More on Ko Lipe : Day #1 & day #2

This is my 6th trip to Ko Lipe, and there has been tremendous development since I last visited in Dec 2003 with Choon Ping and mummy. Nevertheless, Islands of Tarutao marine park are still very beautiful. This trip, we have 4 new faces, PeiSun, PeiYean, Pit Fuh, and Bee Gim.

Our group spent 4 nights in Ko Lipe, and chartered a long tail boat for our island excursion for 3 full days at 1500Baht per day.

We managed to contact our old boat man, Liek, who most impressed me with his new mobile phone , ( No: 0831836055). Below are some of the more exciting part of our adventure.

Day#1 19th/March 2008

When we arrived at Cabana Resort, after travelling for some 11 hours from home, the first thing we pampered ourselves was a good dinner, at the 'Porn Resort'. Here we had an excellent BBQ Mackerel, which was consumed within seconds.

So we added another BBQ yellow tail.

The bill was about RM100 for 6 persons, reasonably priced.

Day #2 20th March 2008

Life in Ko Adang/Lipe always starts with snorkeling, you can see the corals even from the boat.

After we are happy talking to the fishes, we visit Ko Hin Ngam, which is famous for it's beautiful glittering black stones

No visitors dare to bring any of these stones back, as there is a curse by the God of Tarutao.

In stead, using those stones, many build their own 'tower', and we design something different ;)

This is what we called" Ninja Turtle rock"

Some towers are taller than human, as you can see from our pictures. We made some interesting shots .

This is our chief photographer in action.

A day in Ko Adang without fishing is incomplete. So let's start fishing! It's a tough job preparing everything for 4 beginners, yet we put a smile on every one's face ;(

Pit Fuh is the hero of the day, pulling in a huge 'Squid' as shown in the previous blog,

He also landed a couple of Ikan Mabong or Patut, and another big coral fish.

Look at his million dollar smile :)

We fished till sunset before we earned our dinner, 22 fishes cooked in various styles:)

And a big squid steamed with chili and lime, yum yum

However, all these come with a price.

Look at Choon's half baked back!

Now he learns the meaning of Sun Block cream :)

What is SPF 50!

Let's call it a day till now................

More to come soon...........

Look what we caught in Koh Lipe!

Freebies at Work

I got a mug, a shirt, and a nice thick fleece jacket.

"Change" happening in Malaysia!

The day we arrived in Penang is the day after Malaysia national election It's BIG news! The opposition party won big in Malaysia. Check it out! Tremendously amount of excitement fills the country. Penang is going to be ruled by the new opposition party. There is finally a sense of hope for this country. There is so much problem, finally democracy in Malaysia is maturing, this is the beginning of the 2-party democracy system. Didn't realize that when Obama is campaigning for change in the US, Malaysians are even more ready for change. The people of Malaysia have spoken, it is time for the new government to fulfill their promises.

Weekend before our trip

It has been raining recently... this Sunday, our original plan to celebrate the belated Valentine's Day with Xin & Shwe by having branch at Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay was canceled . :( However, the gathering was still on while the venue has changed to a more low key one, The Original Pancake House in Los Altos. P'ng, Judy & KX joined us as well. The food is yummy!

Later, P'ng, Judy & KX came over to our place to hang out for the rest of the day. It was great! KX also got to take a nap at our place, played with Winston, and picked some lemons. :) KX loves Winston. Toro was such a 'chicken'... she was hiding in the bedroom. Toro loves P'ng though. She sat on his lap for almost 1.5 hours straight while we were chatting, & KX was sleeping. :)



Our trip back to Taiwan & Malaysia is just around the corner... can't wait!! I still need to finish our tax... we haven't done any packing yet! So much to do yet so little time... I miss the cats already! :(

Gong Xi Fa Cai

First, this is the eldest in our family, Ah Mah, saying "Gong Xi Fa Cai" to everyone.

To start the new year, we need to prepare some special home made goodies:

The first cookie prepared is cornflake cookies, Ah girl's favourite ;)

Then comes the Coffee cookies, Choon Ping's preference:

Not forgeting my all time favourite, the big Almond cookies.

This must not be confused with the Almond crisps which PeiSun is learning in US, also Choon Ping and Ah girl's choice.

This is the traditional 'Sungai Petani Ribbon biscuit'

Then again the old time favourite " Kuah Kapek" is a must for every CNY.

And the fairly rare Kueh Bangkit too....

This is the recent favourite 'Chi Ku chips'

And finally, mummy's once a year 'carrot cake'

And the ever popular 'pineapple upside-down cake'

Well, after all preparation, our new year starts with the usual re-union dinner last night, but sad to say, only 3 of us lah :(

Yet the CNY mood is strong at home.

3 is too small a crowd to have steamboat, so we resorted to cooking some 'New year dishes' for once:

The main chef, mummy started with a 'Braise dried oyster with fish maw and abolone'. This is Ah Bee's favourite ;) She cooked that in New York a couple of times.

Then She cooked a new dish, even for me, called "Nooi Ken", which can be translated into "steam prawn egg roll"

And we bought some very big prawns and mummy cooked 'Har Lok"

And a 4 hour double boiled soup ;)

Of course, I must play my part too :)

Mine is a highly specialised CNY dish. And it needs some lengthy explanation. You will find out why later;)

First I took 3 small mackerels, scrape the meat, blend in Kenwood chef using K beater for some 30 mins, and throw in chopped union, ground pork, add various types of marinates, add 'fa choy' or hair like vegetable and then beat for another 15 mins, till paste like.

Meanwhile, boil 12 big dried oysters for 40 mins. Keep this stock.

Take 1 each of pork and liver chinese sausage. Cut into 12 pieces each, slightly fry.

