April long weekend

Tuesday, May 1st, is a public holiday. Many people take Monday off so that they can have a long weekend. Gorbie+Karin+Kaiyang came back this weekend. Cousin Kian Sing+wife, Toto, brought their friends, Dave and Polly, to Malacca for the weekend from Singapore. We went to Beizhan for dinner. Good food and they shopped a lot.

有兒萬事足啊!

Hey, I'm trying to pose here. Somehow, aunt has shaky hands. =S

Hmm.. it's time for a hot bath.

Zzzzz... I feel so good after taking a hot bath.

Kian Sing and Toto shopped at Jusco.
Someone commented that she looked like a brinjal (eggplant) in this outfit. Hahahaha...

Looks familiar?

Oh, come on. What are you trying to do to me?

Hmmm.. I wonder how I look now?
Wallace and Gromit? =)

Hahahahaa... can't resist it.. I'm going to swallow them now...

Special thanks to...

Choon Ping and jie (sis)…
Thank you so much for your warm hospitality, yummy food, laughs and cozy house throughout my 5 -wk stay in CA. I really enjoyed myself very much and took home wonderful memories. I’m sad to leave but I know we’ll see each other some time in the near future.

It was nice to meet fantastic people and we had fun...
Wasiuddin Wahid*, Si Man, Jasmine + Marcel + Sophie, P’ng + Judy + Kai Xiang, Lynn + Jack, Betty, Joy, Julie, Ronnie, Robert, Xin, Shwe, Mate, and etc…

Pei-Sze -Many thanks for letting me stay at your place in SF. Especially your comfortable bed. =P I like your awesome home cooking too.

Chin Ping -Nice convertible bug. I had a great time cruising it. 谢谢你!

Josh – I never knew Google lunch was such a big thing and famous until... Thanks for the wonderful lunch and refreshing campus tour.

Wasi - Your magic trick was pretty entertaining. It was as good as your cellular phone! =)

Don – How could I miss your name on my thank you list?? Dance lessons, rock climbing, and go-karting (Opps! A special thanks goes to the organizers, Arif and Tahera). A Big Thank You to Don Lee. I really appreciate your effort and thoughtfulness for making all the arrangements and making this trip truly special. I had a very pleasant time.

Miss everyone a lot. I'm looking forward to my next visits!

With best wishes,
Pei-Yean

Cats and flowers

Just wanna share some of the pictures we took recently.

My visit to the Bay Area

My 5-week visit in the bay area was like a year to me in Malaysia or Singapore. Sounds like I have been sorta "busy" here... =P Lotsa shopping, visiting, and eating out. Hey, I also did a little of cooking, cleaning, gardening and babysitting the two lovely cats, Toro and Winston. Oh yes, go-karting, rock climbing, Swing and Salsa lessons were really interesting and fun. =) Here are some of the pictures. I wish I had taken more.

Dinner at Pei Sze's apt in SF. Home cooking. Yummy~

Si Man's visit to Sunnyvale. It was nice to see her again.

Go-kart race. Phew! It was fun and tiring. I still can't believe my back actually ached for a few days after that. =S

Dinner at P'ng's house. Excellent food! Don's birthday too.

Best dish I've ever ordered. Spicy prawns! yumm...yumm...

Visited the tide pools, Moss beach, Half Moon Bay.

Beach walk -Santa Cruz , Carmel

taking one step further

Amy and I have been running for about 2 years. We have always say we should do a half marathon some day. The other day she told me that the Nike Women's Half Marathon in October is already sold out, but they are opening more slots for a random lottery. So, we both signed up, saying if we get picked, then it's our fate to run the half marathon. Guess what? We both got in to the race! Now we have to train for it! Oh well, I guess it gives me good motivation to push myself further than my regular 3.5 mile run. We probably won't start training until after Bay to Breakers, a pretty fun race where some ppl are in weird costume, and some ppl in their birthday suits!

My New Love

Don't worry, Matt and I are still engaged! :)
We picked up my cute little baby blue beetle convertible today from the previous owner. It's really nice and perfect! It drives really well. One thing that I still need to get used to is that the back window is really small, so it's very difficult to reverse my car. Also, when I need to pass a car, I cannot look out of my side window anymore since it is so small, and the black top sort of covers the view, so I will just have to use the side mirror and the front mirror. It will take some time to get myself fully accustomed to it, but I think I will definitely enjoy cruising in this cute little bug!

I just can't describe how adorable it looks, so I will just post some pictures and videos of it.







Here is my 2nd attempt in lowering the top of my beetle. Let's not ask what happened during the 1st attempt.


And here's how you put the top back on.

Farewell 4YOS500

4YOS500 officially has a new owner today. The buyer did all the paperwork at 1pm, and said he will come back later for the car. I went running in the afternoon, and just when I was about to get back to my place, I saw 4YOS500, this time with the new owner, driving it away... Felt a bit sad, since I have had it for over 7 years, from Florida to California. It's been good to me for most of the parts, except it gets sick sometimes, especially more lately as it's getting older. It was of course good to abi when he was in Iowa-Abi's cash generating machine :)

Here are some pictures of 4YOS500 I took before I sold it.









