When Parents are not @ Home…

A… a… a… Don’t get me wrong… I didn’t do anything naughty when they were away for 6 days 5 nights to HK & Macau, I just want to share how did I settle my meals when my mom’s not around @ home.

Day 1, Friday: breakfast & lunch as usual, as I still need to work, I usually eat outside. For dinner, I took meal replacement liquid and study recipe the whole night, decide what I want to try and was planning to cook a dinner for friends, hence, for an in-experience cook like me, it’s a must to make a “shopping list”!

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Day 2, Saturday: meal replacement liquid as breakfast, then rush to morning market and bakery ingredient shop to buy everything in the list. Okay, I did a pretty good job so far… Friend called when I was busy “shopping”, she has mistaken her tuition class schedule and asking me out for drink, lucky me! I’ve got my 1st guinea pig .

I cooked 椒盐排骨 (Salt & pepper spare rib) for lunch, can you imagine, we girls finished 800 grams of spare rib that afternoon!

After lunch, we made Tiramisu cake… This was also in my plan, getting a free helper was a bonus to me

At night, I cooked baby kailan with ginger, wolfberry and pork slices with half bowl of rice for dinner… healthy huh?

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Day 3, Sunday: My friend was coming to get her reward of helping me in the making of Tiramisu, and she treated me dim sum breaky! I was super happy because my tiramisu turned out very pretty and nice.

I have knitting project yet to finish, and I need to get it done by May. So, I was at home for the day… Initially I have a lunch cum movie date with my friend, but he couldn’t make himself back to KL that afternoon, so, the date has cancelled and I was having these for lunch – a mango, 2 pieces of tiramisu and a bottle of Yakult.

At night, I had one of my favourite – Shin Korean instant noodle!!!

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Day 4, Monday: SHOW TIME!! (Working day, breakfast I had it outside and I was so busy that day, I skipped my lunch) 

I worked until 5pm+ and I knew I was late, I haven’t de-frost the chicken legs and the fish!!! And my guests (5 of them) will be arriving at 7.30pm… Guys, if you have a wife who is working and she is still willing to cook for the family, please appreciate her…

1st thing 1st, I marinated the chicken with lemon juice and some seasoning for an hour, cook potatoes until soft and cut into pieces, put everything in bowl and sent it in the oven and cook for 1 hour.

At the same time making chicken soup base (boiled the chicken bone in water). Put bbq duck heads, mustard, chicken feet, dried fish and some seasoning in the soup and left to cook on the stove. (I purposely choose this recipe because the weather was crazily hot and this soup can help us to cool down our body temp.)

Then I fried the tilapia fish, set aside, cooked the minced meat with DongChoi (preserved vegetable) and poured over the fish.

Last but not least, fried lotus root with macadamia nut, pepper and carrot.

Tada…

I didn’t manage to prepare everything by the time my friends arrive at my house, some of them still need to help out here and there. They even helped me with the cleaning too! Big to them.

Comment from friends: look nice, smell nice, but taste wise, there are still a lot of rooms to improve… (should remove the seed from the lemon to prevent bitter after taste in the gravy, shouldn’t put too much of black pepper as seasoning in the lotus root, should rinse or soak the preserve vegetable in water before cut and cook, the gravy for the fish was too salty…)

Then after dinner, we had mango, tiramisu and Baskin Robin’s ice-cream as dessert… wow… what a satisfying dinner plus lots of laughter and fun with friends at home! Will definitely do it again…

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Day 5, Tuesday: had all of my 3 meals outside, had a very expensive dinner tho @ The Garden with friend.

Day 6, Wednesday: had all of my 3 meals outside too, initially I thought my parents will be back in the evening, so we could go out for dinner together, but they came back late, so, I had my another favourite dish that night – Cantonese fried noodle & meehoon! Yea…

See? I’m not a kid anymore… in fact, I think I know how to take care of myself… Although in the bottom of my heart, I still hope that I can be taken care by others…

Langkawi Cable Car

Although the trip was a short trip (arrived at night on the 1st day and departed to KL early on the 3rd day, so we only have 1.5 days in the island) and that wasn’t my 1st time to Langkawi (but that was my travel mate 1st time visit to Langkawi), you know me, I don’t usually do thing without a planning. Surfing surfing… I roughly know where I want to go. Among those attractions, cable car is in my must-go list. Why? I don’t know, I’ve visited most of the main tourist attractions in my previous visits except this.

“Panorama Langkawi Cable Car

Langkawi cable car is located on the southwest coast of Langkawi island. There are 3 stations along the cable car line, i.e. Base, Middle and Top Station. The cable car ride will bring you all the way up to about 708 meters above sea level. This journey covers a total distance of 2.2 km linking the Base Station at the foothill of Machinchang mountain to Top Station at the mountain summit.

During the cable car ride, you can really enjoy the breathtaking views of the surrounding lush green rainforests, the Telaga Tujuh waterfall, the ocean and some of the pristine islands that make up the Langkawi Island cluster. As you approach the Middle Station, look out for the unique rock formations which dated back to about 450 million years old.

