Malaysia: week 2

Aaaaaaand another week has gone by. And this is the moment where you realise you REALLY don't have much time left to do anything/see anyone! :O probably get to see a few people once more and that's it :( sigh.

What I've been up to for day 8-14 in Malaysia.

1. Met more people
My cousins super cute one year old baby will be celebrating her 1st birthday this week! Which means - time for baby gift shopping!!! I don't know if this has to do with being a girl/the whole maternal instincts deal, but shopping for baby stuff is SO FUN. Everything is so tiny and cute and fluffy and soft! I remember I went baby gift shopping with my brother once, and we found a baby blanky soooooo soft he almost bought it for himself. And the toys!! So many buttons to press and things to touch etc. Yes, I'll admit it. I'm one of those itchy hands that will touch everything and press everything. Especially if it says "Try me!". I'm the one who would press every button in a lift if the buttons were particularly nice to press.

2. More shopping!
I seriously need to stay away from the big shopping malls. Zara and topshop will be the death of me! Almost bought ANOTHER 2 pairs of sunglasses (keyword being "almost", now aren't you proud of me), but its not that I wear sunglasses all that often. Even though things here are cheaper after conversion, it still feels like I'm spending more money simply because the numerical value is larger here. And a RM100 note can only go so far. Especially if you hang out at Zara. I'm still secretly searching for the shoes I mentioned in my last post when I enter the shop. No luck. So many skirts and tops I wish I could buy, but I must resist. What if I had a duck that laid golden eggs? Hmmmmmm.

3. Miscellaneous entertainment
Watched spiderman (hello there Andrew Garfield) but LASERTAG WITH MY COUSINS. HAS GOT TO BE THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK! This was my first time playing lasertag, and boy have I been missing out on life!! Now I know why Barney (from HIMYM, not the purple dinosaur) loves it so much. The blinking suits, the laser on the guns which make it SO much easier to aim, the fluorescent graffiti on tyres, barrels and whatnot in the "warzone", hiding behind props, the awesome tri-tone you hear from the gun when you successfully shoot/tag someone... But my favorite part has GOT to be the mission impossible-esque music in the background. Seriously takes the "secret agent" experience to a whole new level!

3. More food.
I had a few repeated meals this week :p oh well, they were still good! Went for a sushi buffet today with Qien and Laks, and totally overdosed on sashimi. Right now the mere thought of sashimi kind of makes me want to puke :p only a little.

Let's have my top 5 of the week!

ABC @ my uncles Fishhead Noodle shop

Still my favourite Ice kacang of all time, and not just because its my uncle's! The ice is super melt in your mouth, unlike some places where the ice can be quite hard and stiff and it makes it really hard to try to collapse the ice without it falling out of the bowl, but this one is really nice and soft and collapses into the bowl nicely as you eat it. And I like how they don't put all the colourful nonsense syrups on top, just good ol gula melaka and some evaporated milk.

Shu Fun Kan (Tapioca flour noodles) @ Noble House, Klang

I know it looks disgusting, my apologies. Was halfway eating this before I decided that its too tasty to not have a picture of. Super chewy noodles, kind of reminds me of pearls in bubble tea, but these are chewier.. I think. This was very well done! Tastes a bit like Fried Kuey Teow without the kuey teow. Apparently its hard to cook the noodles because it might stick together/be tasteless etc especially since the noodles are so dense and heavy. Props to the man/woman who probably has a really big wok to fry all these. He/she must have really strong arms.

Funny story. We (my cousins and I) were supposed to eat Claypot Chicken Rice for dinner after lasertag, but after 1 hour of driving around and trying to collect food from 2 different hawker stores and failing due to various reasons, half of us went to join the adults at Noble House, and the other half had maccas delivery. lol. Okay I guess its not THAT funny. But you know when you're actually in the situation its really really funny. :p

Fried Bitter Gourd @ Jaipur Curry House, Taman Tun

Love this. Somehow it doesnt taste bitter! This is one of the only forms of bitter gourd I actually dont mind eating. Cannot imagine how people can actually like bitter gourd. SO BITTER. Apparently they charge by per plate instead of by how much you actually take (according to my mom, never actually bothered to check if this is true because its impossible to understand what the waiters scribble on the receipt) so if you do take these yourself, make sure to put as much as you can in the plate! (as we did here)

