Purple has now turned blue... purple is joy, yet blue is hope!

掌握一生的幸福。。。

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Weekend Trip - Sitiawan & Sekinchan, Nov 9-10 2013

This wasn't a plan trip. Was rather a "family matters" trip. Journey was fruitful, except was a little tired in completing the ~500KM journey over 2 days. 

Our Journey
What's there in Sitiawan? The Tua Pek Kong temple at Pasir Panjang can consider as a tourist spot. Goggle map coordinate: 4.165637,100.690384. I have been to this place 3 times. One could set prayers outdoor, which parents and I do prefer than those saturated fumed indoor types. 

Tua Pek Kong temple
Set Prayers for well being
In fact, the real discover of the trip was some local made vermicelli a.k.a meehun, made out from our home grown Sekinchan paddy. It was the same Paddy processing factory - PLS in which I posted here last time. In fact, we got this vermicelli from another stall just outside the factory.

Getting into the paddy village
Cloudy sky
Paddy field
Rice vermicelli
End result - vermicelli in Chic soup
Enjoy every single weekend, be it out of town or self at home :)
Guess its time for me to prepare for the long winded write for my major trip report for 2013... I have been procrastinating.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Weekend Trip - Sungai Lembing, Oct 11-12, 2013

Click to enlarge
My weekends had been almost fully occupied over ever since my business trip last August. It was tiring and yet fulfilled with expedition moments. Sungai Lembing, a location 45min drive off Kuantan, isn't a place I am not familiar. I have been there 2 times just this year. My 1st successful hike was 15 years ago, while my 2nd attempt couple of years back was a failure.

The place is best for dawn, hike up when it is still dark around 4:30am. By 6:00am, you may find the 1st sunlight of the day. Indeed to be a fulfilling moment if you like nature. The hillview surrounded by thick evaporated midst, as if you are on top of the cloud. Very peaceful moment up hill... if and only if its quiet. In most case, it's usually packed with human being :)

Our trip started from Kota Kemuning - Karak (breakfast) - Cherating (Turtle Sanctuary & Lunch) - Kemaman (Satar) - Sg Lembing (Stay, Dinner, Hike, Breakfast) - Bukit Tinggi (Lunch) - Home.

1) Cherating Turtle Sanctuary - visit their website for detail information. It was free admission at that time, but we could contribute to its center. I place worth for children education, while they could learn and love nature.

Cherating Turtle Sanctuary
2) Lunch @ Restaurant DuyongGPS- 4°7'35"N 103°23'50"E. Less than 5 min drive from turtle sanctuary. In fact I had visited this place last July, on my way to my Redang dive trip. I won't expect much from the restaurant, as it is very angmo friendly, in a way pricey. Dishes mainly Thai-styled.

Restaurant Duyong facing the sea
The menu
3) Snacks @ Warung Aziz Satar, Kemaman - Our initial plan was to stop for famous Hai Peng Kopi. Unfortunately, it was closed that Saturday. We brought the other friends to try out the local street foods of east coast - Satar, Otak-otak, Keropok Lekor, etc.. in fact, this was my first time here. I prefer small hut sized eating place, but only this can fit 15 of us.

East Coast's otak-otak
Satar - Baked fish paste
Fried Keropok lekor
4) Stay @ Sg Lembing Hillview Cottage (林明山頂小息館) - Newly opened cottage stay, they ran with promotion price earlier. Check out their FB website for more information and booking details. We had a room for 10pax (each with proper bed) and another room of 5pax. Bed was comfortable for the stay, except we need to queue up for the rest room, especially for the large room.

The surrounding environment was great, very nature like, except for the milky river. Believe the surrounding place is undergoing some development, or other bed & breakfast could be mushrooming the pathetically small town. Hope its not.

In fact, this house was built for bird nest raring business (top most floor). The ground and 1st floor are occupied with rooms. Ground floor with ample open aired space is meant for tenant activities, gathering. Occupied with board games, darts, ping pong table, etc.. and free flow of coffee/tea with plain bread too. My only dissatisfaction behind was on their loud music played over the evening (perhaps its activity/bonding time) and its disorganize of foods area. If only they can keep their stuff in a more organized manner, it will perfectly well enough for a 4 star B&B.

