.Faith.Hope.Love.

ABC? Nope MBC...

2011-12-15T11:53:00.002-05:00

Being aMalaysia and growing up in a multi-ethnics country is a privilege. A Chinese descent, I would always tell people that I amChinese Malaysian. I am proud of my heritage as a Malaysian. I learned to speakin three languages fluently, amidst Malaysian ‘slang’ and also few other dialects.

However, while growing up inMalaysia, I have also been labeled as ‘ABC’ (American born Chinese: notsure why, when MBC might be more appropriate since I am born in Malaysia!),banana (being yellow on the outside and white inside), OCBC (Orang Cina bukanCina; translated as A Chinese who is notChinese) and what’s not! I have learned to takeall that in my stride but sometimes I don’t feel comfortable whenpeople, CHINESE, gave me a ‘kind’ of look when I said I don’t read and write Chinese! Theyalways said how you could forget your root! *You know who you are!

Since moving to the States inJuly 2010, I am comfortable here because everyone speaks what I understand.United State being culture melting pot of many nations and peoples, English isthe common uniting language. Being a Malaysian who speaks three languages andfew more dialects, people are always amazed with our abilities to speak morethan one language. However, I faced one stereotype here, since I speak Englishdifferently from how a Chinese (from countries whose native language isMandarin) speaks, people (read Chinese) thinks that I don't speak or understandMandarin at all!

I can'tcount number of times people are surprise when I spoke in Mandarin and theywill stop what they are doing and look at me strangely and amazed! Many times,I have used that to my advantage. Once, I uttered something in Mandarin todistract my opponents in badminton to distract them from the game and won thatcrucial point! Many times too I have keep quite and just observed theconversation they are having!

Here isone situation during the course of my work. I wanted to collect some East AsianDNA and I asked from some people I work with in the department. Afterexplaining what I am doing and what I am going to do, here is the conversation thattook place.

Me: So,would you help me by spitting some saliva in this kit? It's painless took about5 minutes!

Chinese 1(turned to her another friend and started to speak in Mandarin): I don't want give him this sample. Not surewhat he is going to do.

Chinese 2(relying in Mandarin): Yah, me too.

Chinese 1(turning back to me and replying in English): Let me think of this and willgive you the samples later!

Me: Ok(and at the same time in my mind thinking, no you don't! Don't you think Idon't understand?)

I felt like answering them inMandarin and look at the smirk in their faces, surprised that I can understandall their conversation all these while! However the sense in me hold that backand just smile and said thank you!

That isnot just the first time I participate in 'silent' conversation and smiling inmy heart!

Penang has it all!

2011-10-13T13:49:00.002-04:00

Growing up in Penang, Malaysia sometimes make you take things for granted. However, after living in foreign country for more than a year now, I started to think of Penang more often.

I love this video about Penang.

Enjoy!

Playing Angry birds using football...anyone?

2011-10-05T11:08:00.000-04:00

I wonder how many shots they have to do in order to hit the birds?

Undilah video clip

2011-09-26T13:45:00.001-04:00

I don't feel insulted from this video clip. Is our government getting more paranoid and fear that they will lose at the next GE?

Satay: Can’t believe that we made this!!

2011-08-15T20:34:00.001-04:00

I really couldn’t believe that we actually grilled our own satay and made the peanut sauce too!! We have never appreciated satay more than now that we are in US. KC has been craving for satay: it’s one of his favorite food when he was in Malaysia. He could just eat 30 sticks of satay for his meal! So we decided to make some to soothe his craving and to introduce this wonderful dish to our friends from different countries (US, China and Republic of Georgia) whom we invited for our BBQ party yesterday evening.

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

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The original recipe used is from RasaMalaysia. I need to modify it according to the availability of spices I can get here. However, it still turned out pretty good and all our friends loved it. We were so proud of ourselves =P You know what, the first question KC asked me this morning was ‘When can we make satay again?’ *faint*

We are one of the few families who use charcoal grill here =P

Ta-da!! All the hard work pays!!

Updates

2011-07-07T12:45:00.000-04:00

Since the last post, which was 4 months ago, we have done a lot and a lot changes too. I, in particular, finding harder to have the time to post anything and felt that nothing much is there to write about since I have fall into the routine of work, home and church. However, in that short period of 4 months, MANY things changed.

1. Went back to Malaysia for 2 weeks. It was a work-related trip and didn’t get a chance to meet up with many friends and relatives. I was ‘jailed’ in the lab most of the time.

2. Visited Washington D.C. for the first time. Also work-related!

3. Being a part of new cellgroup startup for our local church and has been busy preparing all the training materials.

4. Work is hectic. The pace picked up so much since we returned from Malaysia and a lot of ups and downs too. Not complaining though, at least it is moving.

5. Wrote 2 posts that I never posted on my blog. One might be sensitive and another I never get the chance to complete what I started. Maybe one day, I will have the courage to post it!

6. Had been following a lot of news (social, politic, business, sport, etc) about Malaysia and most time, it is with certain feelings about how things are turning out…though most time angry and sad!

7. Found out that I was terminated from work since July started…but now re-appointed again. So, my status now shows ACTIVE. Well, it’s computer glitch and now all has been fixed! Never know computer do take summer vacation too!

8. And YES! Got a piece of news that a stock is flying our way! Yes, I am going to be a DAD! I still have 6 more months before packing my ‘social life’ into the box. Nevertheless, OVERJOYED. Hopefully, later, I won’t be one of those who will flood my own FB page with all the baby pictures and updates! If I do, you can ‘unfriend’ me!

So, there you go! A nutshell of what I can think of happened in the last four months! I might update my blog more often or I might be AWOL even for a longer period since I need to prepare for the arrival of the stock! After all, it’s summer time too!

Cioa!

Things that I missed about Malaysia

2011-03-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

Having been in Hershey, PA for the past 8 months, I started to miss Malaysia a lot, well, maybe things in and about Malaysia. Here are some of the stuff...

1. Thunderstorms, it comes nearly every evening,
2. Nasi Kandar,
3. Single season weather, that I don't need to have so many sets of clothes and changes according to the seasons,
4. Gas stove, things seems to heat up faster and food to have 'extra flavor',
5. Wok, stir fried vegetables or even deep frying fish,
6. Mamak - nasi lemak, teh tarik and roti canai, nearly a staple food for most Malaysian,
7. Hawker stalls, the variety of foods and the noises and all in between,
8.Warm and humid weather; I can't believe I say this, but yes, after the winter and shoveling snow,
9. Friends, though new good friends were found and friendship built, friends at home still dearly missed,
10. Families, the last two seems to be understatement!

Best Affordable Beach Resort

2011-02-28T11:24:00.001-05:00

Recently Malaysia has been making into the lists of best travel destination. First Penang was in the list of 10 best islands to visit before you die and now Golden Palm Tree Sea Villas & Spa, Sepang is in the list of Best Affordable Beach Resorts. Hopefully this will be in the best interest for Malaysia tourism and we continue to grow from here.

by Yahoo

Best Affordable Beach Resorts

Looking for a great escape without breaking the bank? Here, affordable beach getaways from Mexico to Thailand.

By Travel + Leisure Staff

Anacaona Boutique Hotel, Meads Bay, Anguilla

Photo: Susan Croft

Anacaona Boutique Hotel

Meads Bay, Anguilla

On an island where $1,000-a-night rates barely raise an eyebrow, the recently reopened Anacaona Boutique Hotel manages to feel like a splurge. There’s Frette linens and free Wi-Fi in the 27 tropical-chic rooms, two pools—and even waiter service on the beach.

Cost: $250

Don’t Miss: Thursday nights at the hotel’s Fire Fly Restaurant & Bar, when a local troupe performs Afro-Caribbean dances

Cooper Island Beach Club, British Virgin Islands

Photo: Courtesy of Cooper Island Beach Club

Cooper Island Beach Club

British Virgin Islands

You won’t find shops, nightclubs, casinos, or even televisions in the rooms at this resort located on Manchioneel Bay on the northwest side of 480-acre Cooper Island. A casual beachside restaurant and bright but simple rooms with kitchenettes, radios, ceiling fans, and private baths with outdoor showers are about all there is here—but that’s enough. Don’t expect much more than palm trees, a sandy beach, clear water, and potent rum drinks.

Cost: $250

Don’t Miss: Many guests say the restaurant is their main reason for coming back—try the local specialty of conch fritters served with a spicy dip.

Sheraton Nha Trang, Nha Trang, Vietnam

Photo: Courtesy of Starwood Hotels and Resorts

Sheraton Nha Trang

Nha Trang, Vietnam

At first glance, the 284-room Sheraton Nha Trang could be an upscale hotel anywhere in the world. But a closer look reveals local art at every turn and views of island-studded Nha Trang Bay. The hotel’s restaurants cook up a range of cuisines (from street food to European pastries), and you can have snacks delivered to your lounge chair on the palm-dotted, sugar-sand beach.

Cost: $180

Don’t Miss: An on-site cooking class, where you’ll learn how to make beef pho and shrimp rolls.

Present Moment Retreat, Troncones, Mexico

Photo: Courtesy of Present Moment Retreat

Present Moment Retreat

Troncones, Mexico

A still-authentic beach town on Mexico’s Pacific coast is hard to come by, but tiny Troncones, about 20 miles north of Ixtapa, fills the bill. At this Zen-inspired retreat, 10 thatched-roof bungalows, each with a white canopy bed, private wooden deck, and meditation garden, surround a pool that overlooks the beach. Wellness is the focus here, from the health-conscious menu and Ashtanga yoga classes to beachside massages and even life-coaching sessions.

Cost: $230

Don’t Miss: A surfing lesson on Saladita Beach, a nearby surfer’s paradise.

Anemomilos Apartments, Cyclades, Greece

Photo: Courtesy of Anemomilos Apartments

Anemomilos Apartments

Cyclades, Greece

Perched atop the cliffs of Folegandros island, you’ll find the family-run Anemomilos Apartments. Whitewashed walls, private patios, and vistas of the Aegean more than make up for the sparsely decorated rooms. The real draw, however, is the lovely stone-terraced pool and pergola lounge.

Cost: $232

Don’t Miss: A short boat trip from Karavostasis harbor to remote, quiet Katergo Beach.

Les Caranques, Collioure, France

Photo: Angus McComiskey / Alamy

Les Caranques

Collioure, France

Artists, including Matisse, have long flocked to the colorful fishing port of Collioure for its scenic vistas. And the views are just as enticing as ever, especially from the patio at this hotel, built into a dramatic cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. The 22 light-filled rooms are simply (and patriotically) decorated with white wooden furniture and blue and red accents. Unwind on a rattan chaise longue on one of the small terraces carved out of rock, with winding stairs that lead to small white sand beaches.

