frivolous stuff

Yesterday's weather was perfect for an ice-cream.  

enjoying an ice-cream outside Cascades Shopping Centre; 3 scoops of delicious coldness.

i really like this lens-flare shot, but i really don't know if taking a direct shot of the sun is going to spoil the lens. bah.

Or a barbecue. 

daisies in bloom...

dandelion flower

dandelion seed-head.

Or maybe, both.

After preparing the food, we lugged bags containing our barbecue essentials to Southsea, found a nice grassy spot and plonked them all down. There were lots of people around; barbecuing, tanning, playing football, etc. Seemed like everyone just wanted to enjoy a bit of the sun.

our yummy spread...

got ourselves a kite for a pound at Poundland; this is the 3rd time I'm flying a kite can you believe it? :x

my lovely company

super yummy corn; love the slightly-charred bits

pretty strawberries that are finally sweet, not sour.

We blew bubbles and threw frisbees when we needed a break from the food...

Felicia got us these whimsical bubble-blowers from her workplace....

and another one...

leftovers from wedding functions... i know you love them too heh

one of Bubbles' great fans

my new 2pounds per pair shoes from Primark. 

some flowers we passed by on our way back...

That's it for pictures now. 

We visited London today; went into National History Museum and Science Museum to take a look at the exhibits, window-shopped (mostly) at Regent's Street, had Subway for lunch, visited Chinatown to have dinner at Rasa Sayang, a eatery serving Singaporean and Malaysian food (haha don't wtf me tyvm), took a picture of the Big Ben (and heard it's half-hourly chime) and London Eye. My feet are aching so bad from all that walking, I wish someone would be so kind enough to give me a nice foot-rub :p

Alright, I'm going to head to bed now; gotta wake up early tomorrow for London once more. Good morning people. Love!

Hello from Portsmouth!

I finally arrived at London Heathrow Airport after going through the longest flight (plus/minus 14 hours) of my life. Met two awesome babes who were also going to take a coach from the same station (but to Cardiff instead to catch John Mayer's concert) on my flight, so we made our way to the station together. Hopped onto the coach for another 2-hour long ride to Portsmouth (damned long but what's another 2 hours after you've gone through 14?), where Felicia, my dear cuzzie, was waiting for me at the terminal.

cuzzie's place

Walked a 15-minute walk back to her place and it was 8.30 p.m. when we finally had my bags placed. Felicia brought me and her next-room neighbour, Stephanie out for a Chinese dinner. I fell on the sidewalk while we were walking to the dinner place; landed on my back, and scrapped my left elbow (well done AJ). Felicia said it's a "血光之灾", and unluckily enough, my period came post-dinner wtf. When we were finally eating, I kept looking out of the window because my watch read 9 p.m. but the skies looked like it was only 7; the sun hasn't even completely set. The temperature was around 21°C, and it got cooler later in the evening as we walked back.


Thought I could clean myself up after such a long day(s), but what was supposed to be a quick shower for me before bed became an hour-long struggle in the bathroom. I wasn't paying enough attention when Felicia explained how the water-heater works, and I paid for that later by scalding myself with near-boiling water multiple times (well done again AJ). Had quite a good sleep all the way till 5 a.m.; was woken up by stomach cramps, thank goodness it didn't last that long.

Stephanie brought me to the place where Felicia's waitressing and we had Chinese food for lunch.

Inside Roast Bar.

Char siew, roast pork and roast duck rice (7pounds).

Stephanie with her lunch.

and this is my lunch that I didn't manage to finish eating; Chicken in garlic, onion and wine sauce (状元鸡) plus chips. (6pounds) 

Talked to Stephanie a fair bit over lunch and found out her Dad's operating a diving place in Langkawi, how cool is that!

Cuzzie knocked off and had an hour-long break before she had to report for her next job, so we headed to Commercial Road to do some grocery shopping for our barbecue tomorrow. We bought some cherries and strawberries from a fruit-stall at the market, and headed to Tesco's and Poundland (this is going to sound so cheapskate but, I love Poundland, you can find all sorts of things here everything's only a pound each!) to complete the rest of our barbecue-shopping. 

