highway, the hikers were comparatively less than normal.

We were just lucky!

Wise people said, "Life is a journey, not a destination" Likewise, we did not rush to complete the hike.

We stopped quite often to admire the natural beauty of this place, like these autumn leaves.

Looking back, we could see the Northern Peak, which is at about our present height.

And the journey continued....

Now we must pass through a small opening of a rock, which lead us to a temple.

This is how it looked from inside.

As we emerged, the North Peak was clearly lower than us ;) What an achievement, we thought.....

Then, we began the real hike. This trail is called the vertebrate of Hua Shan, 華山龍脈
Climbing along the highest ridge all the way, we inched, step by step, not forgetting to stop and enjoy the breath taking views. Unobstructed in all directions, we experienced very strong, cold wind.

Turning back, this is the trail we just cleared, rather steep.

As I took this shot, a strong wind blew, and Julie's cap was sent flying.....

Luckily, I was fast enough to catch it before it fell into the valley.

HK was not that lucky, and had to donate his new cap to some lucky hikers below:)

As we braved this stretch, we noticed that we had cleared 6800 steps.

However, the first part was with the help of cable car, hehe.

At this time, our young guide did not look good now. She was pale and tired, so we asked her to wait for us here, while we tried to reach the middle peak.

Time allocated for us was 1 extra hour!

Finally, we reached our destination!
This restaurant marked the center of the Central peak, the "5-cloud peak", 五云峰.

From here, We could then proceed to East, West or the highest South Peak, 南峰,2155M, but time was the concern ;(

Remember 射鵰英雄傳？東邪, 西毒, 南帝, 北丐，就在華山論劍........
We came too late.....!

This position commands an excellent view of the 'vertebrate of Hua Shan", aligning it straight to the North Peak.

The beauty of the scenery here is beyond description.
We could meditate here for hours and hours....

Time flew, and it was time to descend.
We took a different path to enjoy the scenic view from a different angle.

Looking up, we could see hikers trailing the same ridge as we did. Seemed so steep, boy!

Soon, we were lower than the North Peak.

Should time permits, we planned to scale the North Peak when we descend, much to the worry of our tired guide.

Meanwhile, the colourful trees made us feel like staying longer.......;(

En route, we have to squeeze through this narrow crack:)

and soon we were back to where we started, the entrance towards North Peak.

However, time did not allow us to continue our adventure :(

So we had a good look and then bid good bye to the beautiful 華山.

The Hua Shan Adventure is highly recommended!

Last day in Xi'an:

The highlight of this day was the visit to this newly excavated tomb of emperor 漢景帝，Han Jing Di.

There is an obvious improvement on the technology in the presentation and preservation of these smaller size terracotta( about 600mm high ).

They were enclosed in an environmentally controlled structure. This tomb is huge, and 13 holes were discovered. However, they have not dug out all yet.
Visitors walk on thick glass floor, and view the relics from the top.

These terracottas were originally silk clothed, and the arms were made of wood. Over the centuries, these wooden arms and clothes decayed, and only the clay bodies remained.

Later we went down a tunnel to the same level and view the Terracotta at eye level.

Interestingly, we saw hundreds of animal terracotta buried as well, goats, pigs, cattles, etc.

Also there were many big pots and pans, and other storage containers.....Guess the King wanted to ensure he will be well fed even after death.

Finally, we watched an impressive holographic projection bring ancient terracotta soldiers and emperor to live.

That brought our Xi'an tour to a grand finale. We visited some other attractions before flying back to Beijing.

Beijing Nov '09 Part2: Xi'an1

2009-11-06T01:49:00.000-08:00

The local night train experience, despite travelling 1st class in a private cabin for 4, was not a good one.
We found some 2 intruders sleeping on our beds when we boarded.
They just left after being told, without feeling guilty of dirtying our bed sheets!

Xi'an has been the capital to 11 dynasties over a period of 4000 years. Thus you can expect a lot of splendid sights recalling those past glorious emperor days.

The first place we visit is this 明城墙, a 14Km long square Ming dynasty city walls. The 12M high bastions have bases up to 18M thick.

Walking on it was quite an experience,
jogging on it would take too much time, so we elected to just have a shot taken.

Interesting weapons were displayed on the bastion.

Nicely designed trash collector to blend into ancient days.

We then visited the famous "Bell Tower"

Straight ahead is the modern Xi'an city center, inside the fortifications.

and right opposite is the twin "Drum Tower"

We had the highly recommended dumpling Buffet 餃子宴, in a restaurant near the Drum Tower.