Cost: $175

Don’t Miss: A stroll along the town’s Fauvism walking trail to see 20 reproductions of vibrant paintings by Matisse and Derain in the spots where they were first created.

Las Olas Beach Resort, Chiriquí, Panama

Photo: Courtesy of Las Olas Beach Resort

Las Olas Beach Resort

Chiriquí, Panama

A 50-minute plane ride west of Panama City, Las Olas Beach Resort has 14 miles of volcanic-sand beaches and a mangrove forest. With paintings by local artists and cream tiled floors, all 48 rooms face the Pacific. Board the resort’s 34-footer for some of the world’s best sportfishing, or head to top breaks with the in-house surf pro.

Cost: $78

Don’t Miss: Nearby Coiba National Park’s 355-acre reef.

Golden Palm Tree Sea Villas & Spa, Sepang, Malaysia

Photo: Courtesy of Golden Palm Tree Sea Villas & Spa

Golden Palm Tree Sea Villas & Spa

Sepang, Malaysia

A 90-minute drive south of Kuala Lumpur, the just-opened Golden Palm Tree Sea Villas & Spa pays homage to its name: 392 villas are raised on stilts in eight palm-frond-like rows that stretch out into the Straits of Malacca. The hotel offers a range of activities (morning walks; kayaking trips), but you’ll be just as content by the infinity pool.

Cost: $215

Don’t Miss: A traditional acupressure-focused Malay massage at the hotel’s spa.

Dune Hua Hin, Hua Hin, Thailand

Photo: Kelly Rainsforth

Dune Hua Hin

Hua Hin, Thailand

The tiny size of the five-room Dune Hua Hin makes for intimate service, even if its pool and restaurant are on the wee side. That’s a small price to pay for sexy, minimalist rooms right on a coveted stretch of beach along the Gulf of Thailand.

Cost: $127

Don’t Miss: Spotting langurs and macaques at Khao Sam Roi Yot nature reserve, an hour away.

Les 3 Chameaux, Mirleft, Morocco

Photo: Courtesy of Les 3 Chameaux

Les 3 Chameaux

Mirleft, Morocco

The village of Mirleft, on the southern Atlantic coast, has one of Morocco’s most dramatic beaches. Between the pounding surf you’ll find Les 3 Chameaux, a rustic-chic maison d’hôte with Berber furniture and carpets.

Cost: $112

Don’t Miss: An exfoliating black-soap body treatment in the hammam.

10 Islands to Explore before you Die

2011-02-17T10:34:00.002-05:00

by Yahoo!

Yahoo! published this article yesterday and I am proud to see that Malaysia,

specifically Penang is in the list. Penang, is my hometown and I am proud to be one Penangite! One for sure, we are always proud of our food, as we always say it's food haven.

So, more reasons for all of you to visit Penang and Malaysia now!

Penang comes in number 8 in this list. Bali, Indonesia is another island near to Malaysia which you should visit while you are in the region. But, Penang first! :) Look for more informations and pictures here, here and here!

10 Islands to Explore Before You Die

We scoured the globe to find 10 islands that belong on your must list. Each of these places offers something that you can’t find anywhere else, from the largest man-made archipelago to hot springs so therapeutic they’ve been popular since Roman times.

By Gary McKechnie

Tanah Lot, a Hindu temple on Bali

Photo: Romain Cintract/hemis.fr/laif

1. Bali

Find your center on an island so spiritual it's become known as "Island of the Gods." The warm, spiritual essence that writer Elizabeth Gilbert discovered here and celebrated in Eat, Pray, Love has been native to Bali for centuries. It's one of 17,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago—and the only one on which Hindus form the majority (93 percent). Even more striking is the fact that there is a spiritual celebration here nearly every day. Three Hindu temples at theBesakih (the Mother Temple of Bali) survived a 1963 eruption that destroyed nearby villages while missing by mere yards this terraced complex atop volcanic Mount Agung. The event is still considered a miracle by locals, who arrive in regular procession; they balance offerings on their head and climb the steps to the sound of mantras, jingling bells, and the sharp flutter of umbul-umbuls (ceremonial Balinese flags). Anyone interested in exploring the inner self might like the Nirarta Centre, an 11-room hotel set amid rice terraces and gardens that holds daily meditation sessions. After finding your center here, channel your energy into jungle treks, scuba diving, and big-break surfing along beaches of fine white and volcanic black sand. Exhale against a backdrop of rice paddies and Impressionist sunsets that illuminate the Indian Ocean.

Sun Bay Beach, Vieques

Photo: parasola.net/Alamy

2. Vieques

Experience the world's clearest bioluminescent bay.When the U.S. Navy packed up and left Vieques in 2003, after more than 60 years, it left something behind: unspoiled nature. Land once used for bombing practice is now designated as a national wildlife refuge. So far there are only a few mega-resorts like those found on the Puerto Rican mainland—instead, you'll find homey inns like the aptly named Great Escape B&B, where breakfast is served poolside (from $115). There are only two notable towns (the population is less than 10,000): Isabel Segunda on the northern side of the island, and the far smaller Esperanza on the south. The effect is that when you reach a beach at the end of a dirt road here, your reward is having the sand largely to yourself. Playa de la Chiva (Blue Beach) attracts daytime snorkelers and divers, but the real reason Vieques belongs on your bucket list is Puerto Mosquito. Of the seven bioluminescent bays on the planet, Puerto Mosquito is the most impressive, thanks to the clarity and brightness of its waters. Schedule a moonless night for a swim or kayak tour and you'll be greeted by billions of micro-organisms called dinoflagellates that ignite the water with a magical blue-green glow (Aqua Frenzy Kayaks, from $30 per person). It's like swimming in a watercolor painting.

Stone monoliths on Easter Island

Photo: Courtesy chobart/myBudgetTravel

3. Easter Island

Ponder the handiwork of one of the most mysterious civilizations in history. With the nearest major landmass, Chile, lying 2,200 miles away, Easter Island is as remote as it is mysterious. No one knows exactly why nearly 900 gargantuan stone monoliths are sprinkled across this isolated, 60-square-mile scrap of land in the middle of the South Pacific—and those long, stone faces aren't talking. For several hundred years, the moai that are unique to this island have maintained their silent sentinel even as the civilization that created them collapsed and a trickle of tourists appeared in its wake. Intended to stand atop cut-stone altars (called ahu), the moai average 13 feet high and weigh nearly 14 tons each; most lie prone, toppled by civil wars in the 17th and 18th centuries. A particularly compelling spot is Rano Raraku, the collapsed volcano where many moai were quarried and where nearly 400 figures remain, all frozen in various states of completion. The island counts only one town, Hanga Roa, where you'll want to check in to Vai Moana, a low-key hotel with 18 rooms set in bungalows (from $102, including breakfast and transport to and from the airport). You can then wander from the volcanic coastline across grassy hills without bumping into another human being who might break Easter Island's spell.

Thermo-mineral pools on the beachfront

Photo: Mirko Angeli/Alamy

4. Ischia

Revive with therapeutic hot springs and mud wraps. This volcanic island in the Bay of Naples has hot springs so therapeutic that they have drawn admirers for 2,000 years. Greeks, Romans, and Turks quickly discovered that Ischia's fumaroles, hot springs, and heated mud hold the power to ease sore muscles—or simply provide a degree of self-indulgence. Today's travelers are likewise pampered by massages and mud wraps courtesy of the island's geothermal characteristic, which helps fill the 22 thermo-mineral pools of the beachfront spa Giardini di Poseidon Terme. After your treatment of choice, peel off the sandals for a walk on the beach or visit the 15th-century Castello Aragonese. You can also get a taste of the glam, jet-setter lifestyle associated with Italy and depicted in the film The Talented Mr. Ripley, shot here on location. Retreat to the family-run Hotel Villa Angelica, whose garden naturally includes a thermal swimming pool with a Jacuzzi (from $75, including breakfast).

The lush Chiloé archipelago

Photo: Herve Hughes/hemis.fr/laif

5. Chiloé

Experience a culture and wildlife developed in isolation. The lush, cloud-covered Chiloé archipelago may lie off the western coast of Chile, but its history, customs, and language bear little resemblance to those of the mainland, or anywhere else in the world, because of its isolation. Local farmers have passed down a mythology of gnome- and witch-filled woodlands and ghost ships. Valdivian temperate rain forests are protected within Parque Nacional Chiloé. In the Pacific, dolphins, penguins, otters, and the largest creatures in history—blue whales—are studied and protected by the Cetacean Conservation Center. In the central city of Castro, order a steaming meal of curanto (shellfish, meat, and potatoes) and peruse handicrafts made of wood and colorful garments created from Chilean wool. Residents still live in traditional palafitos (stilt houses). Jesuit missionaries, who first arrived in small numbers in the 1600s, used local materials and construction techniques to build exquisite chapels. Their work survives in more than 50 wooden churches found in communities such as Castro, Nercón, Chonchi, Dalcahue, and Quinchao; their appearance reflects a hybrid of European and indigenous styles that you won't find anywhere else on earth.

Iconic overwater bungalows of Bora Bora

Photo: José Fuste Raga/Age

6. Bora Bora

Settle into your own overwater bungalow on the world's most famous idyllic island. If you envision yourself on an island in French Polynesia, Bora Bora is the place to hang your hammock. Even novelist James Michener, who penned sweeping epics set in the South Pacific and beyond, dubbed it the world's most beautiful island. Mingled in among the Society Islands northwest of Tahiti, Bora Bora's lowland reefs and islets are lorded over by Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, twin peaks forming an extinct volcano in the island's interior. Super-expensive upscale resorts along the western edge—and a fair share of inns and vacation rentals—feature overwater thatch-roofed bungalows built on stilts above shallow, clear-as-gin waters. (Maitai Resort is a comparatively affordable option, considering the $800-plus competition, with rooms from $198 and bungalows from $408, including taxes.) Slip on a sarong and relax while savoring the vision of endless miles of soft sand beaches and lagoons. Luxurious, certainly, but of even greater value is the philosophy of Bora Bora's residents: Aita pea pea. In other words, "not to worry."

Laid-back beachy living in Key West

Photo: Ian Dagnall/Alamy

7. Key West

Embrace Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" utopia.Laid-back, beach-y living coupled with a flamboyant arts scene lends a one-of-a-kind appeal to this lowland island (peak elevation: 18 feet). Key West inspired Mississippi-born balladeer Jimmy Buffett, and it remains hallowed ground for his followers—the "parrotheads" that roost here throughout the year and keep the mythical utopia of Margaritaville alive. Tennessee Williams, Harry S. Truman, and Ernest Hemingway were also seduced. Defying easy categorization, Key West is capital of the Conch Republic, the tongue-in-cheek micro-nation created in 1982 by residents proud of their liberal lifestyle. Natural sand beaches are surprisingly rare here, but with the chance to snorkel above North America's only living coral reef and enjoy the company of a Technicolor collection of 400 species of tropical fish, it would be a shame to spend your beach time on land, anyway. When you've dried off, head to Mallory Square to catch street performers during the daily Sunset Celebration. Follow it up with brews along the "Duval Crawl," a tour of watering holes in the early 20th-century buildings that line Duval Street. From there, it's a pleasant, 15-minute walk to the Grand Guesthouse (from $98, including breakfast).

