Hokey Pokey

After our offal meal last Thursday, we joined Peter, Gladys, Uncle Chris and Aunty Lina for snooker at the Oriental Club at Anson Road. We had fun and we were laughing at each other's snookering antics.


[Cueing for Fun: Waiting for our turns...]


[Read, Aim, Poke!: Angie having a go...]

Offal Offering

Last Thursday (21 July 2005), we joined a group of relatives (Yee Yee from Australia was back on a visit) for offal noodles at the Ho Ping coffee shop at the junction of Jalan Kampung Malabar and Penang Road. By default, each bowl has a couple of minced meat balls, kidney, heart, liver, intestine and brain. Luckily we went in a group and we could pass on stuff we hadn't had the 'guts' to gobble down.


[A Bowl of Pig: (clockwise from top) kidney, meatball, heart, liver, more meat balls, more liver, intestine and brain]


[Brain in a Bowl: A handful of intelligence...]


[Ho Ping Coffee Shop: Junction of Jalan Kampung Malabar and Penang Road at dusk]

Highland Workshop

Over the weekend, we attended a Catholic Engaged Encounter Workshop held at the KRS Pines Retirement Home in Cameron Highlands. The workshop was facilitated by Fr. Ambrose Vaz, and Connie and Lewis Shan from Singapore. Thirteen of us, including the facilitators, attended the workshop.

In between sessions, we had steamboat dinner at You Hoo restaurant in Brinchang, visited the Brinchang Night Market, and had a durian party on Saturday night. Before we left this afternoon, we stopped at Kea Farm.


[See-through Lift: Interesting machine at the Home]


[Fun with Food: Fr. Ambrose digs in...]


[Cool Contrast: No sweat at this night market]


[Satay Strawberries: You can coat these with honey, sugar or chocolate]


[Delirious over Durians: Finger licking good...]


[Dried Flowers at Kea Farm]

Angie left Camerons feeling unwell and uncomfortable (headache and nausea). She is feeling much better now and is resting/sleeping as I write.

More photos available at CEE's Photo Album and Peter and Gladys' Blog.

BEC Meeting

We attended our BEC (Basic Ecclesial Community) gathering last Thursday (14 July 2005) night. This time it was a combined meeting between BEC 4 and 5 of Zone G. Quite a good turnout.

What do we do at BEC meetings? Well, there's a monthly reflection paper that is used as a guide for discussion or sharing on a certain topic. The topic of the reflection this month was on Harmony and Reconciliation.


[Fellowship: We had a little fellowship after our discussion]


[Pleased to meet you: Toes interact too...]

Instant Sichuan Spicy Noodle

There are all sorts of instant noodleS available nowadays. We tried Sun Shun Fuk's Chicken Flavoured Sichuan Spicy Noodle from China/Hong Kong last Thursday. Not bad and the packaging is quite neat. Sometime back, we also tried their mushroom-flavoured one.


[Sun Shun Fuk's Chicken Flavoured Sichuan Spicy Noodle: Wanna play Pick Up Sticks?]

Equatorial Enjoyment

Tuesday (12 July 2005) night saw us enjoying a buffet dinner at Equatorial Hotel with Janice and friends. Janice has just completed her studies in USM *congratulations!* and was in the mood to celebrate. Thank you, Janice, and we wish you all the best in your future undertakings.


[Angie and Janice: Filling their buffer with the buffet]


[Equatorial Egg: This egg had its yolk taken out, mashed, and replaced with tuna flakes, yolk put back, and garnished with an olive ring and fish roe]

Huggy Says Hello!

Huggy was in a mood for photographs the other day...


[Paradigm Shift: Looking at things from a different point of view...]

So Far So Good

Last Saturday night (9 July 2005) after Angie's baking spree, we had dinner at Kafe Goodall on Gottlieb Road. We arrived early enough at about 7pm to secure a parking space at the customer parking lots.

