5 minutes..

.. to go before midnight and then it will be 2014!

Happy New Year everyone! May we move forward into 2014 and face the future with courage.

Overall, I would say 2013 is a good year for us.

Made a trip with my sister and mother to visit my grandma who is 97 years old. It was good to see her looking exactly as the year before as if time did not move. Although it was a short meetup but everyone had fun talking about everything and nothing in particular. My grandma prefers to live alone but since she is not getting any younger, she has now agreed to take on a maid to live with her. May 2014 be a good year for my grandma.

2013 is also the year where I got a surprise and was given a chance to test myself. Eventually I made the same decision as before. Well, I just got to reap what I sow.

Goodbye 2013!

Season of Giving

To everyone who celebrates Christmas,

Have a blessed Christmas!

Thank you Wenn for the lovely Christmas card and gifts below:

A big thank you to Sharon for the lovely Christmas card below:

A Test of Patience

I spent almost the whole day of last Sunday (8 Dec 2013) waiting but I achieved my objective. Since I do not have any paid day off left, I decided to renew my passport during Sunday. Unfortunately for me, many people have the same idea too so at 8 am when I reached the immigration office, this was what I saw:

I estimated that there were around 200 people there but I joined the queue nevertheless since I was there already. Queue numbers were given out from 8.30am onwards and at 9.15am, I got my number which was 207 meaning there were 206 persons in front of me. I was asked to return in 3 hours but I hung around.

At 10am, the last number 468 was handed out and late comers were turned away. Finally it reached my turn at 1.30pm and I submitted my documents in for processing and waited for another half an hour to make the payment and then was told that my passport would be ready for collection in about another hour.

I then walked out to Petaling Street to take my lunch and walked around a bit before returning for the collection.

True enough at around 3pm I received my brand new document and so left for home by taking the LRT. Mission accomplished.

Sarawak

I got a surprise in the mail today. The lovely key chain below came all the way from Sarawak. Can you guess who sent it?

None other than Mr. Willie from Reptoz dot com. He is a dedicated teacher. Thank you, Mr. Willie!

A few months back, Wenn sent me this nice red pen with an opening in it. Can you guess what the opening is for? She knows red is my favourite colour so when she saw a nice red pen, she sent it to me. Thank you Wenn!

She also sent me a piece of small red towel (about 12 inches x 18 inches). I have not used it yet.

It is really nice of them. Thank you both again .

Scotland 2003

Just read about Wenn's trip to Scotland and it brought back memories of a trip there back in 2003. I wanted to blog about it for a long time but never got around to doing it so here are two photos from that trip. We went around Scotland by trains, buses and ferries for about 2 weeks without joining a guided tour and it was fun! Wishing Wenn and her daughter lots of fun in Scotland too.

The above photo was taken while the bus was crossing the bridge from the Isle of Skye to Inverness.

The mandatory photo at John o' Groats.

すし

My favourite food

A spare and a carer

In the 60s, a young woman got married and soon after that, she was happy to learn that she was expecting a child for she would be looked down upon if she was barren. After 9 months, she was disappointed when she gave birth to a baby girl for as a Chinese, she was expected to bear a son to carry on the family's name. Never mind, she told herself, I will have another child and she did, the very next year.

She was fortunate that her next child was a son, the much needed child. With her main responsibility fulfilled, she concentrated fully on her job as a clerk, letting her mother-in-law take care of both her children. She was satisfied with her life.

After 6 years, her mother-in-law took her aside and told her sternly to have another child. One boy was not enough. There must be a spare. And being the dutiful daughter-in-law that she was, she conceived again and was lucky to give birth to a baby boy. Now my family is complete, she thought and she turned her attention back to her job, now as the chief clerk in the same company that she has worked for since she left school.

Another 9 years went by and this time it was her own mother who asked her to have another child. It had to be a girl, to take care of her during her old age for daughters take better care of mothers than sons, she was told. Being an obedient daughter, she conceived again and her prayers were answered, a baby girl was born and she resumed working, still as a chief clerk.

The day finally came when she retired as chief clerk after working in the same company for 35 years. For a few years after that she enjoyed herself by travelling around the world a bit.

Then her body failed her and she took to her bed. Her first child has her own family and children so she was too busy to take care of her. Her second child gave her two grandsons to carry on the family name but only visits once a year.

Lucky for her that she listened to her elders because although her two younger children were married but they chose to remain child free so the youngest daughter cooked for her and visited her as much as she could and her younger "spare" son moved back to live with her to look after her full time.

Now who would have thought that having a spare and a designated-to-be-her-old-age-carer baby girl would work out so well. Neither did she. She just had them to keep the two old ladies from pestering her. But in the end, it really did work out well. She was really pleased.

Finally!