However, we get only to sample only one each, for RMB88 per head. All were freshly wrapped and steamed.

Nevertheless, we tried so many different types of 餃子that .........hmhm, now we know why did they offer us only one per type!

This one claimed to be world smallest, at the size of a peanut.

However, for it's size, there was hardly any meat inside.

We suckers only get to eat the skin, haha!

This one is purplish black, made of yam?

This duck dumpling is the prettiest. With duck meat inside, it tasted good too.

Don't under estimate the size of these dumplings.

When they brought out the last dish, we were so full that we could not finish them.

We paid a short visit to this Tang dynasty Dayan Ta(Great Goose Pagoda), 大雁塔, built 2600 years ago, for the famous monk, Xuanzang, 唐三藏 to translate those Buddhist Sutras he brought back from India into Chinese.

His travel blogged on the wall carvings were fabulous.
Incidentally, his travel was made famous by the legend, " Monkey goes west" 西遊記.

Later in the evening, we patronised this brand new 大唐芙蓉园, big, nice and will become a potential hot tourist spot one day.

Night scenery was even better. We watched 2 shows here, one indoor and one outdoor.

The first was a musical depicting the good old days of the Tang Dynasty,梦回大唐.

The other one was an open air laser projection on the lake, 水体景观.

Neither were particularly impressive.

An hour ride the following morning got us to visit the eigth wonder of the world, terracotta!

The arrow on the right on this photo shows the exact location where the farmer found the first terracotta while sinking a well. Today, he sits in the hall and autographs a publication on Terracotta, and I bought one ;)

There are 3 caves of Terracotta dug out till now. This is the 1st and the biggest.

Original Terracotta dug out were coloured, but oxidation makes them look dull after a while. Only these 3, dug and preserved by German Technology, remained intact. Hence, more excavation will only continue when enough Chinese technology is developed ;(

Among them, There were horses and chariots.

We then proceed to a place, 華清池, where the famous concubine of 唐明皇, 楊貴妃 stayed.

The pool here was where she used to take bath, using the hot spring water nearby.

Supposedly, she was slightly rounded, by the standard of Chinese beauties, as you can see for yourself ;)

The back ground lake is known as 華清池九龍湖, the 9-dragon lake.

The highlight of the visit was a grand show at night, 長恨歌, a poem by 白居易.

It is directed by 李捍忠, who makes use of the lake as a dance stage, lighted bridges and surrounding buildings as backdrops, while the hill at the back is made to glitter like stars with a moon which changes in shape.

300 actors and dancers performed on this stage raised from the lake. At one war scene, canons were fired from the back, and the whole lake was on fire!

Later, when 楊貴妃 died, her spirit was seen retracting towards the sky.......

七月七日長生殿，夜半無人私語時。

在天願作比翼鳥，在地願為連理枝。

天長地久有時盡，此恨綿綿無絕期....recalling those good school days when we learnt this poem ;)

This is a fantastic show not to be missed.

That night we stayed in this nearby 爱琴海 spa resort, and soaked ourselves in the water drawn from the same hot spring 楊貴妃 used to enjoy.......;)

There were many different fragrant pools, indoor and outdoors, and we were very impressed by the workers' hospitality and working attitude.

However, it is a different experience as our Suginoi Onsen extravaganza in April ;)

The 3rd day in Xi'an is to scale the dangerous and yet beautiful Hua-San, 五岳之首，以险而著称——西岳-华山.

Our endeavouring driver managed to send us in time for our climb, despite an accident on the highway, by deviating via a narrow village tunnel road.

Thank you, Sifu ;), ..............my next post will be our climb up Hua Shan, 华山论剑

Beijing Nov '09 trip 1: Datong, Pingyao

2009-11-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

Julie, Hua Keong and I made a 15- day trip to Beijing from 11th/Nov to 25th/Nov. Weather can't be better, comfortably cool. Dominick and Karen played hosts in Beijing, with their driver chauffeuring us all over Beijing and it's vicinity. This picture was taken in front of Dominick's neighbouring house, a local Chinese singer.
As we have all been in Beijing before, this trip we concentrate mainly on Beijing new attractions and outskirts, mainly destinations not normally visited by most tourists.

Special arrangement was also made for our tours outside Beijing. The first exciting place of visit was Datong 大同(265 Km SW of Beijing), after a long night train ride in a local train. Datong used to be a big coal mining town in the past. Here we witnessed the Unesco World heritage Yungang Caves—云冈石窟.