There was quite a good range of food there, from the standard Penang hawker fare to interesting international selections. Angie and I went international, naturally :o). We had something from the Italian stall (Chicken Al Capone, RM7) and a set from the Japanese counter (Unadon, RM10)


[Chicken Al Capone: Cheesy chicken with a mob mop of spaghetti]


[Unadon: Delicious ell in teriyaki sauce served with rice, seaweed soup and a small crab stick omelette]


[Kafe Goodall: So Far So Good...]

As we left, we passed by the Special Nasi Lemak stall... but too full already... *sigh*

Oven Fresh

Today is a public holiday in Penang. No need to go to work... :-)

So, after lunch, I indulged in a little baking spree. Oven menu for today: Bread Pudding followed by yo-yo biscuits. The last batch of biscuits have just come out of the oven and all the goodies are sitting on the dining table cooling down as I write this blog :-) Total baking time: about 2 hours 20 minutes *beaming with pride* Good time for me since it usually takes about 2 hours to complete one baking project. Today I've got two items out!

Fresh from the oven...


[Bread Pudding]


[Yoyo biscuits]


[Bread Pudding: Seconds before entering a certain oral cavity]

Veggie Vestern

Yesterday we had fun entertaining again after a fairly long break (for us, that is). This time we invited two vegetarian friends. What did we serve? Our favourite - Western - but this time it's vegetarian. A first for our guests as well as us! We had tomato soup, our signature mashed potatoes, stir-fried veg (broccoli, carrot, capsicum and mushroom) and Bartian vegetarian meat patties served in mushroom sauce. Dessert was Viennetta ice-cream courtesy of our guests.


[Veggie Chop: Care to guess the ingredients?]

Name That Dish!

Angie got creative yesterday for dinner. While the rice was cooking, she dumped in slices of pork, diced carrots, diced chicken frankfurters, some shallots, some thick dark sauce and soy sauce. And voila! Had a distinct vegetable soup taste to it. What's this dish called? Err... time to play a new game called: Naaaaaame That Dish!


[This dish must have a name: Care to suggest a name?]

Veggie Spaghetti

We started the new month (1 July 2005) with Veggie Spaghetti. What's in it? We put in mock char siew and Japanese cucumber. How did it taste? It tasted like spaghetti with mock char siew and Japanese cucumber :o).


[Spaghetti Vegenese: No animals were harmed in cooking this dish]

Cinema, Cinema, Cinema

Last week, we were on a movie spree, having watched three movies in five days; two of which were French movies (with English subtitles, bien sur!).

On Friday (24 June 2005), we caught Agents Secrets (a.k.a. Spy Bound) at 6.30pm. Then on Sunday (26 June 2005), we got Wai Fun to tag along with us to watch Ah! Si J'etais Riche (a.k.a. Ah! If I Were A Rich Man) at 5.30pm. We had bought five copies of the Star paper to redeem five free passes.


[Femmes Fatales: Angie and Wai Fun posing with the French Film Festival lady with the over-sized glasses]


[Our free passes and tickets]

Finally, on Tuesday (28 June 2005), we had a date with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This time we made use of a buy-one-free-one voucher. In total, we spent only RM14 for seven seats :o). Never thought movies could be this cheap these days, eh?

Father's Day 2005

19 June 2005 was Father's Day. We were shuttling between Menglembu and Butterworth over last weekend to visit both our families to celebrate Father's Day.

On Father's Day eve, we took my Dad to our favourite Thum's Western Food in Ipoh Garden. The price is slightly higher than our usual food court western food but their servings are generous and the presentation is quite impressive. We shared a Fish & Chips (this comes with onion rings *yum, yum*), a grilled Chicken Chop and a Chicken Maryland (the batter tastes something like KFC *nice crunchy skin*) among the four of us.

Sunday lunch saw us having yam rice, Hakka-style yong tau fu (one of my Dad's signature dishes), pork trotters with mushroom (my Mom's concoction), and some long beans.

[Fathers Day lunch]

For Sunday dinner, we were back in Butterworth to celebrate with Papa. We ate at a restaurant at Pantai Bersih. We had balitung (a kind of shellfish). That was my first time... Papa had to demonstrate how to suck the flesh out *hsssssppp* :o). We also had potato leaves, egg-wrapped mixed vegetables and claypot tau fu. For dessert, it was durians :o).