Then take the cooked oyster, 1 piece each of the sausgae, and a stalk of spring onion, wrap with the fish/pork paste. Make it look like a huge goose egg. Deep fry in boiling oil for 10 mins till brown.

Using the stock from boiling oysters, boil these fried ' egg shape staffs' for another 40 minutes, thicken with cornflour and serve hot!

Ha!

Finally.........!

Preparation cum cooking time is about 4 hours, but it takes only 15 minutes to consume :(

It's so good!

So, still worth the effort lah!

I have also prepare our family traditional 'steam turnip cake' And it is very good this year, hehe. This is our daily CNY breakfast.

So, this morning, we have the first batch of visitors, Pheng Koko and Phong nya Koko, with the 2 little boys.

Cheers............

Spoilt cats

We got a new bed for the cats from Big Lots when we were at Meadville for Christmas vacation. Meeku loves the bed:

So does Rafiki, although he likes to sleep in an enclosed area:


They were fighting over the bed for a while, so Diane mailed an identical bed that we received 2 days ago. Now they each have their own bed. :) I have no idea how Rafiki climbed into the bed and covered it up with the cushion though!

Pandan Cake

Every time I go to any kitchen appliance stores selling the multi colored Kitchen Aid Mixers, my heart goes... ooh!! So, last week, Choonping and Peisun gave us our wedding present - a red kitchen aid mixer! hurray!! Thanks! Not only does it match our accent wall in our living room, it also matches a kitchen aid cookware set that I have.

I used this mixer for the first time today and yup, I love it! I decided to make a pandan chiffon cake, my all time favorite malaysian cake.


The cake turned out pretty well, it was moist and spongy, and had just enough pandan flavor to it....Next time, I should try to reduce the cracks on top, and see if I can even make it rise a bit higher by whisking the egg whites a bit more and cutting down my folding time.

In the mean time, I am going to go enjoy a piece of yummy pandan cake!

Happy New Year!

After spending every year since 2000 counting down at Times Square in NYC, this year I decided to do it in Tokyo. Went to a temple (増上寺 or zojoji) that was over 400 years old for the count down. The Tokyo Tower next to it made it quite a sight. It's indeed a different way of ushering in the new year ... :-) Have a Happy, Healthy, and an Eventful New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!

...from Toro, Winston...


...and family (sorry no picture). :P

mm... what's that?

Trip to Death Valley National Park

Together with Xin and Shwe, we began our 4 days/3 nights road trip to Death Valley National Park during this recent Thanksgiving holiday break from Sunnyvale, CA with our rented SUV.

Thursday morning, November 22nd, 2007
In about 3.5 hrs of drive, we were at Bakersfield. Our initial plan was to meet up with Lalit and had lunch here. I guessed we got there a little earlier than expected, and at the same time found out all the shops were closed. So... change of plan: we picked up Lalit at Mojave and had lunch at Denny's instead; KFC at next door was closed. Anyway, it took us almost 3 hours to a small town called Lone Pine, just West of the Park, with a spectacular view of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental US. It was our first stop before we head into the park tomorrow morning. After loading our stuff, we checked out the close by Alabama Hills before we headed back to the motel room to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner -- steamboat/hot pot! Yup, we brought all the stuff in cooler with us! Though we forgot to bring "sha cha" sauce, it's still yummy! We were so stuffed!

Friday morning, November 23rd, 2007
...was dedicated to drive around the desert park.
- 1st stop:- Furnace Creek visitor center (we found out that our SUV is not "hardcore" enough to drive the dirt road to Racetrack Playa) :(
- 2nd stop:- Devil's Golf Course. (rugged salt crystal rock)- 3rd stop:- Badwater/salt field; 282 ft below sea level, lowest point in the National Park/US.- 4th stop:- Natural Bridge Canyon. By the time we were about to leave, we knew that we probably couldn't make it to the Sand Dunes during sunset; not to mention that we had to stop by at Dante's View before that. It was dark very early. Instead of attempting to wrestle with time, we took a slower route to our next destination, passing by Artist's Palettes.
- 5th stop:- Dante's View. Excellent view, but it was windy and COLD!
- 6th stop:- Stovepipe Wells Sand Dune; one of the most accessible one. By the time we got close to the Dunes, the sun had set. We did a moonlight hike instead. It was GREAT! The weather was perfect! Of course we all rolled down the sand dunes. :D- 7th stop: - Stay overnight at the other side (East), outside the park at Beatty, Nevada.

Saturday morning, November 24th, 2007
...we drove west into Death Valley Park again. Trip to Racetrack playa was cancelled :( because the road was too rough for our SUV. :(
- 1st stop:- Mud flat. This stop was not in our plan. We drove by and found it interesting. So we decided to drove off road and stopped by. It's one of our highlight. :)- 2nd stop:- the volcanic Ubehebe Crater.- 3rd stop:- Mosaic Canyon; beautiful trail- 4th stop:- back to Best Western @ Lone Pine, CA. and crashed for another night.

Sunday morning, November 25th, 2007
It’s nice to be out in the wild for a few days... after our complimentary breakfast at the motel, it was time to pack everything up and get ready for another lonnggg drive back to civilization. Traffic was bad when we were about to get off Highway 5. We left the motel around 11am. By the time we were in the Bay Area, it's almost 7pm. So, we headed straight up to Sushi Tomi @ Mountain View, and treated ourselves with spiciy tuna donburi, handroll, chirashi donburi... :) yum....!

I'm sure there are a lot of places, and smaller hiking trails that we would like to explore... Perhaps some other time... (no lOnG hiking; i'm NOT a fan!) Anyway, this has been such a fun vacation!! :D


more pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/peisunl/DeathValley2007