An Urge To Splurge

Return of the king
Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Well, everyone needs a little time away. So after a lenghty break from blogging, im back with new vigor and more enthusiastic than ever. Currently, its chinese new year and i have been looking forward for this occasion for so long. Not only because of the glorious food it has to offer but also a chance to meet various relatives and catch up on each other's forthcomings. This year turned out to be exceptionally good in terms of food as ive been eating a whole lotta garb this past few days. Here's an insight of CNY in my grandpa's house

Pre CNY:
Reunion dinner with my paternal family. Menu which consists of somewhat unorthodox chinese dishes.
1) Kiam Chai Teng (salty vege soup)
2) Chicken curry ( for CNY!!!..u gotta be kidding)
3) Gi Hu Cha ( this is supposedly the highlight of all the dishes..dont really know whats in it ..some sort of cuttlefish i suspect)
4) Fried prawn fritters
5) Siew yuk
6) Mized Vegetables ( cauliflower,brocolli, mushroom, all the stuff kid's hate)
Yup, that was it and longan for dessert. Needless to say, i felt like a bloated balloon (lol..wait, that doesnt make much sense...im bad at similies)

CNY Day 1:
Woke up really early today as I didnt wanna miss out on a single minute of the day!! The whole family was up and about by 7am and made our way to a temple in PJ. Customary visit every year as well as visiting my late grandma's grave to pay our respects.Then we converged to the headquarters, the nerve center of the operation: grandpa's house!! Yeap, he's the oldest in the family now, and you know what that means.. Everyone comes to visit him and not the other way round!!So all that us eager grandchildren had to do was just wait there and watch the red packets flood in!! What a great deal!! But by 11am when only 2 families had shown up, we were getting a tad impatient as usually by this time, the house would be so full there'd be no room to manoevour . On the visitors graph, things were decreasing at an alarming rate!!
Thankfully, things picked up by noon, although pickings were slim this year. But hey, beggars cant be choosers so, no complaints from me!! Next, it was off to Rawang to visit my grandps's brother. Life seems good in this part of the family as it turns out after reaching in front of his house and noticing a new Mercedes park right in front of the porch. The house was also beaming with new furniture and (again!) glorious food...without further or do i tucked in into
1) Mutton Curry ( Chinese food is really present in CNY ay)
2) Satay, ketupat with peanut sauce (here's another proof)
3) Rendang Chicken
4)Acar (msian salad)
5) Carlsberg ( White Man Chinese tea)
6) Fried vermicelli

After a satisfying lunch we headed home 0.5 kg heavier. After a short snooze it was another round of greeting and meeting the folks although this time with my mum's side of the family. We arrived there for dinner anticipating a huge feast and let me tell ya i wasnt dissapointed. For starters, we had yee sang. It like this fusion of colorful vege garnished with raw salmon. For a properous and fulfilling year, members of the family will mix this dish together whlist shouting good luck charms such as " wan shi ru yi " or " pei ngo fat tat" or the more common for the younger generation " why are we doing this and can we start eating right now!". So after yee sang, the main course was served. Tonight's menu was quientssential chinese as you can see
1) Pig stomach soup ( sounds rather gruesome but believe me its tasty)
2) Pork Meatball a.k.a Poh Yi
4) Fried fish
5) Grilled Prawns with Oats
6) Pig's Leg with Sea cucumber (aunty says sea cucumber is getting more and more expensive so i ate sparingly on this one)
7) Some sort of vegetable dish which i didnt bother to eat...who in the right frame of mind would want to eat vege in the present of all these GLORIOUS food
8) Chicken with soy sauce
9) Shandy (A local favourite)

After our feast, its all fun and games. LEt the GAMBLING BEGIN!!....the adults were playing cards with 10 ringgit per round bet, the youths were playing "gim ra mi" which is some sort of a card game featuring mah jong tiles with 50 cents per lost bet and the little tiddlywinks were (believe it or not) playing mahjong with chocolates bet. Everyone enjoyed themselves except the losers. Gambling seasion ended at the stroke of midnight and we left for home eagerly anticipating another seasion tommorow.