On the way back to the island, somewhere near the Seberang Jaya Carrefour, my car reached a 'milestone'.

[Another reason to celebrate: Photo taken while speeding along the highway... excellent photo skill, I have]

Niq & Chui Ying's 1st Anniversary

Today, Niq helped me solve a little word puzzle over the phone:

1st word: What's on your head?
2nd word: What's the informal word for passing urine?
3rd word: The girl of Green Gables?
4th word: What's between your thigh and your shin?
5th word: What's between two choruses/refrains of a song?
6th word: To whom with love?
7th word: When replying to an e-mail, this appears at the front of the subject field.

To Niq and Chui Ying... Hair-pee Anne-knee-verse-sir-re!

Horsing Around

Today we visited the Penang Turf Club for the first time to see the Annual Horse Show 2005. There were pony and carriage rides, and an expo of mainly horsey stuff (what else would you expect?). But the main attraction for us was the display of various breeds of horses, ponies and a donkey, as well as the equestrian showjumping.


[This is a horse: the brown one... on the left...]


[Clowning around <:o)]


[Giddy-up: this is a horse jumping...;-P]

We are sad to announce that Mutiara Brew 2 (the Perry) was not successful. It was over-brewed (we harvested it on 26 May 2005, after 3 1/2 weeks). Now we've got a bottle of pear perry vinegar (as opposed to apple cider vinegar). We suppose it's good for health, too!

To make amends, we have now initiated Mutiara Brew 3. It's back to the good old reliable apple. And as a by-product of Mutiara Brew 3, we have some lemon shortbread to enjoy.

Chao!

East Coast Escapade (Part 3: Kuala Terengganu)

In this final installment, we hightlight some of the things we did in Kuala Terengganu. We didn't do much here becuase our trip to Chagar Hutang (Pulau Redang) split our stay here (14-15 & 22-23 May 2005).

At the mouth of the Terengganu River is Pulau Duyong where boats are built, some using traditional methods and material. We learned that there's a special technique of bending planks made of hard wood using heat to fit the frame of the boats.


[Little kid: This kid appeared lost at the shipyard... hope it found its mommy]


[Boat over troubled waters: A boat heading in the direction of the South China Seas]


[Traditional boat-making: Boats like these take about 2-3 months to complete and can cost between RM70,000 and RM100,000]

More photos of our East Coast Escapade:

• Kota Bharu
  
• Chagar Hutang (Turtle activities)
  
• Chagar Hutang (Facilities)
  
• Chagar Hutang (Sights)
  
• Chagar Hutang (Wildlife)
  
• Kuala Terengganu
  

East Coast Escapade (Part 2: Chagar Hutang)

We were volunteers at Chagar Hutang from 15-22 May 2005, 8D/7N.

Chagar Hutang is an isolated beach on the north of Pulau Redang. It is no ordinary beach because it is off limits to visitors except for staff and volunteers of the Sea Turtle Research Unit (SEATRU) of Kolej Universiti Sains dan Teknologi Malaysia (KUSTEM) (update: now Universiti Malaysia Terengganu) in Terengganu. It is one (and the 'busiest') of three turtle nesting beaches on Pulau Redang.

What did we do there? It's all about turtle conservation...

At night, we watched out for turtle landings and nestings. During our stay, 10 turtles landed and 5 of them nested. We assisted in the measuring of the size of the turtles, checking the turtles' tags, and noting the time of the turtles' nesting activities. We also observed markings on the turtles (if any).


[Turtle eggs: The green turtle lays about 100 eggs on average in each nest]

In the morning, we surveyed the new nests, i.e. measuring and marking the location of the nests and covering them with protective wire meshes.


[What's the distance? Fong Peng (one of SEATRU's research assistants) and Angie measuring the location of the nest]

During the day, we patrolled the beach to ensure the nests are not disturbed by monitor lizards or crabs. We also ensured that the beach remained off limits to human visitors.


[On our patrol: Halt! Who goes there?]