A fruit stall in Penang

Photo: Aurora

8. Penang

Treat yourself to Malaysia's unique fusion of cultures and flavors. Start your food crawl at stalls that crowd the streets of Georgetown, Penang's largest city and Malaysia's food capital. The delectable fare on offer memorably mingles Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, and European flavors. Foodies in search of supreme bliss should head to the marketplace Ayer Itam—adjacent to Kek Lok Si (the Temple of Supreme Bliss)—to dine on a variety of dishes based on rice, noodles, fish, shellfish, chicken, pork, vegetables, eggs, and coconut. Look for lor bak (deep-fried marinated minced pork served with a chili sauce); lok-lok (skewered seafood, meats, and vegetables); and ikan bakar (grilled or barbecued fish marinated in spices and coconut milk, wrapped inside banana leaves, and grilled over hot coals). The same fusion of cultures is evident in the local architecture, which ranges from modern high-rises to buildings built by 19th-century British colonialists. Add to the mix beach resorts, preserved mangroves, small fishing villages, and a share of temples, mosques, and churches. Kek Lok Si best exemplifies this coexistence. At seven stories, it's the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia, and it reflects the shared values of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism—designed with a Chinese octagonal base, a Thai-accented middle tier, and a Burmese-style peak.

A baby seal pup in the Galápagos

Photo: Courtesy fungofan/myBudgetTravel

9. Galápagos

Follow in the (r)evolutionary wake of Charles Darwin. The namesake tortoise is only one reason to explore this archipelago overrun with more than 500 spectacular native species found nowhere else. Charles Darwin's 1835 visit sparked his curiosity, leading to his landmark book and the observation that these islands are the "laboratory of evolution." Much of the biological kaleidoscope noted by Darwin—such as penguins, sea lions, finches, blue-footed boobies—is still visible on the Galápagos, which are scattered more than 600 miles west of Ecuador. Look out for the waved albatross, which has a 7- to 8-foot wingspan, on Española. Tour operators navigate the islands on everything from luxury catamarans to motor yachts, and many employ naturalists to guide you through the archipelago's rocky coasts, lagoons, coral reefs, bays and white sand beaches. Gap Adventures offers small-group itineraries that often include meals, airfare from Quito, and a cabin aboard a 16-passenger ship. Life on the island is only half the equation, so pack your mask, snorkel, and wet suit.

Palm Islands archipelago in Dubai

Photo: Jochem Wijnands/Age

10. Palm Islands Dubai

Size up the world's largest man-made archipelago.Nature creates and removes islands every day, but it took a supernatural influx of cash and credit to create what developers hope will be the permanent Palm Island archipelago. Based on a sketch by a sheikh, the world's largest man-made islands are being dredged up and put in place as destination resorts: the Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali, and Palm Deira. Each work-in-progress is designed to attract tourists, who (more than fossil fuels) can provide a renewable source of income. If all goes well, the three islands will be the focal point of Dubai and become a Middle East playground of spas, resorts, upscale residences, villas, and superior shopping malls. Palm Jumeriah is already in place with an Atlantis resort and its wild water park open and a Trump hotel slated to open in 2011. (A more concrete, if off-island option, is the Arabian Courtyard, whose rooms have hardwood floors and richly colored upholstery, with prices as low as $100 a night.) S ome islands might be more exotic—and certainly less expensive—but none are more impossibly engineered and ambitious.

Be Lee Grady: Seven Things I've wanted to Say to Worship Leaders

2011-02-16T12:23:00.001-05:00

by Lee Grady.

We would honor God if we applied these principles to our praise.

I consider myself open-minded about worship. My tastes in music are eclectic, so I love everything from Hillsong choruses and black gospel anthems to classic hymns and Spanish worship artists Marco Barrientos and Jesús Romero. My playlist even includes Native American, Nigerian and Iranian worship.

I love any music that stirs my soul and points me to heaven, so worshipping the Lord with other believers is one of my favorite pastimes. But there are a few things I’d like to say to worship leaders. Please don’t take these comments as criticism but as encouragement from a brother who has “seen it all” when it comes to the Sunday morning drill.

“In poor countries where people struggle from hand to mouth each week, praise is so energetic that the congregation quickly moves into the aisles to dance. Yet here in the United States our worship is often stiff and way too sophisticated.”

1. Give us something to shout about! In most countries I visit, worship is an exhilarating workout. In poor countries where people struggle from hand to mouth each week, praise is so energetic that the congregation quickly moves into the aisles to dance. Yet here in the United States our worship is often stiff and way too sophisticated. What we lack in genuine zeal we substitute with technology, orchestration and hype. It’s a pitiful tradeoff.

Worship leaders must stoke the fires of spiritual passion. Don’t let the people’s hearts remain cold or stale. Exhort them to go higher. Say like the psalmist, “Praise the Lord! …Let the sons of Zion rejoice in their king. Let them praise His name with dancing. …Let the godly ones exult in glory. …Let the high praises of God be in their mouth” (Ps. 149:1-3,5,6) NASB.

2. Please give us content. Most of us packed away our hymnals 30 years ago and discovered the liberty of free-style choruses. Yet I get tired of singing the same phrase over and over—especially if that phrase has questionable theology. And we are cheating people if half of a song consists of lines like “Ooh, Ooh, Ooh!” or “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

There’s a reason “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross” is a classic. Its words inspire deep worship in a way that simpler songs can’t. The best solution is to mix up the playlist with both new and old songs—as well as old songs with new arrangements. If we only sing today’s trendy Top 40 we will forget where we came from.

3. Spare us the concert. True worship leaders lead rather than perform. We want you to play skillfully, but we don’t want the focus to be on you. Point us to Jesus!

Some worship leaders shift into extended periods of spontaneous worship. That’s great until you look around and realize that the congregation is sitting down while the worship leader has his eyes closed—oblivious to the fact that most people got lost 10 minutes ago. That’s not corporate worship. That’s a stage show.

4. Don’t run a song into the ground. Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine: When a worship leader announces, “Let’s sing it one more time!” and then proceeds to sing a chorus again and again and again and again (and again and again), this is a form of lying. This happens especially with certain choruses that are like broken records—they never resolve.

If a song is so repetitive that it’s annoying, or if you can’t figure out when to stop it, just retire it. No one will ask why you don’t sing it anymore.

5. Please don’t burst my eardrums. I have a high tolerance for noise and I love rhythm. But I have been in churches where the music was so loud that my head rattled for the rest of the day. God can open deaf ears, but I don’t think we should manufacture the deafness. Have mercy on us. God doesn’t want us to drown out the sound of the people’s voices with bass guitars and subwoofers.

6. Show us the lyrics. Memo to the technical crew: We don’t have hymnals, and we don’t know the words by heart. Please don’t wait until we have sung the second verse of the song to put those words on the screen. (It would also be a good idea to have someone proofread the song lyrics. I was in a church where we were supposed to sing “Praise Him for His mighty acts,” but the Power Point slide said, “Praise Him for His mighty axe.”)

7. Honor the Word. There is nothing ruder than a worship leader who walks off the stage after the last chorus and then disappears to a side room to eat donuts. When the praise team vanishes from the church and never comes back, it sends a message to the congregation that these people don’t need to listen to the sermon. Not! Worship does not end with the last song; the last song sets the stage for the next act of worship.

I’m not a worship leader, and you wouldn’t want to hear me on a keyboard. But I believe we would honor God if we applied these principles to our praise.

J. Lee Grady is the contributing editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady. His latest book is 10 Lies Men Believe (Charisma House).

Best Lasagna

2011-02-14T10:30:00.001-05:00

As I have mentioned earlier, KC loves western food and he is the one who cooks pasta at home. It has been more than 5 yeas since the last time he cooked lasagna for me. That’s before we dated, so maybe that’s one of his tactics.

Anyway, just recently he’s baked lasagna for me again and that’s the best lasagna I’ve ever had, somehow better that the one 5 years ago… Dear, I thank God for you and I thank you for everything you have done for me. I pray that we will grow together in our our marriage and no matter what happens, we will love one another more everyday. Happy Valentine’s Day!!

We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

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Salmon in ginger and soy sauce

2011-02-08T22:55:00.001-05:00

Having staying at Hershey for so long, another thing we miss very much is the fresh and relatively cheap seafood back in Malaysia. Imagine that I am not a seafood fan and miss seafood, what more to say about KC?!

There are crab, prawn, lobster, salmon, red snapper, tilapia but most of them are frozen. Lobster is selling at cheaper price compared to Malaysia but we still couldn’t afford to have it too frequent. One lobster will normally cost $15 and during sales, it can go down to $8. We normally buy frozen cooked prawns here as the uncooked one smells bad for me and the texture is too mushy. We have been wanting to try salmon fillet but we hesitated because of the tilapia fillet that we bought when we first arrived here. We didn’t realize it’s farm-raised and it had the muddy smell. We try to look for wild caught salmon and we finally find some at Walmart with the affordable price.

Although it’s wild caught, I still worry about the strong fishy smell. So I decide to marinade it with rice wine, pepper, soy sauce and pan-fried it with a bit of corn starch. Then serve it with fried ginger, onion, garlic in soy sauce (mixture of dark and light) and chopped spring onion. Yum yum… It’s a bit crispy outside but tender and juicy inside. I will definitely get some more of the salmon fillets the next time I go to Walmart so that I can try out more recipes.

I think I‘ve put too much dark soy sauce and it’s slightly too dark

Chinese New Year Celebration

2011-02-01T21:50:00.001-05:00

I have been missing steamboat or ‘hot pot’ as how it is called here in US since we arrived here more than 6 months ago. So we’ve decided to have it on the first day of Chinese New Year and we have invited few friends who love spicy food to to join us for dinner. One thing good about steamboat is that you can put almost everything into it. But one very important ingredient KC misses is meat ball. We can easily get meat ball in any of the grocery shops but we can’t find the type that we like. They are either too fatty, salty or soft. So I think I should just try to make some for the Tom Yam steamboat.

I used boneless country style spare ribs as they are less fatty. I minced the meat and mixed all the seasoning using a food processor and stirred a bit until it’s gluey. Instead of frying the meat ball, I boiled them. I think the most difficult work in making meat ball is shaping them smooth and round. Mine turned out ugly but tasty though =P I should have taken a picture of KC when he tasted the meat ball. He was so happy because he missed meat ball in beef noodles soup that he used to eat in Kajang.