A big thank you to all of you who left comments with well wishes because with your encouragement, I managed to pass level 500 today and caught up with the game developer's release schedule. Now will wait for new levels to be released.

For the record, I did not use any real money to get special items and extra moves. Not that it matters anyway although it is better for the game developer if I did that. But I must confess I did use 20 virtual gold bars out of the foc 30 virtual gold bars that were given by the game developer to get extra moves to pass level 419 on 25 Sept 2013 (Wed).

The longest time that I was stuck on a level is for about 1 and a half months (from end July to early Sept) on level 410. That was the toughest level for me. I thought I would never pass it.

As to why I play this game: I find it very relaxing to play this game after a long day at the office. The candies are so colourful and pretty.

Once again, thank you all for your support! :D

Candy

One more episode to go - another 15 levels. The final level now is 500, can I catch up?

Farewell

Around the last few weeks of the year 1999, you wandered into our garden and adopted us as your family. You were a lovely kitten then and over the years you grew into a gentle cat and secured a place in our hearts. After leaving us on 11 Sep this year, we miss you very much but we know that you are in a better place now. May you rest in peace.

Stylish

I would like to thank Claire (www dot reanaclaire dot com) for the lovely key chain she sent me. Thanks, Claire. I like your handwriting - very stylish - just look at the capital H and M.

I would also like to thank Wenn (wenn-experiences dot blogspot dot com ) for the microfiber cloth (about 10" x 11") she sent me for leaving comments on her blog daily. The colour of the cloth is very nice. I am still keeping it nicely and have not used it yet.

You are both very nice ladies and I just love reading your blogs because they are updated very frequently. Happy blogging! :)

Result

A very big thank you to:

wenn
Somewhere in Singapore
reana claire
myweddingbells
Sue Ann
ykristen
Small Kucing
Willie a.k.a Reptoz
Agnes
Amy
cquek
What I Did Today

for leaving a comment in my previous post so please email me your postal address so that I can send you a small token of appreciation apart from wenn, somewhere in singapore and ykristen because I already have the postal address of the 3 of you. :)
As the two mini jigsaw puzzles are still available, please email me if you would like to have them or know someone who would like to have them. The pieces are quite small so it will only be suitable for children or adults who are very, very patient and love jigsaw puzzles.

For those who have indicated that they would prefer the toy building bricks, I have used the random-picker from www dot miniwebtool dot com to do the selection and the result is as shown below - Sue Ann! Congrats!

Hope to hear from all of you soon!

Giveaways

Thank you to everyone who answered my previous post.

The photograph in my previous post was taken at the intersection of Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, opposite the shopping center named Lot 10. Jalan means Road or Street in the Malay language.

This area is located within the Golden Triangle which is the main shopping district in Kuala Lumpur. Some of the shopping malls around here are Pavilion KL, Starhill Gallery, Lot 10 and Sungai Wang Plaza. The thing I like about the photo is that I managed to capture the monorail train in it. Now moving on to the topic of this post.

I am having a giveaway as it is the anniversary of my blog in a few days time. Everyone is a winner here as everyone who participates will get a small gift of appreciation.

As all of you know, I love mini jigsaw puzzles so I am giving away two packs of them to share this joy of playing mini puzzles with you all. Also I would like children to have fun too so I am giving away a small box of toy building bricks as shown in the photo below.

To participate, all you need to do is to leave me a comment before 11am 18 September 2013 (Wednesday) and indicate which game you would like to get:

a) mini puzzle of Donald Duck and Chip and Dale
b) mini puzzle of Donald Duck and Daisy Duck or
c) 3 in 1 toy building bricks (for this category, please let me know who this is for - your children or your friends' children).

Since everyone who participates will be getting a small token of appreciation, please also send me your postal address via email to zhengmun2 at gmail dot com. Please be assured that I will not disclose your details to anyone else, the postal address will solely be used to send you your gift.

For the winners, when you have completed the jigsaw puzzle or your children have completed putting together the toy building bricks, please take a photo of it, blog about it and let me know. You will then receive another small gift.

Have fun!

Place this

Do you know this location?

青龙菜

The literal translation for 青龙菜 (Cantonese: Ching Long Choy) is green dragon vegetable. I remember having this dish a few years ago. Before that, I have not heard of this vegetable at all so I wanted to find out more about it.

This led to a search on the web for more information and to my surprise, this vegetable is none other than 韭菜 (Mandarin Pinyin: Jiǔcài, Cantonese: Gau Choy). In English, the name is Chinese chives, also known as garlic chives, Oriental garlic, Chinese leek (Allium tuberosum).

I would like to add that this "ching long choy" does not taste like "gau choy" (garlic chives) at all. I like the strong taste of "gau choy" and this green dragon vegetable has none of the strong taste of garlic chives.