These are huge Buddha carvings on a low but long sandstone cliff, dated back 2500 years ago. Created over the years, these carvings reflect Indian, Central Asian, Persian, and Hellenistic influences entering China via silk road.

We are up near to the Buddha Statue. Look how small those people below are. Different caves house different Buddha statues, big and small, exceeding 51,000 of them. It reminded me of the same stone cave statues in Afghanistan destroyed by Taliban a few years ago. What a shame!

We then proceed to the 'Internet famous' hanging monastery 悬空寺, a place I never dreamt of visiting years ago when I first read in my e-mail. Can't imagine it right in front of my eyes now. Temple built on stilts!

This carefully selected site at 恆山 (for the temple) caves inwards, and thus the wooden temple is sheltered from direct rain, and avoids strong wind erosion from both sides. It sits high up so as to avoid flood water from the river used to run below.

Supported by slender wooden pillars, the temple clinks precariously to the canyon's walls. It has some 30 over halls, connected by walkways and bridges.

They house numerous statues of Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist Gods, an example of religious harmony dated back to the Qin dynasty, 2200 years ago.

However, the tourist guide predicts that this temple may be closed to all visitors in 2-3 years time, as the old structure may not stand the increasing load of tourists pouring :( So, go asap if you want to!

En route to dinner, we visited this 11th century wooden pagoda, 县木塔, one of the oldest wooden building on earth, constructed without using any nail. The clearance of the wooden hinges makes it survived many earthquakes.

A closer look.

Yet we can still walk up to have a good look of the surrounding.

An excellent dinner was arranged in a huge courtyard restaurant with special performance demonstrated in our room, with the kind arrangement of 小峰。

After enjoying 刀削麵, we were shown how to slice it from the dough.

Looks easy for me....:) ,
.........and Karen

However, you can see the struggle from the others, like Dom, hehe.

Julie almost cut her fingers.

while HK did not manage to slice any piece, ;)

The Sifu then challenged us to do it on wheel, blind folded. We almost fainted!

What I love most is this 1-strand 'throw noodle'.

Ladies are supposed to take just 1 strand, it makes 1 big bowl. Even the stronger sex, just 2 strands will be more than enough!

Fortunately, Marco Polo did not learn this trick, otherwise, spaaaagggghhhhheeeeettttttiiiiiii will be spelt this way.

The grand finale was a conducted tour to witness the many collector items of the restaurant.

The next day, we visited a very beautiful old Chinese courtyard house and garden 乔家大院 , made famous by Zhang Yimou's film, "Raise The Red Lantern", starring Gong-Li.

It has 6 courtyards, and 300 rooms, built in the 18th century. A typical courtyard viewed from top.

Supposedly, there are a lot of Qi balance ( Harmony?) in the construction of this courtyard.

Can you feel it?

The big urn is filled with water, and it is where the Qi collects.

That explains why the owner is so rich, through his tofu and tea business ;)

Lunch at another courtyard restaurant was sumptuous, with too many dishes. However, the typical local cold dishes do not suit our taste buds. Somehow, we prefer hot food:)

Pingyao, 平遥, our next destination, has the best preserved city walls( 6 Km) from the Ming dynasty. Being the financial center of China during the Ming and Qing Dyansties, Pingyao used to be an affluent town. The first bank in China was established here. It subsequently offers 'Cheque' issual facility, with special technology and codes to prevent frauds.

However, when Qing dynasty defaulted on loans and abdicated, the banks were left empty, and thus Pingyao lost it's colour too. New financial centers were then built in Shanghai.

This is a main part of the city walls where visitors gain access to the top.

A view from the top.... Within the walls, there are 3000 historic shops, museums, and heritage sites.

Rain makes these beautiful shop houses look sad, with so few customers.... :(

yet another gate tower.

We then visited an old court of justice, the black stone carries original knee prints sunken into solid stone slabs. You can imagine how many people knelt here since day one!

Next is this 'car-less city', where the only fast transport is by golf carts. Some cycle, while many walk. It has long narrow roads, but clean!
Dinner, we slowly enjoyed some local delicacies in this pretty courtyard restaurant.

Our rowdy neighbours were shouting, yelling, quarrelling, or were they just celebrating some function?

We don't know!

Restaurant is beautiful, food is just so so lah. However, the toilet is far beyond description...... We still have quite sometime to kill after dinner, so we went for foot massage. But the standard is poor, far from Dominick's angels.

Soon, we have a night train to catch.