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Besides steamboat, I have made ‘bak gua’ (pork jerky) and 2 types of cookies- Vanishing oatmeal raisin cookie and chewy chocolate chip cookie.

Vanishing oatmeal raisin cookie

chewy chocolate chip cookie

Bak gua is a must have for Chinese New Year at least for Chinese in Malaysia & Singapore. However,we can’t find it here in Hershey. It’s very different from the beef jerky which we can find in the grocery shop. So, I decided to make some too. Nevertheless, unlike the meat ball, the bak gua turned out to be ‘not as what I have expected’. It was not that tasty- without the charcoal burned taste and smell. Furthermore, I guess, the bak gua we used to buy at the roadside stall had more fats! This bak gua that I made was too ‘healthy’ to have the taste – it’s low fat, less sugar, less salt and not burned! KC decided to add more butter and honey to it and roast it longer in the oven to get the taste that he likes.

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We would like to wish you all a very Happy, Prosperous, Blessed ‘Rabbit’ Chinese New Year!

Baked Chicken Breast with Cheese and Tomato

2011-01-20T19:43:00.001-05:00

Most of my cooking are Asian or Chinese food but KC is a person who loves Western food especially cheese. He will cook spaghetti or roast chicken wings at home and he is very good at marinating meat. Since we arrived at Hershey, I have become the full time ‘cook’. So I guess he may have forgotten how to do that. hehehe…

Today, he told me that he would love to have baked chicken with cheese. This dish was introduced to us by Erin and Joel when we had our first dinner at their place. Erin told me that it’s a very easy dish to prepare and she was very kind to email me the recipe. I remembered all it needed were chicken breast, tomato, cheese, salt and pepper. Simple, right?! However, when I went through the recipe just before I wanted to start cooking, I found out that I lacked so many ingredients stated. So, I had no choice but to cook using whatever I had.

First, I mixed cubed tomato, finely chopped garlic, dried parsley, dried basil, crouton, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I spread the mixture and cheese on top of chicken, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and baked it at 350F for 30- 40 minutes.

I served it with baked potato and romaine. Hey, it turned out better than I thought! The only thing is it’s not good for the next meal. The chicken will be too dry after reheating.

Give it a try and let me know how do you like it. It’s very easy to prepare and needs little work.

Tomato Bee Hoon @ Mee Siam

2011-01-08T20:14:00.001-05:00

We have been in Hershey for almost half a year. When I recap the time that we have spent here, I have discovered my another new hobby— to fulfill KC’s craving For instance, few days ago when he told me that he missed ‘tomato Bee Hoon’ very much (Bee Hoon is rice vermicille), I knew I got to look for the recipe or at least figured out the recipe from his description. I am actually happy whenever he tells me what he will like to eat because a lot of time, I am out of idea what to cook.

Talking about ‘tomato Bee Hoon’, I had totally no idea what it was. According to KC, it’s stir-frying the Bee Hoon with tomato sauce. Hah, that’s easy but would it be tasty?! I googled and I found something very similar to KC’s description— Mee Siam. Mee Siam or “Siamese noodles” is basically spicy fried rice vermicille with various toppings such as shrimp, chicken, fried firm tofu, and shredded omelet. It is usually served with a piece of kalamansi lime (the juice gives an extra tangy kick to the noodles). This dish is said to originate from the north of Malaysia where the culinary influences of Thailand (formerly Siam) sometimes fuse with Malaysian food.

I went through a few recipes and decided on one interesting one which used dried prawns, tomato sauce and tamarind juice. As usual, I would love to share with you my recipe but don’t worry, the original recipe can be found here

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Ingredient

250g or half pack rice vermicille (soaked in warm water and drained when soft)
4 dried chilies
1 onion (shredded)
4 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
100g dried prawns (finely chopped)
10-12 prawns (shelled and deveined)
4oz. Char Siew or pork (shredded)
5 pieces fried bean curd or firm toufu (cut into pieces)
4-5 pieces Chinese long cabbage (shredded)
1 cup water

Seasoning

2 tbsp. Tau Cheo or salted soy bean paste
3-4 tbsp. tomato ketchup
2 tbsp. chili sauce
1 tbsp. tamarind Juice
2 tbsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. fish sauce
salt and sugar to taste

Garnishing

2 eggs (lightly bitten, seasoned with a pinch of salt and black pepper)
2 stalks scallion (chopped into 1/2-inch length)

Method

1. Heat up a pan with some oil and make the beaten eggs into an omelet. Fold and slice the omelet thinly. Set aside.

2. Heat up pan and add 3 tablespoons of oil, fry the dried prawns until fragrant. Add dried chilies, onion, garlic, salted soy bean paste and fry until golden brown.

3. Add prawns, Char Siew, fried bean curd, Chinese long cabbage and stir fry until the prawn and Chinese long cabbage are half done. Add seasoning and bring to boil with 1 cup of water.

4. Add softened rice vermicille and stir fry until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Taste and adjust the seasoning by adding salt or sugar to taste.

5. Transfer the Mee Siam onto a big serving bowl and garnish with the omelet strips, chopped scallions. Serve immediately.

Notes: I can’t get kalamansi limes where I am, so I use only the lime juice. Oh, how I miss squeezing the kalamansi lime and its smell on my fingers *sniff sniff *

Oh, another must have for the extra extra kick is THE sambal belachan which goes very well with this!!

Curry Chicken

2011-01-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

I ushered in my new year at a party organized by KC’s supervisor. They loved Asian food so I thought curry chicken would be a good dish to introduce to the people here. This was my second attempt of cooking curry chicken. The first one was just ‘so so’ because I only used the ready mix curry paste. It’s definitely lack of something very important – the ‘kick’!!

I googled and I was very excited when I found this website Nyonya Food. It had a lot of tasty yet easy recipes for the dishes that I never thought I would want to cook myself. Now that I have no choice, I am really thankful and much willing to give it a try. The original recipe for curry chicken can be found here. I modified according to my accessibility for spices. Though without the curry leaves, I am very satisfied with my curry chicken this time round. It tasted better after reheating as the gravy would thicken. I cooked quite a lot and we ate it with rice, bread, pita bread, naan…

This is the curry paste we used for cooking curry

This is the curry I cooked using my modified recipe

This is the curry I cooked using only curry paste. You can notice the obvious color difference, not to mention about the fragrance and flavor *sniff sniff*.

Naan is sold for $2 a piece here. So far, we only had twice ;P

Here is my modified recipe for curry chicken:

Ingredients:

6 chicken whole legs (cut in small pieces)
4 medium size potatoes (peeled and cut into cubes)
100ml thick coconut milk and 100ml milk (I use less coconut milk because I am watching out for my cholesterol level)
2 star anise
1 cloves
1 cinnamon stick (3 inches long)
1 lemongrass (cut into 2 inches long)
5 tbsp. oil
2 cups water (use more if you like it to be more diluted)

Spice Paste (ground):

4 cloves garlic
2 big onions
1 tbsp. turmeric powder
1tsp galangal powder
2 tbsp. curry powder
1 lemongrass (white part only)
2-3 tbsp. chili paste
¼ pack of curry paste (optional)

Seasoning

1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar

Method:

Heat up your wok, pour in 5 tbsp oil, sauté cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and lemon grass, fry over low heat, add in spice paste and stir-fry until fragrant and turn into darker color.
Add chicken and potatoes and fry well. Add in water, cover the pot, bring it to boil until chicken and potatoes are cooked well (around 10 min).
Transfer everything to crockpot and cook for at least 3 hours on high.
Add the thick coconut milk, salt and sugar. Continue to cook on high for 2-3 hours or until the chicken and potatoes become tender. Remove and serve with white rice, bread, nasi kunyit, or roti jala.

Notes: To make it easier, add in coconut milk when you transfer everything into crockpot and let it cook for few hours until chicken and potatoes are tender and the gravy starts to thicken.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2010-12-24T00:00:00.002-05:00

This year is our first time celebrating ‘White Christmas’. Since it’s a first time for us and I thought I should have a new way of wishing you all a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year too…
Here it is in the video…

iBand

I did not say I recorded the video myself… Hope you like it. I like what technology can do for us.

Beef Rendang

2010-12-11T21:55:00.001-05:00

Beef rendang or spicy beef stew with coconut is a very popular dish in Malaysia, Indonesian and Singapore. If I am not wrong, it’s a recipe originated from Minangkabau ethnic group of Indonesia. I love beef rendang since I was young and I always look forward to Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house because our Malay friends will serve us this aromatic and extraordinary scrumptious dish. I have never cooked beef rendang before because it’s known to be a very ‘demanding’ dish. Time, not to mention patience and dedication–alone is probably a main obstacle for most people.

To have beef rendang in Hershey is simply impossible because we couldn’t get turmeric, galangal and kaffir leaves. I was very happy that I brought 2 packs of ready-mix rendang paste from Malaysia, but without realizing that they required the spices mentioned above!! *knocking head against the wall* We searched all the grocery stalls and Asia malls nearby, all we could get is powder. Anyway, it’s still better than NOTHING. We bought turmeric powder and galangal powder at Harrisburg Asia Mall and kaffir leaves in Philadelphia. These are the most expensive kaffir leaves I have ever bought- around 20 leaves for $7, it’s like eating gold!! Lemon grass is common but not cheap too. I miss those days when we could have almost everything from the garden.

Maggi rendang paste from Malaysia which is only for 1 pound of beef

This was my first time cooking beef rendang so I checked online for different beef rendang recipes. I could only use what I have so I came out with my own simplified version. But again, I couldn’t believe that my simplified version actually tasted great and nothing different from what we normally had for Raya :P I prefer beef rendang with thick gravy, so I opted to use crock pot/ slow cooker that I didn’t have to keep stirring it to make sure it’s not burnt. I cooked it the day before and I cooked more to serve it over a few meals because the fact is beef rendang only gets better with time!! Guess we had it for how many meals???

Ingredients

2 lb. beef (cut into small chunks or cubes)
3 tbsp. dark soy sauce
1/2 cup raisin (finely chopped)
1 lemon grass (cut into 3-inch length and pounded)
1 cinnamon stick (about 2-inch long)
3 cloves
3 star anise
1/2 cup thick coconut milk
2-3 tbsp. brown sugar
5 kaffir lime leaves (very finely chopped)
4-5 tbsp. kerisik or desiccated coconut

Salt to taste

Spice paste

1 big sweet onion or 4-5 shallots
4-5 cloves garlic
2 inch ginger
1 lemon grass (white part only)

1.5 tbsp. chili paste or 5-6 red chilies
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. galangal powder

Instructions

1. Marinade the beef with dark soy sauce and raisin overnight

2. Chop the sweet onion, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and then blend all of them in a food processor until fine. add in the chili paste, turmeric powder, galangal powder and mix well

3. Sauté the cinnamon, cloves, star anise, spice paste and ready-mix rendang paste until aromatic

4. Add the beef and the pounded lemongrass and stir to blend well with the paste

5. Add the coconut milk, kerisik, kaffir leaves, brown sugar, stir to blend well with beef and simmer on medium heat. Stirring frequently until the beef is almost cooked.