Google GPS coordinate - 3.922362,103.028119. The coordinate given at the FB page was incorrect at that time, hope they have had it corrected by now.

River view
Activity area
1st floor activity area
Ample hall for gathering
5) Dinner @ Restaurant Hoover - It's located at the town center, walking distance from the market and hike start point. Not much choice for a typical Chinese home cooked meal like this. Though, it was a great meal, served with ginger wine chicken, accompanied with the rainy night. Even though we had booked our tables for 7:00pm, heavy downpour caused the previous customer didn't want to leave the restaurant and table. We were forced to wait at the corridor.. poor me had my whole back all wet, though I had an umbrella with me. Was glad we had 4KG of roasted pork a.k.a. siew york packed, in which the auntie brought over to the restaurant, just before the heavy downpour. We managed to snack on it... yum!! super fresh, you may ask the homestay owner to order if you wish.

Siew York!

Dinner
Rice wine ginger chicken
6) The morning hike @ Sg Lembing Hilltop - In fact, I have nothing much to describe for the place. I don't mind the hike this time round as it was all dark. I couldn't give myself any excuse that I cannot make it, no other choice except to keep climbing the stairs and follow others who're in front of me, cause the queue behind me was long. Yes, the trail up usually pack, as everyone wish to take the picture of the 1st sun rise, with its heavenly view.

The hike ain't difficult,  yet it should be easy with a distance of just 1KM up the hill. Not too sure about the elevation, as some steps are steep, especially the early ones.

Sunrise
Love the sun & nature
Mushrooming up there!
7) Breakfast @ Sg Lembing market - Its famous for their homemade noodle, its special and all these while I have been liking this type of homemade noodle. Not the dry type, but its rather fresh from the factory. Their specialities - tomato sauce noodle, in fact its a made up from spaghetti bolognese.

Other must eat breakfast would be Yong Tau Foo + clear soup or curry Sg Lembing noodle. My favourite too!
Tomato sauce noodle

There's another Malay stall selling Nasi Dagang and perhaps Nasi Lemak just next to the market. It seems nice too. I have yet to try. Save it for the next visit, I am considering in visiting the rainbow waterwall, which is another must-visit place for Sg Lembing. That journey will be a little more challenging, with an early ride with open air 4WD towards the waterfall. Till then.

8) On our journey back, we stopped by Bukit Tinggi for lunch. At that moment, everyone was stunned and blank, as the journey has been really tiring, especially for the drivers. Hope all did enjoy the short trip.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

The Philips Trio - My Kitchen's Company

I blogged on my Philips Saeco Coffee Machine here, last September 2012. A year later, I have added on another 2 machines to accompany it. It was coincident, trust me. 

The Philips Air Fryer HD9220 was a result from a friend whom hard sold this to me. After thinking twice and trice, I had got my source down south to ship me one. It had been great company and tool, especially when it comes to frying without oil. First attempt was always potato wedges!

Nicely fried wedges
Fried pumpkin and sausages
Honestly this wasn't the 1st trial. I have done marinated chicken breast for my salad.

Following my recent shopping walkabout at the HomeDec, I noticed new recipe with this tool. And so I tried them for a small omelette. Indeed successful.

Omelette
Healthy dinner
It had been selling with high sky price here in Klang Valley, while it was at SGD$239 during the mid year sale. If you wish to shop for one now, I heard its selling at SGD$229 at BEST Singapore, as the digital version is going to hit the market soon, in fact it is already available in Singapore.

The latest family addition had been the Philips Electric Pressure Cooker HD2139/62. This deal was a little different, as Singapore's published price is at SGD$249, while Klang Valley was selling at RM399 during HomeDec (in fact Harvey Norman was selling with additional 10% discount during HomeDec weekend). Honestly, I would say the pressure cooker has more function compared to the air fryer. 

So far, I had experimented... Bah Kut Teh, Chicken Herbal soup, Black bean soup, porridge, and sorts of bihun soup meal. I have yet try bake fish and any other meat tendering dish, i.e. rendang or curry chicken. It has to be good, in fact its specialized in tendering meat.