What else did we do? We snorkelled to our hearts' content, cleaned the beach, visited the Marine Park and the village, and hiked up Turtle Rock (a precariously perched rock on one of the hills surrounding the beach). There were lots of wildlife, too. We saw many turtles mating, monitor lizards, hermit crabs by the hundreds, squirrels, tree shrews, butterflies, flying fish, black-tipped sharks, a mousedeer, monkeys, gecko lizards and mosquitos... lots of them *itch*.


[Mating turtles taking a breath: Mr. Turtle appears to 'float' on the water while Mrs. Turtle's head just barely breaks the surface in front of her hubby]

Facilities at Chagar Hutang is basic but complete. No electricity (i.e. no TV, radio... ahhh... *bliss!*) and no handphone reception (*double bliss!*). There's piped stream water (i.e. we're bathing, cooking, doing the laundry and washing our *censored* with mineral water *kih, kih!*) and plenty of food (and lots of opportunity to learn new dishes).


[Our living quarters for the week viewed from the kangkung patch]

The stay was memorable and the experience was priceless. Do visit the SEATRU website for volunteer information and slot bookings.


[Turtle watchers: Staff and volunteers at Chagar Hutang, 15-22 May 2005]

East Coast Escapade (Part 1: Kota Bharu)

We were away from 12-23 May 2005 on a holiday to the East Coast. On 12 May, we drove past Kulim, Pengkalan Hulu (for lunch), Gerik, Jeli, Machang and finally put up the night in Kota Bharu. The leisurely drive took seven hours. We stayed at Crystal Lodge (the room was small but cozy and clean).

The basic idea was to see the sights and devour the delicacies. At the Buluh Kubu foodcourt area, we ate flattened and grilled cuttlefish (RM1 each) and an assortment of colourful Kelantanese kuih; at Pantai Cahaya Bulan, we ate deep fried squid (RM6 each); at Pantai Sabak, we tried satar (RM1 for 4 cones); in town, we had satay jawa (RM1 for 3 sticks); and at the ourskirts of town, we tried keropok losong a.k.a. lekor rebus *ewww!* (RM3 for about 12 worm-like pieces).


[Kuih of all shapes, sizes, colours and names: Fancy eating some 'tahi itik' (duck dung)?]


[Satar: A grilled mixture of fish, coconut and spices]


[Siti Khadijah Market: You can buy almost anything from clothes to turtle eggs]

Encounter with the Engaged

The 56th Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend was held from 6-8 May 2005. We made our debut as one of the presenting couples alongside Chris and Lina Baptist. Fr. Ambrose Vaz was the presenting priest.


[56th weekend Presenting Team: (L to R) Chris, Lina, Fr. Ambrose, Angie and Bart. Photo taken by Peter Liew]

For more photos, visit CEE Penang's photo page and Peter Liew's post.

Mutiara Brew 2

Today is a holiday. So we took the opportunity to have some fun.

First, we tried a new recipe for lemon muffins. It came from a recipe book given by Chui Ying. Result: SUCCESS :-) Thanks, Chui Ying! For that, you get four muffins ;-)


[Lemon Muffins]

Then, we embarked on a "long-term" project. We decided to brew perry. For the uninformed, perry is 'drink made from the fermented juice of pears' - Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. It is the sister of the cider, which by the way, is made from apples. This time we plan to wait for four weeks. We'll see how our mould goes...


[Mutiara Brew 2: Another wait begins...]

Our 1st Anniversary

Today is our first wedding anniversary. Time really flies.

We celebrated our anniversary with dinner at Ingolf's Kneipe in Batu Feringghi. They serve German cuisine. We ordered a Cream of Escargot soup, Pork Goulash, a pair of Pork sausages and a glass of Irish Coffee (coffee, cream and whisky... quite strong).


[Dinner at Ingolf's Kneipe: All the way in Germany *acah aje*]


[Ingolf's Kneipe Batu Feringghi]

After dinner, we came home, lighted our unity candle and said an anniversary prayer together.


[Our Unity Candle: First lit a year ago]