6. Transfer everything to a crock pot and cook on high for 3 hours or until the beef is very tender and the gravy has dried up

7. Add salt to taste. If not sweet enough, add more brown sugar to taste

8. Serve with rice or bread and cucumber

Notes: To prepare the kerisik, just add the grated coconut to a dry wok and stir continuously until they turn golden brown.

Steam Chicken with Mushroom and Ginger

2010-12-03T22:40:00.001-05:00

This is one of my favourite recipes from my MIL. I like it because it’s very healthy and simple. All you need is chicken, chinese mushroom, ginger, oyster sauce, black pepper and a pinch of salt. However, my MIL will serve this with fried shredded ginger and dark soy sauce as dipping sauce which makes this taste even better.

Personally, I like ginger and I use a lot of it in my cooking, especially for meat and fish. It’s spicy-sweet taste not only get rid of the unpleasant flavor of meat or fish, it gives the dish a totally different yet wonderful taste and aroma. We know old ginger as a heaty spice. But a lot of people didn’t know that the skin of old ginger is actually not heaty and it balances off the heaty ginger flesh. So next time, when you cook with ginger, don’t peel off all the skin. My mum used to cook ginger with egg and Foo-Chow red wine to ease my menstrual pain. It’s very famous among Foo-Chow people and the most important thing- It works!!

Ginger in America is more expensive compared to Malaysia. Worst thing is I couldn’t get young ginger, turmeric or galangal here. Turmeric and galangal are the members of ginger family but they taste so different from one another. Imagine ayam percit or rendang without them!! That’s why I miss rendang so much now *sigh*. Anyway, I have some ready mix rendang paste and I am going to cook it very soon

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Ingredients

2 chicken leg quarters or 6 drumsticks
ginger (sliced and shredded)
3-4 pieces rehydrated chinese mushroom (sliced)
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
black/ white pepper
salt (to taste)
sesame oil (optional but it gives credit to the dish)
3 tbsp. dark soya sauce
sugar

Steps

Trim off the skin and fat of chicken. spread the oyster sauce, pepper, salt, sesame oil, ginger and mushroom on the chicken
Steam the chicken for 40-45 minutes
Meanwhile, fry the shredded ginger until brown and crispy and set aside
Boil the dark soya sauce with 2 tbsp. of water and sugar (to taste). It’s supposed to be thick and sweet
Serve the chicken together dark soya dipping sauce and fried ginger

Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T00:46:00.001-05:00

This is our first time that we are celebrating Thanksgiving in US. We are excited to experience the celebration here. We are invited by our church friend to celebrate with their family and we are looking forward to it!

This year, we are thankful for God’s provisions and blessings upon our life. He has led us into new phase of life and a journey that is nothing short of excitement! Ezra 3:11 says

With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid

Anyway, we just want to wish you Happy Thanksgiving!

Chirps Chirps

2010-11-23T22:45:00.000-05:00

One of my new found hobbies here is to bird observing. We have quite a big back yard here. There are always squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and birds in our yard. But I was so excited when I first spotted a blue color bird. Later, I got to know from the internet that it’s called Blue Jay. From then, I developed my hobby of taking photos of birds and recognizing their different chirping sound. I never have the chance to observe birds back in Malaysia because we stay in apartment and we just don’t have time to do so. With the trees getting bold, bird observing has also become easier.

Most of the birds here are very colorful and ‘fat’ because they have to get ready for winter. Some birds here are migratory birds but we are not encouraged to feed them because they will stop migrating to the South during winter as they have stable food supply.

These are few of my favorite and common birds in Hershey. These are some of the pictures I took at our backyard and around Hershey.

Blue Jay. I think their churps are not as nice as their color =P

Northern Cardinal (male)

Northern Cardinal (Female)

Robin. One interesting thing about Robin is they have blue color eggs!!

Black-capped chickadee. It’s so hard to take nice photo of them because they are tiny and very fast in action.

Canadian goose

Migrating Canadian geese, I can hear them every morning during summer and early fall. I guess it’s too cold for them to be here now.

We are not allowed to feed the birds in the park as the steady source of food will change their migratory pattern.

We bought this bird house in a garage sale and hope to have birds building their nests in it soon.

Tomato Salsa Chicken

2010-11-20T22:53:00.001-05:00

I cook almost everyday and sometimes, I am really out of idea what to cook. I got this ‘brilliant’ idea when I was preparing to cook tomato chicken (another of my own recipes). Why not use up the salsa I have made?! Save my time from chopping and the best thing is I don’t have to throw away the salsa. So, I come out with this recipe- tomato salsa chicken. It’s sweet and sour and it goes well with rice. To my surprise, KC likes it. So I will definitely cook this again!!

Ingredients:

2 chicken leg quarters
½ sweet onion
2 cloves garlic
½ cup salsa
1 tbsp. rice wine
3 tbsp. tomato sauce
2 tbsp. chili sauce
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
salt to taste
corn starch (optional)

Instructions:

trim off the skin and cut the chicken into smaller pieces. Pan fry the chicken until brown to get rid of access fat and set aside.
Sauté the onion and garlic until brown, then add in the chicken, wine, salsa, tomato sauce, chili sauce, sugar, balsamic vinegar and salt.
Simmer for 10 minutes or until the gravy thickens to your liking, stir occasionally. Add in a bit of corn starch helps to thicken the gravy and serve.

Cream Cheese Cake

2010-11-17T19:11:00.001-05:00

KC and I celebrate our 3rd anniversary today. You want to know how we celebrate? Well, we don’t because he is still not fully recovered. He still feel dizzy if he moves his head too fast and can’t walk steadily. We have been ‘quarantined’ for 3 days!! But since he has had better appetite, I thought of making something he likes for our anniversary. He loves cheese and he has been asking for cheese cake. I like making this cheese cake because it’s doesn’t require baking and I didn’t fail making it the last time!! =P

However, the texture of this cheese cake is nothing like the baked one. It’s very soft and it melts. It needs a bit of trick when you cut, especially the first piece.

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 (9 inch) ready-made graham cracker crust

Instructions

1. Cream together cream cheese and condensed milk until smooth. I use only 3/4 of condensed milk because I don’t want it to be too sweet and please make sure that you get condensed milk, not evaporated milk.

2. Add lemon juice and blend well.

3. Pour into graham cracker crust.

4. Chill for overnight (at least 6 hours) before serving.

Just in case, you can’t get ready-made graham cracker crust, you can make one yourself!! All you need is 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup butter (melted). In a medium bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar. Mix well and press into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan.

Well, cheese cake is for dessert and we have lotus root soup for dinner.

Garden Tomato Salsa vs Vertigo

2010-11-15T18:52:00.001-05:00

This is my second time making salsa. The reason I choose this recipe is because I have all the ingredients in my fridge, except cilantro and all I need to do is chop or blend. It’s pretty easy, simple BUT tasty!! KC is not a salsa fans (because he doesn’t like cilantro) but surprisingly, he said this is a good one.

Ingredient:

6 fresh tomatoes
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
2 cloves of garlic
5 slices pickled jalapeno peppers, or to taste
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
1/2 lemon, juiced (or lime)
1/8 teaspoon salt

Instruction:

1. Coarsely chop 3 tomatoes and quarter 3 tomatoes.

2. Place onion, bell pepper, cilantro, garlic and jalapeno peppers into a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped.

3. Add the quartered tomatoes, and pulse just a few times until the tomatoes are coarsely chopped. Transfer to a bowl with a tight-fitting lid.

4. Add in the coarsely chopped tomatoes and mix well.

5. In a separate bowl, whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, lime juice, and salt.

6. Pour dressing over tomatoes, and stir well. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

I made this for the young married couple meeting but we ended up in ER because KC was sick. At first, we had no idea what had happened to him. He was happily drinking Pepsi and the next moment, he felt very dizzy, as if the whole room was spinning. He could not move his head, not even open his eyes!! Once he moved his head, he would start throwing up. I was very worried because we are in a foreign place and I have no one to turn to. I prayed for him and for myself. We hoped that he would get better after a nap, but no! So, I decided to bring him to ER at around 6pm with a friend’s help because by then he had threw up for at least 5 times and he could be dehydrated.

We spent almost 5 hours in ER but praise the Lord that KC did not have to spend a night in the hospital. He was on drip and feeling better but he started to vomit again when we were leaving the ER. I could see that water was all that he threw up then. He did not eat anything and that was the 10^th time…According to doctor, viral infection was the reason to it and the dizziness will last for few days, even up to a week. It’s very common here but this is our first encounter with this fancy friend- VERTIGO!

He is on medication and resting at home. He still feels dizzy when he moves his head but praise the Lord that he has stopped vomiting. We have a walker at home which helps him to move around a bit. Get well soon, dear… I need you to finish the salsa!!

He has been having minced meat porridge for the whole day, but he is happy to have chai-boh nui (prickled raddish with eggs).

Sweet and Sour Prawn

2010-11-11T22:52:00.001-05:00

This is my first blog posting and let me first introduce myself before talking about, well, the title of this post.

I am from the land of the Hornbill, Sarawak, Malaysia and currently living at Hershey, Pennsylvania. Since I stay at home most of the time and my husband is away for work, I try to cook as much as I can for him. Well, they said, the way into a man’s heart is through his stomach. However, unlike what most will think that I have a lot of time being a stay-at-home-wife (SAHW), in contrary, I don’t. Times passes by in a whoosh...

Anyway, I thought I will like to share with all of you some of my cooking recipes which most is through trail and error.

I am sharing with you the recipe for sweet and sour prawn. It’s easy to make and quick too.

Ingredients

Prawns
Green/ Red chili pepper (Capsicum)
Pineapple (fresh/ can)
Garlic
Tomato (optional)
Sweet onion (optional)

Gravy:

Chili sauce
Tomato sauce
Plum sauce
Corn starch
Sugar
Thai chili sauce (optional)

Steps

1. Mix the gravy to your liking, either to be more sour, sweet or spicy. The tomato, chili and plum sauce are mix in 2:1:1 ratio.