It is grown in Cameron Highlands by a man named Lau Kuan. There is an article in the Star newspaper dated Monday May 16, 2005 entitled "Farmer rejects pesticide use in growing chives" that explained why this green dragon vegetable does not have a strong taste like the normal garlic chives.

Below is an extract from the above article that describes the method used to grow this green dragon vegetable:

"He lets his chives grow for six weeks before chopping off the top half of the leaves to be used as mulch and fertiliser. He then covers the remaining chives with a thick nylon netting for 10 days in a process known as blanching before harvesting them. Limiting sunlight made the chives more tender and delicious as they contained less fibre, Lau said."

This method is a slight modification of the method used to grow yellow chives (韭黃 - Gau Wong in Cantonese). To grow yellow chives, normal garlic chives are harvested by cutting them about a few inches above the ground, leaving the roots in the ground to grow again under cover without being exposed to the sunlight at all.

You get yellow chives by covering the remaining roots totally to let them grow in complete darkness whereas by covering them with nylon nettings and letting them grow under limited sunlight, you will get this green dragon vegetable.

If you are interested to grow your own yellow chives, please refer to this blog post with the title "Growing Yellow Chives". It has photos for every step on how to grow yellow chives. Modify the method by limiting sunlight instead of total darkness to grow your own green dragon vegetable.

So after knowing all this, the green dragon vegetable is no longer a mystery to me. I hope all of you get to have a taste of this dish to see whether you like it or not.

P/S
I also found a blog post written in Chinese published on Friday June 1, 2012 entitled 金马伦 (Cameron Highlands) that has many photos of Mr Lau and his chives farm. If you are interested to see the farm and how this green dragon vegetable looked like after being packed for sale, please go and have a look, thank you.

Hari Raya

Here's wishing all my friends who are celebrating Hari Raya:

Selamat Hari Raya 
Maaf Zahir dan Batin

And to everyone, Happy Holidays for the long weekend.

Thank you

Look at what I have received in July - two lovely postcards, one from Wenn and one from Sharon. I would like to thank them both for being so nice.

I like to read their blogs and would definitely be leaving my comments for each and every post of theirs. May they continue to blog regularly so that all of us can enjoy reading their posts.

Thank you Wenn! Thank you Sharon! :)

New Zealand and Singapore

See who the cards are from

Pretty stamps 

Candy bar

I have been using hand-me-down cellphones since 6 years ago. Recently the battery of my current phone is no longer working, it keeps showing low battery and switching itself off despite just being charged for many hours. I found out that there is no replacement battery sold for this model anymore so it is time for a new phone.

Since my spouse and I share a smartphone, I got myself a simple phone as I will use it for sending short messages most of the time. Occasionally I will use it to receive and make voice calls. This is the candy bar phone I bought. It is light and provides the functions that I need.

My sister knitted a phone case for me and then cross stitched some decorations on it. You would be able to guess why this particular decoration was chosen by my sister. ;p

Front and back view

With this phone case, I can now hang my phone by the door so that I do not forget to bring it out with me. Many thanks to my sister for making this for me. :)

Special day

Yesterday I met up with Jennifer and her husband. I have been reading her blog since 2009 and vice versa. They are a lovely couple and I had a great time talking with them.

Jennifer gave me a nice gift.

A gift from Jennifer

Tea from Hanoi, just nice to drink after a heavy meal.

Jennifer treated me to a very delicious meal too - Taiwanese beef glass noodle with lots of vegetables in it, pancake and tea.

Delicious beef glass noodles

Pancake with butter and honey

Last but not least, of course I had a wonderful time on this special day. Thank you both very much and I am looking forward to our next meeting to treat you both to a yummy meal in return.

Nice message

Clean

One of my favourite dish is steamed tilapia fish in minced fresh ginger as below. I could eat one all by myself. When I am done, it will be bye bye fish (please refer to the 2nd photo below).

All ready to be eaten

Did I do a good job? Can you spot the skull?

Queenstown

Aha! another surprise from Wenn. Thanks Wenn. :)

Who sent me this?

Oh, it is the kind lady, Wenn. :)

Sweets, coffee and tea

a nice magnet

Rainbow

The photo below was taken on May 26, 2013 (Sunday) around 7pm. As it was near dusk, my photo did not show the rainbow clearly. The last time I saw a rainbow was back in 2010 and I blogged about it here. 

When I went home, I noticed that many of my friends have seen the same rainbow too and posted photos of it online. It just shows that even though we are in different places, we all live under the same sky. The rainbow really brought home this point.

Surprise!

About 3 weeks ago, I received a nice postcard from Wenn. I was not expecting it so it was a pleasant surprise for me. So I decided to send a small token of appreciation to Wenn without informing her about  it to give her a surprise too. :)

Postcard from Wenn

Message from Wenn

A surprise for Wenn