Good night.

See you in Xi An........

The party is over.

2009-07-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

JAPAN SAKURA TRIP April 2009: Last 2 days

2009-05-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

Day 8 13th/April Monday: Suizen-ji temple, Fukuoka, Hakatta ramen, Canal city, Hakatta Ningyo, sukiyaki dinner

Suizen-ji is reputed to be one of the 3 most beautiful gardens in Japan. Inside here, there are many replicas of other famous landmarks in Japan, like Mt. Fuji and others.

We arrived at Suizen-ji early morning, and there were not many tourists yet.

This big Japanese garden welcomed us as we strolled into the park.

Drinking this water cleanses your body and you will stay young forever ;)

There are many scenic spots, like this...

and I love this gorgeous pine tree.

Notice Mt. Fuji at the background?

From here, we headed towards Fukuoka, and it took us almost 2 hours. Lunch was the first thing in mind, and the Ramen stadium in Canal city was our target.
Canal city is huge. It has many high end shops, including 13 cinemas, and 2 hotels.

Did we cycle there? I forgot.

This robot walked towards us and said in English," Welcome to Canal City" How nice.....

Entrance to Ramen stadium through this big plate. There are many Ramen cum gyoza shops inside. You are supposed to share with your partners and try as many shops as you can. #9 set the record of eating 3 shops continuously in one go!
#6 and I managed only 2 :(

Hakatta Ramen claimed to use mainly pork in their soup preparation. However, we felt that it was too porky for us, though the noodle itself tasted very springy and delicious.

The second shop we tried used chicken stock, and we liked it better. Kyushu people would murder us if they read this.

After lunch we had some free time shopping.
Well you know who was the shopping queen with the mobile bank?

Some strayed, hunting for big toys....

Some roamed till the top floor and were almost lost. Click play button to watch.

Interestingly, everyone met back at this " Cold stone" creamery and had a gala time with those delicious ice cream. These girls worked with high morale, singing as they go along, reminding me of 'Cold stone' in California.
Click play to check:

As the majority preferred to shop at more typical, smaller Japanese shops, we went underground and started to search for Hakatta Ningyo ( Clay dolls ) and other souvenirs.

We were lucky to locate 3 shops, including 2 supermarkets, which stocked these pretty clay dolls. A couple of these eventually landed in Malaysia :)

There was a last minute change in our dinner plan. Originally, we were supposed to try Korean style BBQ beef, called yakiniku. However, #8 was so fascinated with the 'Sukiyaki' meal we had earlier that he requested for a change. So we landed up in this nice restaurant, for the last dinner in Japan for this trip.
Following the Japanese tradition, men sit first, then the ladies may enter ;p hehe.

Introducing.....

This was just the beginning

As usual, sashimi followed. Good!

Then a small plate of tempura chipped in.

Eventually, the main meal, marble Nagasaki beef sukiyaki, was the killer.

This is how it looked during cooking...

If you like to learn the secret of Sukiyaki preparation, click here:
The sukiyai was good, but we felt the beef was too thin. Such thickness we had before was for shabu shabu. Those beef for Sukiyaki were thicker, while those for yakiniku was the thickest.

The last dish was kishimen, a Nagoya famous noodle, in sukiyaki beef sauce.
It's white, like our Koay-Teow.
However, it was thicker, and made of wheat.
Taste was good, but everyone was too full.
Let's call it a day.

Day 9 14th/April Tuesday: Japan, we will be back!
This is our last day in Japan:(.
It had been a wonderful trip, excellent timing for sakura, beautiful weather, good company, delicious food, and tons of laughter........
However, every event must come to an end.
While we bid Japan farewell today, we will be back. Thus we said" Matta Ai-i mashyo" Which means, 'see you again' Perhaps in Nagoya, or Sendai ;)

In the airport, Choon Howe caught this loving picture of a father and daughter :)

The rest of the group still looked fresh, despite 9 days away from home. Really?
Suddenly, I missed my Char Koay Toew and Hokkian mee.
I also missed Cindy, my dog;). There is no place like home, right?
.................Cheers :)

JAPAN SAKURA TRIP April 2009: 7/9

2009-05-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

Day 7 12th/April Sunday: Volcanic mud pools, Mt. Aso, Kusasenrigahama, Kumamoto handy craft center, raw horse meet, puffer fish sashimi. We are alive!

Today, the first place we visited was "The Blood Pool"
It was red probably because of the plentiful iron oxide.

Japanese call it "Blood Hell".
That explained why the devil was around.