Papaya (aka Pawpaw) and Sweet Pinapple

LOCAL FRUITS HOW I LOVE YOU. Oh, and (I might get butchered for this) durian too! In Melbourne, all the papayas they have are usually raw. And they rarely have it. I used to eat papaya almost everyday after school. So yummy and sweet and healthy. My dad used to loveeee (and I mean LOVE) telling me how papaya is really great for helping with the... waste excretion process. Anyway.

Two style Kailan @ Penang village, Hartamas Shopping Centre

Please mind the crappy photo. Stir fried stems and deep fried leaves. Nothing too special about the stems but the leaves were AMAZING. Crispy, light, and paper thin. Not to mention really flavoursome. There was a distinct flavour in there that didn't quite taste vegetable-y or dried shrimp-y or garlic-y, but it was nice. I told my sister that it reminded me of Chinese new year cookies. Still cant identify what/where that flavour came from, but it was still delicious!

4. Chopped my hair!

The hairdresser literally sawed it off with his scissors, and then proceeded to dangle the stray, foreign looking, detached ponytail in front of my face. Im actually really happy with it (the cut, not the strange detached ponytail). This is the only hairdresser that I've actually revisited. All my life I either let my mom/my aunt (who were/are hairdressers) cut or salon hop. Never really had a satisfactory cut so I never went back to them. But this guy is good! He's super meticulous and does'nt just get it over with quickly, he actually takes time to make sure the cut is perfect. It takes 2 whole hours for a wash and cut. His name is Freelink from Emphasis @ Kota Damansara (yes, thats actually his name). If you're looking for a new hairdresser, get this guy! He's real good.

I guess its not THAT short, but hey, its above my shoulders! Thats short in my books!

And if anyone was wondering, the jogging rate so far is still: once a week. And this week, I didn't even enter the gym once. OH NO. I feel my arteries clogging up with all that pork lard.

One more week to go!! Precious 7 days with friends and family. I better make it count.

Till next time! x

Hello Avengers (and mini Thor!)

Malaysia: week 1

An entire week has passed since I first stepped out of the aeroplane at LCCT. Time seriously flies by when you're busy stuffing your face with food. Which is literally what I've been doing since I've got here. With an average of 4 meals a day (sometimes 5), and one jogging trip a week, the odds are definitely not in my favour.

Can you believe The Hunger Games is STILL on screen at GSC pavillion? The movie has been out since March!

Recap of what I've been doing for the past week! More like a mini travel diary for myself, just so I make sure I'm not wasting the precious and limited time I have here.

1. Meeting people.
So good to see everyone again! Family, friends from all around the world who are back for their summer holidays. It almost feels as if someone hit the pause button when we all left the country and now that we're back, we just pick up where we left off. Everything feels the same! Aside from Laks' new car, some people have different hair and clothes. But apart from that... Same. My house looks the same, maybe with more ants than I previously remembered. Time to break out the ant poison.

2. Eating.
Undeniably one of the main events. In Malaysia, meeting people and eating go hand in hand, always. If I had to list out everything I've been eating, this would be a VERY long post. Maybe some pics at the end for some of my favorites :) so far, I haven't eaten the exact same thing twice! (aside from leftover dinner I ate for breakfast one morning, and nasi lemak but they were from diff restaurants so they don't taste the same at all, therefore it doesn't count) and I plan to keep this up until I've eaten EVERYTHING I wanna eat! Cant afford to waste any meal-slots.

And.... That's about it. Meeting people and eating. And other miscellaneous things like renewing my license, internship interview etc. Few other things I NEED to do but haven't got around to doing include taking advantage of the super cheap movie tickets here (hello spiderman!), swimming in the awesome not-that-new pool at my country club ( it's been built for more than a year, but I haven't had a dip in there yet. Can't even remember the last time I went swimming in a pool), and also go jogging more often because i find it nicer to jog here (excuses). More people I need to meet, more food I want to eat, and pasar malam (night market) cause I missed it last week!