Oh, and here daddy, the part we tried to fix back in Florida. You can see the rust is starting to resurface.

The Power of Craigslist

I posted my car (or should I say abi's car?) for sale on craigslist on Friday evening. In less than 30 minutes after I posted my ad, I already received 3-4 phonecalls, and 3 emails! I sold my car on Saturday morning! The guy will pick up the car tomorrow. Craigslist is such a great idea. I am still getting tons of calls and emails about my car though, I should take the ad off soon.

Lime+Sunglight=Pigmentation

I noticed patches of redness on my left hand the other day. I went to the doctor yesterday for my allergies, and also asked him to look at the discoloration of my hand. He briefly looked at it, and he asked the most bizarre question (I thought)- Did you use lime last week? I was like, huh? Err.. yeah, I did. How did u know? Then, he asked, did I go out in the sun after that? I was like, I don't know, I can't remember, I might have gone out for a run. Then, he told me something I didn't know before this - I must have gotten some oils from the the lime onto my skin, and it was exposed to the sun, and thus a photochemical reaction occured, causing the skin discoloration. It will go away, eventually. (I hope that's true) Interesting, isn't it? So for future references, please wash your hands thoroughly after working with limes! :)

Ah Kong's Tui Nee

This is what we prepared on Sunday, for Ah Kong's Tui Nee.
Mummy cooked many dishes, while some are brought by relatives, and others are made to order.

It was a long session, from 10:00am till 3:00pm.

Among many other things, this is the first time we had Ah girl praying from US, via the Internet, using Skype. Ah Kong must have been quite happy.

Wonder how many persons had done this ;)

This photo covers all, but I want to draw your attention to something at the sides on the table.

You will see more clearly from this angle:There are 2 extra 'colourful pillars' on the 2 sides of the table. They are called 'Moh Hor Chiam' which literally means a small pagoda made of Moh Hor Kueh. These are made to order, and sponsored by the daughters. You can see more clearly from here:

Amongst many other dishes, some Nyonya Kuehs are worth mentioning. They are soooooo delicious ;p

First, the must have " Ang Koo"

This is "Huat Kueh with Monk head Ang Koo"

While this is the ever popular "Tapioca Kueh":

'Kueh Kochee', sounds familiar? Remember, it's green colour with coconut and gula Malacca inside:

I wonder if you remember this, the semi salt/sweet Chinese carrot Kueh, sprinkled with pounded roast peanuts:

This is every one's favourite, "Pulut Taitai" or Kaya Kueh:

Now a days, local 'longan' or "Dragon eye fruits" are good but more expensive than Thai varieties.

Winston Meets Toro 2

Day 3. Weds. Work day for both of us. Since we are not comfortable with both cats in the same room yet, we have decided to have Toro in the bedroom, while we let Winston free to roam around the house to get comfortable. We are hoping that once he is comfortable with the surrounding, he would have one less uncertainty to worry about.

After we came home from work, we let Toro out. But want to introduce both of them again. So we moved one of the coffee table glass top to the bedroom, and make the door seemed transparant. This allows both cat to be able to see each other without being able to hurt each other.

The encounter wasn't completely friendly at all times. Sometimes, Winston will growl at Toro, but this time around Toro growls back at Winston more. But Winston is really quite a brave cat, he knocked down the slippers that was supposed to block the little opening so that he could enter Toro's room. The encounter took a few hours. It was fun but stressful at times to watch them. By this time, we really admire Winston's courage, he has a really cool attitude on the whole thing. No matter how many times Toro growls, he would keep going back to Toro's room. His tireless spirit is commandable and amiable. This is a big difference in character between Toro and Winston.
After the exercise, he got pretty tired. Time to excuse him to go to the bathroom.

Quite thirsty indeed....
Day 4. Thurs. Yesterday Winston had the whole house during the day time, today it's Toro's turn to have the whole house. When Toro naps in the afternoon, I let Winston out to roam around again.

Wait, looks who's here! It's Pei Yean! She is in town... She finally gets to carry Toro. So big and soft... :) She just arrived from Malaysia!
Day 5. Friday. Work day for both of us again. So today Winston gets the house. When we came home at night, we let both of them out. They are getting better at hanging with each other's present within the same room as long as certain distance is kept and under adult supervision. Toro is also getting somewhat comfortable laying in front of Winston. By this day, they both can live along one another around the house when we are around.
Too bad. Winston is not a lap cat, but Toro is... Look at how comfortable things are...

Day 6. We are not home most of the day. Although they are starting to be able to live with each other, we are still not comfortable enough yet, so one of them gets the house while we are away. When we return, we let both of them out to familiarize with one another. By this time, Winston is actually getting quite comfortable. Toro seemed to be getting crancky when Winston is too close, things are certainly improving.

Day 7. Sunday. We work from home today. Bailey, the dog, came to the house today. At first Winston is quite curious, but just a bark from Bailey scared the spirit out of Winston. After that, Winston didn't even come out of his room. After Bailey left, then Winston once again roam freely. Today, things are significantly better, Winston now comes in and out of Toro's room. Once in a while Toro shows aggression, but most of the time Toro just let Winston wonder all over the place now.