Passed by Portsmouth Guildhall on the way to Commercial Road; lots of people taking their graduation pictures.

Lugged the grocery bags back with Stephanie, and took a short break before she brought me out again to gai gai again. On our way there, we passed by some pretty flowers so I took a few quick shots: 

Dandelion seeds float in the air all the time and it's really pretty sometimes. I shall remember to snap some pictures of those big, fluffy seed heads sometime soon.

We reached Gunwharf Quays in 15 minutes, bought an ice-cream cone each for 1.50pounds and took a stroll by the harbour. The weather was perfect; it was sunny and windy at 20-odd degrees and families were out shopping or simply not doing anything, and almost everyone had an ice cream!

the Spinnaker Tower

tried to pan but failed miserably. bah. It was so sunny that I couldn't work with a much slower shutter speed.

come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away

Gunwharf Quays shopping area; quite a few factory outlet stores here.

I bought three tops from FCUK, a bag from Ralph Lauren's factory outlet store, a pair of jeans from Next, and a luggage-weighing scale from Clarks; spent more than S$100 today gahh!

Did I mention that the sun doesn't set before 9? This is how the street outside Felicia's place looks at 8p.m.

Come fly with me.

I love taking in all the beautiful sights from way up in the sky. 

Dubai.

In a matter of minutes, the aerial views undergo great transformations. Urbanization one minute and the next, you'll see vast areas of natural landscapes.

somewhere over the Middle East.

When there are such awesome natural landscapes, I can't help but start wondering to myself silly things like "Would I be able to spot a hiker waving to me from down below?", answer myself "Probably not, he/she'll be really tiny from way up here", and then ask myself another silly question "What if he/she wore a bright red jacket?" 

My mind's probably not meant for the greater things. Hur.

   

somewhere over the Middle East again; but with traces of human activity.

No idea where this is, but I'm guessing it's still the Middle East. A little fogging in the top left hand corner.

Anyway, I'm really thankful for all the window seats that I've been assigned to.

This is still Dubai, can you believe it? 

And on this flight, I was extremely thankful that London Heathrow airport's not closed due to the volcanic ash interruption.

Dear all, we're somewhere right above England now.

I spotted Buckingham Palace as we were nearing the airport, and the London Eye looked like a tiny toy wheel from up in the air.

Bright yellow fields of I-have-no-idea-what.

Okay that's the end of the aerial pictures I have - I just realized there are dust spots in the same places on my pictures (I hope they're just on the lens and not the sensor), hope you guys like them anyway! Love.

Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru.

We'll just glide, starry-eyed.

Once I get you up there I'll be holding you so near

You may hear angels cheer 'cause we're together.

Come fly with me, let's take off in the blue.

trois: ring ring

teeny: hello? you are...?

Meet-ups & windsurf!

I've been trying to meet as many friends as I can ever since I got back from Penang last week (in other words, food and more food); I'm going to miss everyone since the next time I'll see you guys will be at least a month later!

At Miss Clarity's with three pretty ladies for lunch...

Then we moved onto Food for Thought for desserts; I've been coming back quite a bit for this cream cheese red velvet cake, not because it's super duper nice but because it's red and I like it! Now I feel so bimbotic for saying that ha.

We also had the Peach Crumble-something... loved the crust! & raisins...

Played L4D2 with the girls, that was my first; and you probably guessed right, we were shrieking over the mics more than half the time & laughing away really loudly. Let's go play again before TA starts!

Met G the next day at Bugis (fast becoming my favourite hang-out place when I'm not in school), and I was really mean; kept teasing her about the '10-days supplementary English camp' for non-English majors. We shopped, we caught up and filled each other in with what's happening in our lives. I think I'm going to miss her badly next semester...

Met up with Doug Saturday evening for tau huay, and a new friend on Sunday for breakfast; we talked a fair bit about travel... and teaching (since we're fellow teachers). I love travel-talk! I enjoy hearing what people have to say of their travel experiences, and wouldn't mind sharing mine if they're interested to know more. Doug told me what it was like in Bangkok when the Red Shirts just started getting violent last month; he's just plain lucky to come home safe la. 