The Trio Philips

For recipe, you could find some ideas from Philip's My Kitchen website. A specialized FB page for Air Fryer fans is available here too. In fact, I personally prefer the Taiwan version of My Kitchen (Chinese).

Friday, November 1, 2013

2013 Year End Tasks List

It's almost the end of 2013, how time flies! One has so much to do, but so little time to do.

What's there so much to do? My wish list  goes like this...

1. Electronically clean up - what's that mean? Mailboxes, files, folders, phone book, pictures.. All needs to be organized.

2. A revamp on this blog page - or should I setup another blog space? I recently lost my old pictures and comments featuring countless memories in multiply.com. What's the lesson behind? Should I trust free hosting page? Will see, may go back to paper diary! Lol..

3. Documenting my dreams - I have too much to be off loaded from my brain. It's getting heavier these days, poor brain.

4. Place down action plan to those dreams - hmm... This is rather difficult, and I should place away the procrastination. [here's why I dare to document them in my blog]

5. Holiday planning for 2014 - somewhat related to #3 above. 

6. Blog topics - some topics had been lining up in my brain. That's time to off load... But again, looks like I would need to sleep with my lappy very soon. :)


p.s. I wrote this from my phone, while waiting aimlessly over a boring weekend out there.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Weekend Trip - Tg Sepat, Aug 8 2013

It was about 4-5 years since I been to this place. The particular location was once made happening by AhXian, a local Chinese food channel, and that was the time I was one of those who 'flocked' into the village.

This time round, I could not recall what brought us there. Only recalled there were 3-4 cars that Sunday, on which we went on a Sunday family day trip. To me, its another adventure over a weekend day trip. Couldn't miss any food or shopping.

Stop #1 - Mr. Black Hainanese Pau shop 

(Google Coordinate : 2.659064,101.566369)

Some prefer to queue up for the famous one in the main village area, but we so happened met a warming local at a coffee shop. She'd been very helpful and pointed us some hidden places to shop. The locals prefer this pau shop, not sure why. Perhaps is to avoid the heavy tourist crowd, for some reason, the famous one seems to be overrated. I didn't had a chance to buy them the last round, neither this time. Honestly, I am not a pau person, hence I didn't even buy anything from this Mr. Black pau shop.


Mr. Black Pau Shop
Stop #2 - Kerepek Ubi

(Google Coordinate : 2.659611,101.568236)

Another local introductory buy the lady in her motorcycle. Good quality and deal for locally made snacks - potato chips. It comes with 6 flavors, can't remember all the favors but I know I liked the black pepper the most.


Kerepek Ubi Uncle's home
Uncle's stock
Stop #3 - Ever famous Pau at Tg Sepat

No tourist will miss this location. In fact, it's just a street away from where we bought the chips. Look at the queue, and it flew all the way to the main street. Imagine how tourists queue up under the hot sun.

Since we didn't fancy, we made ourselves towards a place to chill. Passion fruit drink was nice. And its local coffee was good too. It's shopping time!

Queue at the famous Pau
Passion fruit drink
Local coffee
Stop #4 - Home made fish balls

(Google coordinate : 2.659611,101.568236)

Another hidden supplier for the locals. We made to another local's house for their homemade fish balls. It was great, and obviously not commercial. Just like those feel of not needing to literally fight with tourists.
Home made fish balls
Made to fed under the hot sun
Stop#5 - Hai Keng Seafood

(Google Coordinate : 2.655535,101.566227)

Last highlight by our local guide. Another local hidden place to dine. We all love the  traditional ambience, overlooking the sea. We had pretty nice sea breeze that afternoon. Lunch was good, with serving of tody + stout, local fried fish, and many many special local dishes we had not try before. It was tasty.... awesomely good.


Hai Keng in Hokkien means Sea View
Local styled restaurant
Toddy with stout
Lala fried Bihun
Local fried fish
Fish meal and fried cuttle fish
The bill for 12 pax
Stop#6 - Gold Coast Morib

This was unintentional, but we wanted to check out if we could have any possible plan to have a 2 days 1 night stay over.

Gold Coast Morib
The Lobby
Crab hunting by the beach

Very summarized trip report. Nevertheless, the lunch was great :) Return is on its way.