Turning back, I saw Suan See talking to the fishes.

Then we left for for another famous mud pool. As we walked in, these flowers welcomed us.
Spring has arrived!

This place is called "Sea Hell".
As you can easily imagine, the pool here is blue in colour.

The steam was abundant at times.

I found some new movie talents.
Watch your hands, boy!

Do you know some one was keeping a close watch?
Watching? No! she was waiting for.....

her hard boiled eggs :)

Then we found this lotus pond, with lot's of beautiful tropical flowers, including orchids.

We witnessed another movie was being shot. The actor walked through a shower of fallen sakura petals, how romantic....

floating towards him was this young promising actress.....
This film will be nominated for Oscar award soon.

On our way down, we stopped for lunch in this nice little Japanese style restaurant.

The window commands a good view of a very pretty garden. However, as we were hungry, many did not realise it's existence.

Well, it was a light, healthy Japanese lunch.

Not much meat...... :( Not to the likings of my brothers.

After lunch, we headed towards Mt. Aso, the biggest live Volcano in Japan. At a height of 1592 meters, it has the world biggest caldera.
This was where we boarded the cable car.

Surrounding slopes of Mt. Aso had hardly any vegetation.

Furious wind blew....

#8 and my family took a long walk up this place, where the wind was indeed, very strong.

and was hence cold after a while.....

You can see the huge caldera here.

As we descended from Mt. Aso, we passed by this place called 草千里ヶ浜, which means "field where you will find grass growing for a thousand miles, without any trees".

A professional photographer was seen snapping away with a model posing with various postures.

This photo was voted " Best picture" of the year.
Nice angle, pretty model, and you know who was the photographer lah!

We then visited "Kumamoto Handy Craft Center", where some bought interesting local souvenirs.
It sits next to the black Kumamoto Castle, in contrast to the white 'Himeji Castle' we visited earlier.

Dinner was a real adventure in this nice Aoyagi restaurant.

Kumamoto is famous for horse meat and sea food, as it's near to the sea. That explained our nightmare ;(
This was the appetizer.
Many did not like the lotus roots as they were filled with too much wasabi.
But I love them.

This was raw horse meat salad.
Many, well, almost all tried....

Then basashi ( raw horse meat sashimi ) came, and some took the challenge, especially the younger ones, and a few others:)
It was crunchy, and did not carried any smell we feared.
Texture was like taking "rare" steak.

We could easily identify the tenderloin, fillet, and liver on the plate.
When asked, we were told that the white slices were from the neck of horses.
So we tried.

#6 took almost a piece, I took 2, uncle took 1 Cheurn Howe swallowed 3, while Tsih Ern enjoyed all the 5 pieces, including those meant for the parents. Many others tried too.
Ask Tsi Ern how it taste?

It was not until towards the end of the dinner that we found out that they were " raw horse fat" OMG!

We also ordered the potentially fatal puffer fish, Fugu! About a hundred die every year after consuming puffer fish :(
Some internal organs must be removed or else.......that will the end of our trip!

I assured my brothers that if there were one place on earth we could try puffer fish, it's Japan!
Yet when the 'fugu sashimi' came, my brothers insisted that I should eat first, and should I still breathe after 5 minutes, then only they will eat.
They didn't know, the effect will pour in only after 10 minutes :)
Brothers???

This is my third attempt, and it was still very exciting.
It was sooooo good, soft yet crunchy, produced great satisfaction in the mouth
5 minutes later, someone started eating and both plates were swept empty in no time :)

Everyone claimed that it was excellent!
Nothing was spared for this puffer fish. Some of the meat and skin were fried and cooked.
Yum yum.

Even the bones were fried, crispy like crackers.
Choon Howe snatched this last piece, even though his mouth was still filled with earlier pieces.

We also had others kinds of live raw fish. We were told to put the white soft staffs in the bowl in the soya sauce, and then use it for dipping. It is called 'Shirako'.
All faithfully followed :)
I kept quite and everyone ate with a little frown.
Folks, Shirako is actually the 'sperm sac' of fish. It's filled with sperms!!!
Taste good? Hehe....

and this fish too, but nothing tricky this case.

But nothing beats puffer fish!
I love you! FUGU.
Technically speaking, mass continuous laughter is a symptom of pre-'Puffer Fish Poisoning'.
However, those who laugh till they wet their pants will survive, and emerge stronger than before.
Finally, these are the surviving wives....

And these are the brothers who live to tell this long stories.....
Oyasuminasai......