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

Si Tung Ku Cheun ( Old town )

2. Si Tung Ku Chen

On our way to Suzhou, we visited this 800+ year old water city, made famous by Mission Impossible 3 a couple of years ago.

The first thing that catches our eyes are real fishermen fishing using Cormorants.

The interesting thing about this place is that there are real residents staying, and we can witness their daily life.

That is why this sign is necessary to warn them, and us too, not to simply do our business anywhere :)

This old men sells 'fried rotten tofu'

We could not gather enough courage to try it as the smell was too strange for our appetite.

However, these meat dumplings look delicious ...........

We took a cruise and trailed the path where Tom Cruise walked.

It's beautiful...................

Apparently, Tom Cruise fell into the water several times during shooting, thus, a sign was put up to warn him, and subsequent tourists, to be careful:)

It reads:

Fall into water carefully

Till then, bye........

Shanghai 1-3 Nov '07

Now that we have recuperated from the hectic tour in the past 1 month, let's slowly recap what happened.........

1. SHANGHAI

First big impression is the MagLev ( Magnetic Levitation) train from Airport to Pudong, which touched a maximum of 431KM per hour. I remember Jap's shinkansen was around 230KM/hr.

Our hotel, Sofitel, is located in Nanking Road, a fairly touristy location.

It is a short walk to the Bund, the famous Shanghai Beach featured in the famous Shanghai beach drama, with main theme song sung by Francis Yip.

This part of Shanghai is where foreigneers used to patronise when China started to open to foreign countries.

This is also the place where there used to be a notice stating that 'Chinese and dogs are not allowed!'. Currently this notice bord has been removed and kept in the museum.

Shanghai shocked us with its modern, expensive life style.

Things are expensive, especially imported staffs.

Food too!

Our dinner for the first night, in a respectable restaurant, HuangPu Club, overlooking the bund, was in excess of 3300RMB for 8 persons!

In front of the hotel is like La Rambla in Barcelona.

Lot's of tourist walking along this road where vehicles are not allowed.

This very old hotel at he background, "Chat Choong Th'ing" is where Hey Mun Keong and Ting Lek used to visit in the Shanghai Beach Episodes.

Being a big city, Shanghai has nothing much to offer, except 'Cheng Hwang' temple, where many small stalls sell local food, traditional goods, and small souvenirs.

Mummy bought from this shop, a silk 'Cheng Sum' for Ah girl's wedding next year ;)

Apparently, Shanghai is home to the world famous dumpling 'Sheow Loong Pau'.

There are a couple of stalls here too.

However, many claimed the taste is not as good. Uncle #9 insists that Joe Shanghai in NYC is better. Ah Bee should be happy ;)

Nevertheless, there are long queues here everyday. And they even have some dumplings staffed with crab roe.

Look at what they wrote on the window, it's frightening.!

Should you five difficulty reading the last few words, it says

" Dumpling stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crad "

That's all about Shanghai.

Cheers.........

We then leave for Suzhou.

En route we will visit somewhere for interesting.

Khao Lak, Andaman Sea

This is our first trip to Khao Lak, 85Km north of Phuket.
It's a huge resort, isolated, quiet, and bulit on a long stretch of fine, white sandy beach.
Excellent place for honeymooners.
However, the once crystal clear waterfront is now 'bad', after Tsunami, by Andaman sea's standard.

During the 2004 Tsunami, this place was badly hit, including our hotel, Le Meridien.
Thousands of lives perished.
They took 19 months to rebuild the hotel, and right now, it's fully booked almost everyday!
Can't imagine the business.
Dinners need to be booked well in advance, despite having 7 restaurants.
Most tourists are from Europe, and 65% speaks German.
97.25% are white.
In our 6 days here, we saw merely 1 Jap couple, 1 Korean couple, and an Indian family......
We are among the privileged few..........;)


We shared a nice quiet time with Tze Ping, staying 5 nights here, just relax, stroll, swim, eat, sleep, nap, and relax.......;)

White endless beach, miles after miles.

I love those blue sky.....

When night falls, we just laze around by the pool.........

As a Starwood preferred platinum guest, we enjoyed special welcome :)

Thank you! Ah Bee.

Daily buffet breakfast is a sin ;p

Though I am never a believer of healthy food, but such tempting yogurt is difficult to resist ;)

Nightly, we enjoy freshly caught seafood, especially steam fish and tomyam kung.

Not happy with the Thai food we took in Bangkok last month, we requested for very hot, and spicy food.

Indeed, the food came with lot's of cabai burung, and needless to say, we cried, fumed, and yet longed for more, hehe.

More ice-water, I mean ;)

Tze Ping went for 3 days' dive in the Andaman Sea.

Similan Island, Ko Kak(?) and some ship wreck.

It was interesting, as he made friends with Leopard sharks, Giant Murray eels, Honeycomb eels, Scorpion fish, Lion fish, Sea turtles, Spotted eagle rays, and learned to dance with Durban dancing shrimps.........

While he is away, our daily activities include combing the white beach for shells, and hermit crabs, etc ;)

You can see how long the white beach is. Looks endless.

We tried, but can never finish walking this beach!

Perhaps ah girl should train here for your marathon.

Suddenly, we encounter more than we expected.

Don't worry, it's just a friendly long tail friend.

At one part of the beach, there are weird rocks.................

As this is a spa resort, mummy went for her spa facial, and happily charged it to the room, with generous tips. Poor Ah Bee had to foot the bill, not me, hehe :)

As we explored the beach, we found this nice restaurant,

and this giant tiger prawn alone cost us RM20, but other foods are reasonably cheap.

As we have nothing better to do, quarrelling is also a past time.

This is how we look after a fight.

As night falls, we will just lie down and enjoy those beautiful sunsets.........

and the hotel again turned into a paradise.......

Nevertheless, every nice holiday has to come to an end:(

This is the last meal before leaving.

Look at mummy's face and you know how much she enjoyed Thai food.

This one is Thai papaya salad. Excellent!

Cheers....................,

Khao Lak, we will be back!