2. Stir fried the garlic until fragrant.

3. Then, add the prawn, followed by chili pepper, pineapple, tomato and onion.

4. Finally, add the gravy which has been pre-mixed and cook until thicken to your liking.

You may add sugar or chili sauce to your liking. I will like it to be spicier to give it an extra kick and not too sweet. As you can see, I prepared it with more gravy because KC would love to mix it to the rice. It’s hard to get fresh seafood here at Hershey and we normally buy cook frozen prawn from Giant. However, it definitely taste better with fresh prawn.

New author

2010-11-11T22:03:00.001-05:00

I have just added my wife as an author to this blog too. So, hopefully you will get more postings and updates from us. I am almost sure, we shall add a new category of posting to the blog too, which will be classified as ’recipe’.

Mac advertisment

2010-11-10T22:21:00.001-05:00

Currently, I am reading a book called ‘Inside Steve’s Brain’. It’s about how Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, work and well, how he operate!

In the book also it talks about the various advertisements that Apple launched over the years. One of the campaigned struck me and I love how they have the tongue in the cheek adverts.

They had stopped this campaign early this year. But their advertisement is really cool. Here is another one.

On the other hand, here are some old advertisements which runs on our TV is the 70s and 80s.

1. Nespray MIlkpowder – susu segera yang sebenar

2. State Express 555- cigarette advertisement which I you won’t find it anymore.

3. Cadbury Chocolate – look at the wrapper.

4. Guinness Stout – baik untuk anda?

5. Kotek pink – who still throw around ball and having fund with it.

6. Carrier air conditioner – Globalization.

You should try to watch this too.

I don’t recognize some of the brand advertised here but Guinness or bulldog (Or Kau in Hokkien) as it was called, is good for pregnant mother? Mum’s now are not even allow to drink and to imagine bulldog is good for pregnant mum?

The Milo advertisement is good too, I like it.

What do you think?

3 months @ Hershey

2010-10-15T20:28:00.001-04:00

I have been missing from this blog for a month now. Well, life gets more hectic when we get more settled down everyday.

Today officially marked that we have been here for 3 months. It’s also fall/ autumn season now. Weather is definitely colder as compared to the time when we arrived here 3 months ago in the middle of summer. Then it was around 80F and now, its around 55F.

Nevertheless, everyday, we are enjoying the cold weather, for the time being. Maybe, comes January or February, I will be crying out for summer to come faster.

What we have learned so far? Well, one thing definitely, put on more layers of clothes.

Secondly, trees are now turning yellowish and red and soon, brown and then all will FALL. While it’s a sight to behold, having about 6 HUMONGOUS trees around the house compound is not fun!

Squirrels. Cute! Now, a pest! Definitely. They are digging holes around the garden and turning grass into patches while at the same time, covering the whole place with nuts and corns! I still love the rabbits and occasionally the birds.

Food. Oh yes, food. While Facebook is good to catch up with friends and see what people are doing back in food haven- Malaysia, it’s not nice to see pictures of food. Emm…let me correct myself, it’s TORTURING! Yes, we miss Malaysian food. The smell, the rowdiness of restaurant and mamak. The varieties of food of all cultures. And yes, the hawker centers too!

People. We miss you all the most. There, I have said it! We miss our families and friends. We make new friends here but the fond memories we have with families and friends back home simply are treasured.

Affordability. Well, maybe the greenback value is more than the RM, but then, you earn and you spend here. In fact, it’s more expensive! Utilities bill are expensive. You pay for your sewer, gas, electric, trash and water. Apart from these, there are internet and phone bill too. So, how much? Let’s put it this way; it costs as much as my groceries bill for a month. Bare in mind, we buy a lot of groceries because we cook everyday for every meal!

AirAsia. Well, that’s affordability too! Travelling around here is so expensive. A three hours train ride from here to NYC cost USD45 one way. I guess, AA can do it for half the price! Hotel is expensive too!

Anyway, I love it here too. I love the simple fact that I can walk for 30 minutes to work and I don’t sweat, or at least not as much as in Malaysia. I love it that when I forget to tie my chips, it does not turn soft the next hour. I love the evening walk everyday after dinner. I love the dry weather here.

There are lots more. Shall blog about it in the next post!

Selamat Hari Malaysia

2010-09-15T19:05:00.001-04:00

To all Malaysian and everyone who lives in Malaysia.

Selamat Hari Malaysia

Dismantle and Rebuild a Jeep under 4 Minutes

2010-09-14T18:11:00.001-04:00

5 reasons why you should do Science

2010-08-27T20:28:00.001-04:00

5. You can play with fire and not worry about being scolded

4. You can play with dangerous chemicals, mixed it together and makes some nice sound and ‘blast’!

3. You can play with glass and breaks it. No, you don’t have to pay for the glass that you break or smashed!

2. You can write grants and get hundred of thousands dollars, but as the saying goes, great power comes with great responsibilities. So, great monies comes with great difficulties too…

1. Occasionally, you do and create something wrong and dumb and you become rich because of it. That’s how Viagra was invented!

One month in Hershey

2010-08-16T21:15:00.001-04:00

1. Got a Pennsylvania ID but then, it has expired. Still waiting for new permanent ID to arrive.

2. Met an accident but unhurt. The car belong to our friend is a write-off. Not because the damage is bad but the cost of repairing it is higher than the value of the car itself.

3. Bought a car and enjoying it.

4. Found a church, the first church we attended, and has since decided to be there. Trying to look for avenue to serve now.

5. Drove around Hershey and to the next town or city nearby. Nothing to shout about but then, driving on the different side of the road as I am used to is a major achievement, especially the bigger truck is always on your rear view mirror!

6. Went apple picking, but then, now looking for ways to finish the apples.

7. Trimmed the trees, raked the leaves and threw away 16 bags of yard waste. I have 3 more now on my lawn.

8. No more lizards and cockroaches, but spiders and ants!

9. Back home, there are stray dogs and cats. But here, it’s rabbits and squirrels and …fireflies.

10. Finally, smelled the chocolate-filled air in town. But it’s more like cookies rather than chocolate. Now I can truly tell people, I live in Hershey!

Is it in your shopping list?

2010-08-08T19:44:00.001-04:00

I saw this ad in the newspaper last week. Man, this is a good ad with interesting pictures too.

I turned in and saw this wonderful camouflage suits which make you feel like you are living a good summer time. But I am sure, you will stand out when you walk down the New York Times Square!

There are also the boots which help you to have a better footing and protect your feet when you go for a hike and walk in the jungle or the woods.

And then, there are nice tents for you to use too. If you like the higher view, well, there are chairs which you can hang up on the tree too..:)

And if you like what you see, you can but a sling shot and better still a bow for $329 only. This will guarantee at least a meal for you while you are in the wild. A deer maybe…

And you can find the arrow head with fancy design too. It’s all metal and with different designs to make sure your catch don’t run away.

Don’t like it? Too heavy or too much of a hassle? You need something which you can get it quick and clean? Don’t worry. There are more…

Shortgun anyone? And it’s cheaper than a desktop. You can get one at $299.99. Want a fancier one? Well, you can get better shortgun. After all, it’s mostly below $1k.

No? Ok. I get it. More impact. More style!

Pump gun? How do you like that? From a rifle that costs $99.99, which is cheaper than my handphone, and to the more expensive model of $1399.99. You like some semi auto, you got it.

Man…Do you use all this while you go hunting?

And the best of all, the target loads, or bullets…It’s only $6.49 for a box of 25 and it’s on sale. 20% sale! Too expensive. Well, you can buy in bulks too.

And it’s only $16.99 for 525 rounds!

Man…now, remember, all these come in the Sunday newspaper advertisement, there is a toll-free number to call and the website to access to.

And I have to be credit checked and pay a $500 deposit just to get a handphone here?!

10 things I learned after I arrived!

2010-07-26T14:54:00.001-04:00

10. All their units are in imperial unit,

9. Chili sauce are made from tomato puree,

8. Most of the food are salted and their Chinese food sweetened,

7. Every time you want to subscribe to a service, you will be ‘credit check’ for your credit history,

6. You need a phone number so that you can be reached to subscribed to a cell phone service although it’s a pre-paid service,

5. It’s all about tax and tips,

4. You have to listened hard to differentiate the pronunciation of can and can’t. I now says ‘I can’ or ‘I cannot’!,

3. People drive on the right side and even walk on the right side of the corridor,

2. Most of them think their summer is too humid and hot for them. Wait till they are in tropical countries and they will know what is hot and humid, and

1. All their toilet don’t have a hose or tap. Do remember to bring wet tissueS if you want it really clean after your ‘business’!

life @ Hershey

2010-07-22T08:28:00.000-04:00

We have been in Hershey for a week. Our life now slowly falls into a routine. We have get over our jet lag. It wasn’t that bad with the time difference but it’s very tiring. For the past one week, we have been going to bed around 9pm and woke up at 5am. Today, we manage to sleep till 7.30am which is good for us.

After that, I will get ready for work and Mee Siing will gets up to prepare breakfast and to do some house chores. I have to walk for about 20 minutes to work which is quite leisurely. I will passed through a shopping area and a large condominium community. Walk back home will be a bit hot for now as it is summer and the sun is very bright. I hope I can get a car when autumn comes.

Mee Siing will also work on her thesis. However, being home alone and in a new place, it is quite boring and lonely for her. She still can’t go anywhere or visit anyone. Hopefully, when we go to church this Sunday, we will be able to make more friends and she will have more people who she can mix with.

We try to sign up for a phone too but since I am still new here, I will have to pay a deposit of USD500. This is not worth it since I won’t be using so much. Everything here has to be ‘credit-checked’ before you can subscribed to something. This actually makes the life here harder to settle into fast. You want a cellphone, TV, electric, gas, etc…anything that need subscription, you will be credit checked. If there is no record or history of you, you will need to make a deposit for a year. Imagine how much money is there…

Next thing is that you will need to get a driving license too. Most places you go to, they will ask for your driving license. That’s their way of looking at our Malaysian ‘IC’. You don’t let people know your social security number here and you don’t carry them out too!

Nevertheless, we still need to find our footing here. A lot of things need to get used too. There are four seasons here and the weather changes very fast. It is too dry for our liking.

Arrive at Hershey & Culture Shock

2010-07-20T09:06:00.001-04:00

Finally, we arrived at Hershey, Pennsylvania after 26 hours long flight. We thanked God that He made our journey smooth. For all the flights were delayed. However, somehow, all flights arrived at the destination earlier than schedule. So, we managed to get on all our connecting flights.

Our rented place here is fully furnished and has a big garden. We like the place. It’s very convenience for us to walk the supermarket to do our groceries and also for me to walk to faculty to work.

Anyway, hopefully the novelty of new place and doing new stuff will not wear out. Did I mention that we can see rabbits, squirrels and fireflies in our garden. They are everywhere, especially the squirrels. Hopefully, this will not be a pest later on.