Made my way down to ECP after; having not surfed for the past one month at least. Mingle's sold the set of equipment that he's loaned to me for the past god-knows-how-long, so I'll need to assemble a new set (of sail rig) when I get back. Uncle Tan's been nothing but helpful; he's offered to help me find a mast that's suitable for the sail that I'll be buying, and even has a suitable boom for me in mind already! I'm extremely thankful for a mentor like him, and I think everyone else is too. Speaking of everyone else, exams have been keeping everyone away and I was really happy to see them at training, even though the guys were busy making fun of me mostly. & I think I'm starting to behave like them, I can be like a brother to almost every male there who I know; they don't treat me like a girl wtf! 

It was practically breeze-less when everyone's just arrived, but the wind picked up a little later and I managed to sail for 1 full hour with the 5m sail before I decided that I needed to rest my arms. Went out again but used a junior's 3.5m this time round. I don't know if it's because I'm so used to using the harness, or if it's been too long since I last sailed, that I cannot last as long as before! Anyway, even though I couldn't go fast on the big, fat board, I'm still very happy that I managed to ride some waves; so happy that I started grinning to myself while cruising along hehe.

I am happy because I have the sea.
Are you happy too?

rest of my 2 weeks in Penang

Am going to share with you guys some (more) food pictures here; hawker food that the locals eat everyday. They're really just a tiny portion of all the local food that one can get in Penang, and I've missed out some really important ones (e.g. Char Kway Teow, Chendol and Hokkien Mee), so, I hope you guys don't mind!

Apom (or Apong in Hokkien), a fluffy pancake made from coconut milk, flour, sugar and eggs. Choice of filling can include jagung manis (sweet corn), peanut, banana and so on. They're usually small, soft, aromatic, easy to polish off, and all that makes them a good snack before/after meals.

Asam Laksa at Gurney Drive. A totally different kind of Laksa from our curried one; there's no coconut milk involved in the cooking, and it tastes sour (you can expect anything with Asam in their names to be sour). There's no fishcake slices, tau pok, bean sprouts or hum in it, but you can expect to find shredded pieces of fish (e.g. sardine) and cucumber, pineapple, raw onions and hei ko (sweet prawn paste) in a bowl of Asam Laksa. The rice noodles used in most of the Asam Laksas that I've tried in Penang are more chewy than the ones we have here. Not too many Singaporeans are used to this asam-based laksa, but I love it all the same! Oh and this one at Gurney Drive comes with fishballs.

Curry Mee; hawker-place outside Lam Wah Ee Hospital. This is actually closer to the laksa you can get here in Singapore; cept that it's called Curry Mee here in Penang. I find them more flavourful (& maybe more spicy too) compared to our laksa here though, and I love the ingredients used to make a bowl of this. In terms of ingredients, there are slight variations but generally, yellow mee & bee hoon, tau pok, cuttlefish, shrimps, hum and pig's blood curd (I really enjoy this!) are served together in a bowl of hot curry. Slurps. One of my must-eats when I'm here to visit.

Jawa Mee. It looks and tastes very similar to Mee Rebus! Yellow noodles, check. Sweet orange gravy, check. hard-boiled egg, check. Tau pok, check. Sambal belachan, check. Oh, but there are crispy bits of you tiao in this one!

Lok Lok; Gurney Drive. 'Communal steamboat', usually operated from the back of vehicles. Food items are skewered onto colour-coded satay sticks and then put up for display; customers pick the items that they want and drop them into a boiling pot of water, followed by drenching their sticks with the aromatic chilli/sweet/peanut sauces provided by the vendor. People used to eat these while standing around the lok lok vehicle, but I guess people are getting lazy these days and hence, hawkers offer to remove them from the satay sticks for customers (as above) so that we can enjoy them while sitting at our tables. There are different variations of lok lok around Malaysia; instead of just boiling water, some places have peanut-based soups (Satay Celup, Malaca), or you can also find deep-fried lok lok in Johor.