Day 2:
Woke up and went to our local mamak for breakfast. After collecting some ang pows, we headed of to another uncle house for lunch. Food here was less fattenning and much easier for the stomach. We had:
1) Chicken nuggets and sausages
2) Chicken Curry
3) Fried Rice
4) Fried Kuey teow
5) wu tau koh (Radish cake)
6) Whole lot of other bits and pieces which i dont remember because whenever i look down on the food i only see my tummy
After lunch, i decided enough was enough, no more food for the whole year!!!...so i did not do anything the whole day except sleep, watch some telly and count my ang pau's...

Day 3
Today is day 3 and i just had nasi lemak tambah telur, sotong and fried chicken for breakfast. Tonight would be another big dinner in my anutie house and to say im looking forward to it would be an understatment.You see, eating is what CNY is all about..forget about all the festivities, dragon dance and what not...it all boils down to the number of wan tons you stuff in your mouth. So, gong xi fa cai to everyone and keep those mouths pumping.... Here's a few pics..

My cousin and i ready for action

Beauty and the beast

Ya dont wanna mess with her

Evolution pic again ....this time from the youngest of the cousins to the eldest

I like this picture...it looks like the ad for united colors of bennetton

Ah kong and i

All in a day's work....Money coming in..

Money going out...

Alex
3:19 PM

Memoirs of Sabah
Thursday, January 12, 2006

Just the other day, we were joking around and juggling the possibility of visiting sean in sabah. We said that if all goes well, we would pay him a visit and he would bring us around. Well, about 3 months has passed and today that trip would come to pass. This would be my first time going to east Malaysia. Needless to say, i was estatic. However, my joy didnt last for long as Sean was unable to book a place in Mount Kinabalu for us. Oh well, he still promised loads of fun and visits to the local pulau's. We departed KL on 4/1 at bout 2030. Air Asia was the airline of our choice becaouse of its comfort, cabin crew and facilities....YEAH RIGHT!!...the plane was awful, the crew were all males and the only in-flight entertainment we had was the safety manual...i guess this is what you get flying on some budget airline.
Upon reaching KK, we were bewildered by how small the airport was....no bigger than jason's living room. We waited for our luggage and in the mean time, we were looking out for sean...no sign of him amongst the crowd waiting outside the arrival hall. We deduce that due to his er...how do i put this....er...proportionality constant we were unable to see him. Thankfully, he kept to his words and was waiting for us outside the airport.Sean showed us his version of the pussy wagon and ive got to say its really Purr-iffic. Sean said that he lives in beverly hills and that was going to be where we live for the next week. We laughed and thought he was joking. After a stop for supper in the local mamak and drinkin the famous "teh Madras" we proceed to our nestling ground. To our surprise, the appartment we were staying in was really name Beverly Hills...lol...damn these sabahans..no other names ar....anyway, whatever happen after that was history, the whole trip was filled with laughter and joy and it was one hell of an experience. I cant go thru it all in detail as im writing this about 3 weeks after the trip, so heres a quick synopsis:

Day 1:
i think we drove around KK city and book our lodge for accomadation in Mt Kinabalu hereafter known as The One We Conquered (TOWC). Memory of day 1 was vague and i could only remeber sean saying, " this is the hospital where i was born" while pointing to a night club...hahah...nah, jokes...pointing to some hospital which i have forgotten the name..sorry sean

Day 2
Ate some sabah famous dumpling, grill lamb, sotong and sting ray

Day 3
Ate, sleep, shit and met up with sean's GF (haha...only thing i remembered...sorry sean)

Day 4
Went to the pulau and did some snorkelling with sean's sister (sorry sean) and banana boating also with sean's sister (sorry sean).

Day 5
Ate sabah's famous seafood and witness a baboon playing with the only toy he has....Clubbing at night!!! woohoo!!...cant remember anything...WOOHOO!!!

Day 6
Climbed TOWC and reached the summit. After about 10 freakin hours, 5 panadols, sean's snoring throughout the night, all was worth it!!!!

Day 7
Sean's GF did my hair and im lookin like some la-la chai that sells vcd at night and Bak kut teh in the morning

Day 8
THere is no day 8. Went home yesterday and this trip was truly satisfying

Alex
10:35 PM