OH, AND MORE SHOPPING. A LOT MORE SHOPPING.

So here we go, in no particular order, my top 5 picks of the week!
(I wanted to do three, but that was too hard)

Roti Milo from Devi's Corner @ Taman Tun
(Only remembered to take a photo after Ive started eating it)

For those of you who have yet to try roti milo, I know it sounds weird. But trust me, its delicious!

Silky Tofu with Black Sauce and Dried Shrimp @ Sri Kembangan

The Smoooooothest Tau Foo Fah EVER, with brown sugar @ Summit City Mall.

I cant imagine why anyone would order white sugar instead of brown sugar. Brown sugar is 500 times better!

Putu Piring @ Taman Tun

 This must be one of my favourite kuihs. Steamed rice flour cake with gula melaka inside and coconut on top, YUM. Not to be confused with putu mayam, which is also steamed rice noodle-looking cake (almost looks like steamed mihun in the shape of a flat circle) that is served with gula melaka and coconut on the side. Exactly the same ingredients, but yet totally different. I dont like putu mayam. Now that I think of it, there are so many kuihs that are made of the same ingredients - some type of flour (rice, tapioca, glutinous rice etc), gula melaka, and coconut. But somehow they all taste different.

Nasi Lemak with Sotong and Ayam @ Village Park, Damansara Utama

If you havent been to Village Park, you're missing out. Arguably the best nasi-lemak-accompanying fried chicken around. The Rempah is sooooo fragrant! I dont normally eat chicken skin, but this is just irresistible. And the rice is super fragrant as well without being too rich. Apparently they use coconut water instead of just coconut milk to cook the rice. I much prefer the sambal sotong instead of the normal sambal they use, but that also means an extra 5 bucks or so to my dish.

Did I mention that during supper the other day - there were four of us, and we had an appam, a limau ais, and a curry puff each, for only 12 ringgit in total! Thats ONE AUSSIE DOLLAR per person! I love Malaysia.

Till next time! x

Family, friends, food.

I apologize for the slowing down of updates (not that I've had much of a track record to compare to, I mean this is only my third post, so I guess it's just slower than the update-rate that I had initially intended)

But I'm back home in Malaysia and its been nothing short of fantastic. Tiring and busy, but fantastic. So many people to meet, things to eat and errands to run. License renewal, IC renewal etc etc omg.

Not to mention I have to prepare for my internship interview - a large part of this preparation having to do with my attire. And not in a particularly enjoyable way. More on this sometime in the future.

I've been trying to take pictures of my favourite Malaysian dishes that I absolutely have to consume whenever I'm back, but more often than not, the lighting is lousy. Or I start eating before I remember to take the picture :p So I'll see what I can do.

Here's a little preview until I have the time to properly sit down and write a proper post! (though this probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. Too much too do in too little time. Very intense.

Till next time! x

My fav steamboat place with amazing barbequed chicken wings.

Super delicious Salted egg crab

Suddenly Sydney: Photo Diary

Time to breathe new life into my dead and disintegrating blog! And what better way to kick things into motion that a post about my spontaneous holiday in the middle of exams. 

Long story short: The idea incepted on Tuesday, I found myself in Sydney on Wednesday, back in Melbourne on Sunday to take an exam on Monday. Cutting it close, i know. But anyone who knows me well enough knows i tend to do that. Especially how i time myself to leave the house with the exact amount of time i need to reach the train station, and if in any case i need to turn back and get something, im going to need to run.

okay i will shut up now, this is meant to be a photo diary. A big shout out to Max who graciously let me borrow his camera on such short notice.

ill try to keep the captions as short as possible!

ps: please forgive my lousy photography skills. Im not an expert though I wish I was. :(

the face of excitement. Lets go! 

(also my taxi was late and i was bored)

took me a good 37 seconds to figure out how to get to the lobby.

first meal - asian.