Lor Bak (the brown pieces on the right). This is like Penang's version of our ngoh hiang. Tastes exactly the same, but it comes with different dips; there's the sweet chilli sauce, and also the one made with cornstarch (not sweet). Here, we only have chilli and the sweet sauce. I guess that's the main difference?

And I'm going to introduce the people who've been bringing me around places while I was there; I think they deserve the Best Host Awards, or something along that line. My cousin's having her nursing attachment but she never fails to bring me out everyday, well almost. And I don't think it's merely out of courtesy that she's saying it's no trouble.

Night out with cuzzie and Shelene, her friend. At Batu Ferringhi, Sunset Bistro. Ordered a dozen chicken wings (after a very filling Thai dinner) and two beers; the Philippino waiter serving us was so bitchy but we loved him all the same because he was so funny!

Lunch with cuzzie and Shelene again at Queensbay Mall, Xian Ding Wei. Taiwanese cuisine chain that serves great mains but not-so-great desserts.

Korean BBQ dinner with cuzzie and friends at Daorae just before heading to Mois, the equivalent of Zouk here. Friendly but professional service, and delicious food. You should come here for a meal or two too if you're visiting Penang! Really! Google Daorae if you're really interested!

Dinner with my pretty aunt again and a few cute, younger cousins. I feel so old talking to them... sigh. Anyway, the two little girls pictured on both sides of me are doing really well in school, straight As and all, I'm very happy for them, for that.

'FamiLee' (because my maternal relatives have that surname) celebration for cuzzie at Haagen Daaz. Bought an ice-cream cake for her here, and had quite a shock when the cake alone came up to a whooping RM159.

Bingo is no stranger here. He didn't bring me around per se, but he did keep me company while I was alone in the apartment at times. Love this pom pom!

On my last night, we visited Bukit Genting for a Thai dinner (again). Digressing, I've been to 3 different Thai restaurants this trip and I can actually remember some of the names of the dishes; I think Thai cuisine's really popular here.

Meng Kam; an appetizer where you'll need to wrap lime cubes, raw onion cubes, raw ginger cubes, chopped green chilli, deep-fried shallots, roasted peanuts, dried shrimps in a piece (or two) of betel leaf, and then put some sweet sauce over it before eating.

You can put as much or as little of the different ingredients as you prefer; I left out the raw onions, ginger and chilli.

Not too sure what's the correct way to wrap it, so cuzzie rolled the first piece for me. I had problems biting into my first one because I wasn't sure what leaves those were and they looked really raw. Turned out to be quite yummy in the end, the sweet sauce helped a little, I suppose.

Shelene, bored while waiting for the rest of the dishes to be served.

Pud-pet chicken; stir-fried with some curry-based sauce. Spicy, but the meat was tender and it went quite well.

Seafood Tom Yam. Spicy & sour, but not the nicest that I've had here.

Kerabu; Thai Mango Salad. Young mangoes are shredded and mixed with onions, deep-fried shrimps and some special fish sauce. The sourness from the young mangoes are supposed to whet your appetite. Anyway, this particular Kerabu wasn't too sour and fell a bit on the 'dry' side instead. A Papaya Kerabu will be less sour, and just as tasty if you're not keen on the sourness.

Crab shells stuffed with pork, water chestnut, etc and served with some sweet Thai chilli sauce.

Dessert was Tab Tim Grob; red ruby + jackfruit pieces in coconut milk. They used shaved ice here instead of crushed ice so it was much easier to eat. It's only rm1.50 per bowl and I liked it so much that I'd almost wanted to order a second serving.

Right after our Thai dinner, we headed down to Esplanade to pack some Rojak before picking a spot along the concrete benches beside the sea to eat them. Such pigs really.

The rojak here's kinda different; there's the normal variation, but also one where whole slices of pineapple/turnips are cut into smaller pieces and then topped with a generous helping of the sweet sauce and peanuts (absolutely no mixing is done). I was the last one left standing.

Thank you girls!

It's been a great 2 weeks and I really look forward to coming back to visit! Miss you guys! Love.