From the Top Station, which stands at 708m above sea level - holds two viewing platforms that allows for an amazing view that goes right up to southern Thailand. If you want to get a birds eye view of the whole island and enjoy the very best scenery that Langkawi island could offer then the cable car is the place that you must visit.”

- Article copied from Langkawi Cable Car official webpage

     Malaysian get 50% discount on the cable car ticket!                             The cable car from far… Scary scary…      

        The gondolas                                                        Beautiful view from gondola - The 7 Wells Waterfall

My travel mate & me in the gondola (we met so many foreign tourists there, I think we were the only 2 Malaysians in this attraction)

    The observation deck @ the middle station                                    View from middle station (1) - The top station

                   View from middle station (2) – Sky Bridge                                View from middle station (3) – Perdana Quay

Gondolas reaching & leaving middle station                                    Hop on to the gondola again to top station

Breath-taking view from the observation deck @ top station – Sky connecting to the sea, sea connection to the sky, and the sea water is so crystal clear until you can see the coral in it.

2 observation decks @ top station

I like this “roof” design @ the observation decks                     Jungle tracking from cable car top station to sky bridge

The sky bridge… What a magnificent design & construction

Near the cable car base station, there are convenient shops, restaurant, souvenir shops & a deer farm! Some tourists (the foreigners) told us they went there twice, 1 in the day and 1 during sunset, it’s beautiful and romantic to see sunset from top station! What a lousy Malaysian (I mean me), I don’t even know this detail! If I know this earlier, I would go there during evening. Okay, probably this means that I will need to visit to the cable car again in the future, perhaps will be visiting with my love…

Bella Vista Hotel Langkawi

My previous job needs me to travel quite intensively, those time, hotel was my 2nd home, although sometimes when I woke up, I will still need a second to figure where was I. I am not very picky about hotel, but I have some “like & dislike” too.

1. I prefer smaller room, because I always stay alone, preferably the size is as big as I can be able to see every corner at a glance. I don’t feel comfortable in room with a lot of twist and turn corner. 2. Clean, I can’t tolerate smoke, dust, damp room with bad ventilation, small window/ low light mode. 3. Last but not least of course is the budget. I don’t mind no carpet/ bathtub in the room (but water supply should be smooth and adequate pressure).

Thanks to “Now everyone can fly”, affordable flight ticket plus promotion, we booked a trip to Langkawi a year ahead. Less than RM400 for 4 round trip tickets… how about that? Although 2 friends end up had something else to do, we still carried on our trip. We didn’t make any hotel booking until 2 weeks before departure. Googling around and found this, Bella Vista Hotel Langkawi, fits to the above requirements, and I would say, it’s really worth the money and we like the place.  

We thought we have come to a Disneyland castle

Entrance to hotel lobby is at the back of the hotel, the bridge is connecting to the Bella Vista Apartment

The reception & lobby (free wifi @ lobby area)

Sea view (day and sunset) from 2nd floor’s lobby

The room (newly renovated) – clean bed, plasma TV on wall, high pressure & big shower head…

The breakfast area (do not have a lot of variety, but good enough for me, since I don’t have any expectation to complimentary breakfast provided in the hotel)

My breaky

FGS Dong Zen Temple

This post has been ignored in the draft folder for a very very very long time…was suppose to post it in Feb, during CNY, and “due to unforeseen circumstances” (usually when you couldn’t find yourself any excuse or you wouldn’t want to reveal the actual truth, this sentence is very useful), this post has been dragged until now…

Every year, during CNY, Dong Zen Temple will have this light erm… display? deco? The temple is open for public to go in, appreciate the lights, take pictures, visiting, praying etc. It’s once in a year thingy. I always want to go but I find no one going with me, either some they said they went there before, too far to travel, very congested and hardly see anything… But who care? I never been there, I WANT TO GO!!!! So, this year I dragged me parents to go with me. They been there before, but I drove, they have no excuse to say it’s very far, bla bla bla…

From Cheras, using Kesas, it’s only an hour drive away… just like going to Seremban, I don’t think this is far. Check out the map!

I got a shock when I saw the theme for this year… My name was there (the last 2 words) and his middle name (the 2nd word) and one of my good friend’s middle name were there too. Am I thinking too much?

We went there earlier, so we see the temple in the day, able to see a lot of beautiful plants and flowers and night, of course the light deco.

入屋叫人；入庙拜神，这是礼貌 (Address people when you enter somebody’s house, pray to the God when you enter a temple, this is a good manner)

There are also a museum, art gallery, info centre, gardens and etc. in the FGS

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After that, we went for dinner nearby and when we were back to the temple again, the place has a totally different mode of beauty…

I don’t consider myself as a Buddhist, although I follow my mom, I pray too, but this temple is absolutely very stunning, I will definitely visit FGS Dong Zen Temple again coming CNYs. And I wish I can be tougher and wouldn’t be afraid to bump into his parents during my next visit.