George St.

what was impressed on me as the Swanston Street of Sydney.

beautiful view of city lights from our balcony

our apartment was SUPER equipped. Cutlery, bowls, plates, cups, mugs, big wine glasses, small champagne flutes, rock glasses, toaster, 3 spatulas of different sizes, strainer, grater, peeler, ladle, whisk, tongs, wooden spatula, beer cap opener, scissors, icing spreader, chopping board, different kinds of knives, mixing bowls, can opener, small glass bowls for serving finger food i guess, a teapot, a small porcelain jar each for sugar and milk, salt and pepper, the even had airtight PLASTIC TUPPERWARES.

i was blown away by how well equipped it was.

my workstation of the week. 

my list of places i need to go - thanks to urbanspoon and googlemaps.

more asian food.

DOUBLE DECKER TRAINS 

Orange and almond cake with candied petals and persian figs.

meet Lulu !

amazing gelato.

I had Greek Yogurt and Salted Caramel, just thinking about it is making me salivate.

i had to grab a boost. i was amused by the ribbed paper cups compared to the Styrofoam ones we normally get!

weird large mirror on the ceiling above the bed. 

skyline from my balcony

choices from Black Star Pastry! Strawberry watermelon cake and the orange cake mentioned above. both were so yum.

i think... i prefer dessert story 

meet claire!

i still cant believe I ordered all of that for myself. Note how the coffee is in a bowl.

love this place. Docklands cannot compare.

Adriano Zumbo: Im almost there!

BREAK IT.

and this was one out of the kazillion racks they had in the kitchen.

macarons round 1:

salted butter popcorn, pancakes and maple syrup.

passionfruit tart. which was amazing. or maybe im just biased. i love passionfruit. and it looked pretty.

charles du jour 2012 - limited edition (i think)

burnt vanilla brulle, fresh strawberries, vanilla creme chantilly and vanilla water bursts.

can i just say,  BOTH the vanilla water bursts exploded before I could get the whole thing properly into my mouth :( because I am too rough for delicate things like these.

side note: after hearing it in masterchef creations so many times, I finally found out a few weeks ago that creme chantilly was just a fancy name for whipped cream -.- I feel cheated. Creme chantilly sounds so posh. I was half expecting creme chantilly to be infused with the aromas of some flower (lily?) and you know, just to have some sort of exquisiteness to it but nah, its whipped cream. im gonna start saying creme chantilly instead of whipped cream from now on.

I want MY name in pink and lights! Although Ive always felt that chinese last names are weird. As in if you call us by our last names. As they often do when they refer to people in newspapers and such. "Tan says...". 

maybe its just me.

But i dont think "Hong" in bold pink and bright lights would look as good as "Zumbo"

they were begging me to walk across. but I was carrying a camera I did not own and I was too much of a chicken.

and then i saw this old lady. 

and felt ashamed. 

its amazing how much bigger the step seems when theres a chance (albeit a small chance) of falling into the RAGING WATERS.

walked all the way...

to find...

:(

But i guess the outer areas were pretty as well.

just another dessert caf... wait what?

Dessert and stationary. who wouldve thought.

add "wagyu" in front of  beef dish and the price goes up by at least 40% instantly.

Miss Chu's

suuper expensive public transport. 

interesting finds at Rozelle Markets!

and i found myself there again. This was the Rozelle branch.

everybody say: CROQUEMBOUCHE

Macarons round 2:

Custard crunch, Passionfruit and tonka bean, Watermelon and mandarin, Peach Ice tea.

Peach ice tea was my favourite! You could reeeeeeeally taste the fragrance of the tea omg so divine.

nabbed a vintage camera at the market. Not sure why i bought it, it probably has bad photo quality, not to mention I have no idea what the numbers around the lens mean.

largest Apple store everrrrrrrrrr. 3 floors!

Sydney Town Hall

its Claire again!

Market @ the Rocks

Bought the Chocolate tart, I couldnt resist.

I was afraid I might regret my decision, but Thank God I decided to just be brave and go. It was so much fun just chilling out, having to exercise my self control to study (no self control over the dessert part, evidently), and just exploring a new place. Not to mention my brother appreciated my presence and moral support (awww).

The only way I get anything done is by impulsive decisions. hmmm.

When was the last time you did something spontaneous?