Cuisine close to home

Hi!

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

Hotel Garza Blanca Puerto Vallarta

Nice hotel , big rooms, and great service.

sunset @ Puerto Vallarta

Suzhou

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

spider infestation

Happy Halloween!

Delicacies 美味, 佳餚

牛肉火鍋
Rojak 豆腐
Curry chicken + puff
炒冬粉

Garden at home

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

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!!

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

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

Kheng Chong go-go's wedding

Animals near Thatch Caye

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! :)