Anyway, we learned new things too that we are here and some of those which give us a ‘jolt’ to our system.

Firstly, almost all Chinese food is is sweetened. Fried noodles is sweet and they eat together with rice. I can’t imagine how sweet the ‘Sweet and Sour’ pork will be.

Secondly, most American products are salted. Bread is salted too. How to eat that? I wake up so many night thirsty for water. AND their Chocolate powder is salted too!

How to drink that? Imagines drininking milo with salt in it! Yucks!

Thirdly, the Chilly sauce…Gosh...American take ketchup only. We are so happy to see Chilly sauce and bought one.

However, later we found out their Chilly sauce don’t have Chilly as one of their ingredient. But guess what they use to produce that? TOMATO puree!

Why do they need to call it the Chilly sauce when it’s sweet and not a hinge of spicy-ness too it and it’s made from TOMATO! We ended making our own by adding Tabasco sauce to our ‘Chilly sauce’!

Fourth, the whole house is carpeted. I know we will need this later on in the winter and we have to get used to it. However, being an Asian, first thing I thought of when going for our initial shopping is to buy a mop so that we can clean the house. But, where can I mop now except our kitchen. However, now we clean the house using the vacuum cleaner.

Oh…they wear their shoes into their home. How can you do that when you wear your shoe everywhere you go and you step on God-knows-what and then, you just walk into the bedroom which is fully carperted with shoes on?

Sun here during summer rises around 5am and set at 9pm. We are still learning to adapt to that especially in the morning when we wake up too early. But we like it at night when we can still walk to the supermarket at 7 and it’s bright when we come back.

I think there will be more to come as we learn to adapt and stay here. But every moment of it, we are also missing home so much.

Moving

2010-07-09T13:24:00.001-04:00

Soon, we will be moving to US. Well, Hershey in particular. I don’t like to call it migrating, well, it is not. We hope to come back here in another few years. However, as the date draw nearer, more and more stuff is cropping up for us to settle. Anyway, I know we are having a mixed feeling about everything now.

For once, a lot seems to be a lot mores sentimental. I start to have the ‘this-will-be-the-last-and-don’t-know-when-will-be-back’ feeling now. The last time I am going to cut my hair in this barber shop, last time dining in the various restaurants, last time meeting up with our friends in Malaysia. A lot of last time, at least before our trip to US…

Packing. The number of bags seems to be increasing and the weight too. It doesn’t help especially when ‘this also I want, that also I want’ and keep asking question like, Do you think I can get that there? Let’s be safe!

Family members. It’s always the hardest to be away or part with them. Close friends too. Have been praying hard that we don’t cry on the day.

Trying to expect what to be expected. It’s an exciting but scary experience to go to a new place. It’s always very easy if it’s for a month or two, but when you know it’s for a long term and you don’t have your return ticket, it’s scary. How will be people be like? How will your colleague like? how is the working experience? How will be the weather? a lot of uncertainty and questions but I guess, that’s life and have to trust God.

Nevertheless, it will be exciting to try to stay in a different country and culture. It will be new experience for us from the all-year-round summer country and to enjoy the new four seasons and having sun rises at 5am and set at 10pm during summer.

It will be exciting to learn new things and although the same language but might be a bit different of how we are going to use the word or even to pronounce it!

Let see how it goes and I do hope I can have time to continue to update this blog. If not, let’s hope my wife will get on the bandwagon of blogging!

Adios!

Hand Mime

2010-04-11T09:43:00.002-04:00

I had been busy with my work and had been travelling most time. Here are some video presentation which I found and thought of sharing with all of you.

Kuala Sepetang and Hutan Paya Eko Matang

2010-02-27T07:29:00.000-05:00

During the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, my grandfather decided to visit Kuala Sepetang for a road trip. We don’t have any agenda for the trip but simply to visit the place. Kuala Sepetang is an old Chinese fishing village located over in Perak.

As it is a small fishing town, we manage to go round the town in 15 minutes. However, we saw the Hutan Paya Bakau Eko Matang along the way back and decided to stop by for a stroll. I have been to a lot of swamp forest but I would say this is a very nice place for a stroll or evening walk.

This place is protected place and there are a lot of information that the management put up along the walkway through the swamp.

This place is a haven for crabs, prawns and fishes as it acts as their spawning place.

It also acts as a place for migratory birds to stop by as the food is abundant here.

Apart from that, there are great varieties of plants which can be found here too.

This will be great place to visit too if you are a avid fan of fishing! You can opt for the boat ride along the river or to the open sea or simply fish by the river bank.

Along the way back, we drop by Taiping and visited the foothill of Maxwell Hill.

It is simply a very nice and enjoyable trip and I get to spend some quality time with my grandparent!

Chinese New Year

2010-02-26T07:10:00.000-05:00

This year will be one of my last year to celebrate Chinese New Year in Malaysia before I re-locate to US. As such, it is such a heart warming experience to be among the company of family members. I took this opportunity to spend more time with my aging grandparents.

Chinese New Year has taken on a new meaning when I became Christian about 6 years back. It’s no longer about preparation to usher in the new year with a lot of emphasis on the prayer preparation but more so to meet up with family members whom I rarely see now as I lived in KL.

I loves to meet up with all my relatives and cousins and to catch up on what is everyone doing now. Most of them are staying far from each other and some are in overseas but this is the opportunity that we have to meet.

Obviously, there are a lot of get-together and food is a big part of the celebration. How can we forgo that when it comes to occasion like this? And yes, we also do have firecrackers though I am not a fan of it now.

So, how does your Chinese New Year goes? I am enjoying every moment of it.

I am typing this on my flight to Sibu to continue the celebration. After all, Chinese New Year last for 15 days!

And everything in between – Malaysian Drivers

2010-02-24T22:16:00.001-05:00

Some questions (and suggestions) I always have about (for) Malaysian driver.

1. Don’t they know how to use the indicator light when they want to change lane or to stop at the side?

2. Green light GO, yellow light, ready to stop and red light STOP and NOT, I mean NOT Yellow light is still CAN GO and Red light, GO lah…colour blind ka?

3. Don’t you know how to use the ‘round-about’? I know some countries don’t have that but if you stay at the outer lane, you have to exit at the next exit. You don’t keep circling at the outer lane!. NO, indicator doesn’t apply here because we can’t see at that angle!

4. Hey! Yellow box is there for a reason. You don’t stop in it and turn your head away and ignoring the driver that you just stop in their way. And by the way, you are causing all the jam too!

5. Oh…road is for you to drive and not to park your car! If you want to park your car, there is something call CAR PARK!

6. Motorist, I know that you can go faster than a lot of cars and you can squeeze in between cars, but you don’t have to show your skills at the outer lane of the highway. I know you are good and skillful but, my car can be more POWERFUL. Safety first man.

7. Why you must turn on your radio so loud that I can also hear what you are listen too…actually, to think of it, do all of you play the same music? It always goes boom, boom, boom…Do you hear my music too? It goes honk, honk, honk…

8. I wonder how many of you actually know there are designated lanes to turn right, left or to go straight at the traffic light and junctions. Not all lanes can do everything you like. Right lane to turn right, left lane to turn left…oh…you don’t know which is left and right? Then, I would suggest that you…… STOP DRIVING!

9. Come on, driving can’t be that hard. You don’t need to tailgate someone else car to eliminate the wind drag to your car. And by the way, it doesn’t save you any petrol too. I know because I watch Mythbusters and they said so! Don’t believe me, next time watch that too! Oh…by the way, some times I do apply brake to my car to slow down because cars in front are slowing down too and they are STOPPING. Sorry, I can’t twitter to inform you earlier because you DON’T twit and drive!

10. Don’t talk on handphone while driving applies at ALL speed. No, you are NOT safer if you travel at 20kph and talk on the phone while you hog the road. And no, the polices still see you while you travel at that speed while talking on the phone, you don’t go invisible!Summon doesn’t come in speed categories (I hope so and yes, pun intended!) except when you over-speed! Oh, by the way, the same goes for those who want to smoke and drive, twit and drive, snap-a-pic and drive, tour-guide and drive and drink and drive too…maybe not drink and drive – you can’t even go straight what more to follow traffic rules!

Happy driving folks! And welcome to Driving in Malaysia 101: Do’s and Don’ts or is it vice-versa?

Penang National Park – Pantai Keracut

2010-02-17T08:16:00.001-05:00

Many people did not realise that we also have a national park in Penang. It is one of the smallest national park in Malaysia. So, on the second day of Chinese New Year, we took a hike in the Penang National Park to Pantai Keracut. What will be a better way to spend Chinese New Year after so much of ‘glorious’ food the days before!

This place is at Teluk Pahang and the the track start near the ‘End of the World’ seafood restaurant. It’s a smooth walk of about 500m into the trail leading to Pantai Keracut or to Muka Head.

The hike took about 1 1/2 hour to Pantai Keracut. It’s not a though hike, though the beginning was a bit tedious as there are a lot of steps to begin with.

45 minutes into the hike, the trail will level off and you will pass through a place called Bukit Belah. Along the way, there are many pavilions (7 in total) created for hikers to take a rest.

Once you reached, you will be greeted with the sight of a meromictic lake one of the 19 around the world. Here in this lake, salt water and fresh water are joints. The denser salt water will be at the bottom while the fresh water will be on the top, forming double layer lake.

Sand here are very white and hot during afternoon. It’s also soft and makes it very hard to walk. However, the sunny day is a very nice time for taking picture.

Walk around the place you will find more places to take picture.

The beach is very nice and not too deep for you to wallow in. Along the beach also, you can find a look of starfishes.

As you walk along, you will also come across jellyfishes. There are found to be abundant at Pantai Keracut making it a not suitable place for swimming or water sport activities.

However, unknown to many, Pantai Keracut is also the place to see turtle. This place have been gazetted as a turtle sanctuary. The abundance of jellyfishes as the primary source of food makes it a haven for turtle. Many green turtles are known to lay eggs here.

There is a research station and ranger station to take care of the sanctuary and to prevent poaching by various people who collect the eggs to be sold.

Although this is not the season for turtles to lay egg, we manage to find a few cordoned off areas which is actually sites where turtles has lay eggs.

After that, more picture taking at the beach.

Some artistic picture, and some not so but random…but happy picture.

Some scenery from the turtle sanctuary too..

And some cam-whoring time too…

After about an hour plus or so, we decided it’s too hot to remain at the beach and decided to head back. We actually decided to get a boat to go back and paid the boatman RM100 for the 9 of us.

The journey is a very pleasant and it only took about 15 minutes to go back. Along the way the boatman stop at various places to show us the various beaches, flora, fauna and interesting structures!

Eagle’s nest on top of a tree…we saw quite a number of it.

Some rock formation which this suppose to look like a turtle…

and the crocodile or buaya darat….!

Floating chalet which you can rent for RM110 a night for fishing.

Overall, we enjoyed the journey and a good break from the normal routine of Chinese New Year of visiting relatives and eating non-stop. Do visit this place before it’s heritage is lost.

I wonder why

2010-02-11T11:39:00.001-05:00

Some of my random thoughts of Chinese New Year.

1. Why do people gives ang pow (red packet with money inside) during Chinese New Year?

2. Why we must have so much of food during Chinese New Year reunion dinner and at the end, ended up eating the left over for days?

3. Why everything must be new?

4. Why do people put up red lantern?

5. Why more Malays are playing fire crackers during CNY then Chinese ? (at least at where I stay in Penang)

6. Why more houses are decorated in the Christmas mood rather the Chinese New Year atmosphere?

7. It’s reunion time. Can we have reunion elsewhere together, like in KL? It save a lot of trouble like traffic jams, packed sardines at every supermarket/ shops/ market, etc.

8. Which is the real, original Chinese New Year song?

9. Why do we celebrate Chinese New Year for 15 days? Isn’t New Year is just on the first day?

10. What is it about new red under garments? WHO CARES!

I guess I am a Chinese but still have a lot to learn! And obviously I do have ONE last question…

Can we forget and ABOLISH the ang pow tradition? or can I don’t gives this year?

Have a great and blessed Chinese New Year everyone! Have a good reunion and fellowship with loved ones!

Remember, don’t drive too fast and keep to the speed limit!

Don’t go faster than the angels do!

Happy Chinese New Year

2010-02-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

Hi. I want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year.

May the year to Tiger be a roaring year for everyone.

But…you don’t be a tiger ya…:)

randomness

2010-01-12T00:59:00.001-05:00

Make a trip to Putrajaya to take some outdoor pictures but only to meet with heavy rain once I arrive there. I ended up at the Putrajaya Boat club and took few pictures there.

We left for field work on Friday and over the weekend. Took some shoot as I walk along the field. Still trying out some of the features that MarkII 5D has to offer. Love the camera but hate the weight. If I am carry that camera all the time, it’s like lifting weight wherever I go.

I love the harvesting machine in the field. It adds some ‘activities’ to the picture.

The fields are ready for harvest now. Some have been harvested and some going to. The field right now are in hues of green and yellowish. Golden.

Fierce! I love the red mower in front. It gives the contrast to the yellow mean machine!

The colour on the day is just nice. blue sky and green and yellowish field. Had a great time taking pictures. Must learn more on how to use the Canon Mark II.Though I have been using it for 7 months now, but have never fully utilised it.

A year in review

2009-12-31T03:22:00.001-05:00

What a good way to end the year! I finally completed my manuscript. Well, at least I hand it for editing and review.

It’s good to take off the burden from the shoulder….

Anyway, looking back the whole year, I must thank God, how can I thank Him enough, for everything.

This year started with a bang for me. For first, I hand in my PhD thesis last December and in January, I am applying for job everywhere. However, God arrange is a special way. He brought someone into my life which I never know nor heard before. I was introduced to an ex-National Museum director, a professor from US (actually two, husband and wife) and another from Oxford University. We end up collaborating with them.

After the initial meeting, I was offered to do my post doctorate in Penn State University over in Hershey, PA, in February. We pray over it and I talk to various one of the offer, in particular my grandfather. My wife went over to Los Banos, Phillipines in February too and it is the longest time that we are apart since we got married in 2007. Towards the end of February, actually on the 27th, I was called for my viva to defend my PhD thesis. Added a title to my name and now offically a Dr.

March went by doing some minor editing for my thesis. I received the official offer letter to work in US too. Attended the CZone camp and have a blast there.

Attended the GLN conference in Singapore and have another wonderful time.

We have our biggest Easter March event in April and we march around Kajang town and proclaims that Jesus is Alive and He reign in the town. We also pray for the town safety and prosperity!

I hand in my final bind copy my thesis to the university in May and finally lifted all the burden I carry for the last 6 years. Finally… I was also hospitalized in May because of dengue but then, God’s hand is upon me!

In June, I have another first in my life. First time, I travel to the US. First time I actually gone that far and spending about 3 weeks there. Again, this is the longest time apart from my wife.

In July, we travelled to Beijing for conference and spend about 8 days there. Attended the conference and visited the Forbidden City, Bird Nest, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall and other various places. Travelled in a bullet train for the first time too.

Come August, I attended my long awaited graduation ceremony. I finally can wear my ‘mushroom’ hunter’s hat and red robe. Felt like Harry Potter!

September, October and November went by smoothly without anything major. In October, CZone have a great worship concert and again, its awesome to be soaking in the presence of God. All the time, I am working and travelling to various places in Malaysia to visit Orang Asli villages.

In November, we celebrated our 2 years of marriage anniversary. God is good and blessing us with a wonderful marriage.

December came by quickly and have a great Christmas and now anticipating another great New Year 2010.

Looking back, I never expected to leave the country or even working overseas. However, God always has His plan and throw surprises into our life.

What could I say, if you have tasted His wonderful blessing and goodness, you will wait and anticipate for more!

Look back and thank God,

Look forward and trust God,

Look around and serve God,

Look within and find God!

Oh…did I mention I have completed my manuscript?

Blessed New Year!

Cameron Highlands

2009-12-02T03:16:00.001-05:00

I loved cool places. I had always find Malaysian weather is too hot for my liking. So, everytime there is a chance, I will love to go for a break in the mountains, but with the limitation of choices, there are only a few which we can really go to.

I love Cameron Highlands in Pahang. This place is just wonderful to relax, unlike Genting Highlands if you want excitement!

In Cameron Highlands, there are few townships with Ringlet at the lowest and Brinchang among the highest. There are other higher town but Brinchang is the will be the best for tourist as other don't have hotels.

Cameron is famous for its tea garden, strawberry farm and also various cactus valley and rose gardens. Other than that, you can also find bee garden and butterfly park.

You can visit their strawberry park and pick your own strawberry. Apart from that, you can find fresh broccoli and other vegetables too.

I always visit their rose gardens. Here they have more than just roses. There are so many types of flowers which are so nice that you can stroll in. This particular Rose Garden at Brinchang will takes you about 2 hours of slow walk and hike if you slowly enjoy the surrounding.

There are so many nice places for you to visit. Another will the be Agro park. Here you can find fresh vegetables for you to buy.

Apart from the fresh vegetables, this place offers you a variety of cactus and flowers which you can see and buy.

They also have apple trees and grapes. However, these are not for sale and you can only view the apple tree from the fencing they put up.

I will also strongly recommend for you to visit the Tea Garden. Sg Palas tea garden has an amazing view. This is where BOH have their plantation. BOH has 3 tea plantation here. The other two are BOH plantation and also Bkt Cheding.

This place has one of the most amazing scenery in Cameron Highlands. You can also visit their processing factory where they ferment and dry their tea leaves before sending for processing in Shah Alam.

In Cameron Highlands, you can also visit the Orang Asli settlement. The Semai are found here.

So, now you know where to go next for your local destination.

For more info on Cameron Highlands, you can visit their website.

More pictures for you to enjoy.

Charter for Compassion

2009-11-12T22:17:00.001-05:00

I have heard of so much of random acts of kindness that rendered by people who we don't know are realise they are there. Yet when times of needs arises, they volunteered themselves to act. It can be just a simple act like holding an umbrella for us during the rainy days and when we don't have an extra hand or to donating to a person who is so much in need of the money although it is just RM5.

Such a story or act actually soften my heart and makes me realise that humanity and compassion still exist in this world which is so self-centred and 'kiasu'(afraid to loose).

Newspaper today bombard us with news that will just 'tear us' apart rather than positive news. As such, when I received an email from TED, I am so encouraged.

At least now there are people who documented an act of kindness or compassion done by people for people. By people like you and me and for people like you and me.

This Charter for Compassion have so much of random acts done by people. You can go there and read of the random acts and be lifted up or you can also signed up and support the charter.

Cheers and have a great day!

en route as i see it

2009-11-03T06:29:00.001-05:00

why is this post entitle so?

journey. experience. unfinished business. growing. learning.feeling. seeing.

much more as we live the life!

work has been picking up and i am expecting it to be more hectic in the next tow months.

while working, suddenly it just makes me realise blue or yellow or white or black even brown, we co-exist! If i remove the yellow, the blue will also drop! everyone plays a role! coincidently, these tubes holds blood samples.in case you wonder and if you don't know, all is blood is RED colour!

life is short but the journey is not.

do we want to live comfortably or make a mark in the big ocean!

anyway life is a big web. inter-connected. one of us might be the head. others leg. some hand. but without one, it will be hard to operate. all have to function.

on another note, do take time to look up and look out, then enjoy!

saw this old man with his bicycle with his grandchild at the back. it's something of the past hardly can be seen now.

anyway, again, life is long, journey is not. don't let little things stop you or discourage you. look beyond that.

there is a bigger picture to it.

have a good day!

Steps...

2009-10-20T23:26:00.001-04:00

I have not been writing for quite sometimes.

Had been very busy and keeping all extra times I have to do some reflections and thinking as much as I can.

Life, suddenly it dawn to me that ...

is passing by so quickly and we have such a short time to make an impact with what we are doing or who we are.

too short to mourn on what is past, failed, unsuccessful.

urgency to make a point of my faith.

to spend more time with love ones.

focus on the macro and not micro, the 'stones' and not the 'sand'.

As for now, I am spending a lot of time with love ones and making the best with the time I have.

Forbidden City (Palace Museum) Part II - The Throne of the Emperor

2009-09-05T00:09:00.001-04:00

Part I - The Forbidden City

China has been ruled by different dynasties in the past. Each of the dynasty has their palaces in different places over in China. However, the last two dynasties built their palace in Beijing, a new city which was founded during the Ming dynasty. 24 emperors from Ming and Qing dynasties lived here before the last dynasty was overthrown in 1911.

The Emperor is known as the son of god during the feudal time and they rule the country with tight reign. The commoners are not allowed to come near them and they don't mixed with the people. They are known to live a very lavish lifestyle and have many concubines. However, don't mistaken their life to be easy because the demand for a good emperor is very high. They have to know the Chinese culture, Chinese literature, knows the martial art and good at calligraphy, having all the knowledge of how to rule the country and bring prosperities. Good emperors are known to wake up before dawn and meet the magistrates (cabinet) or the government as early as 6 am. They worked till late night and only go to bed after midnight.

In the Palace Museum, they have different halls for different ceremony. There is a place where the Emperor worked, where he rest, a hall where he meet his rulers, halls that he used to entertain dignitaries and ambassadors, halls where he sleep and many more for his different aspect of his life!

The hall where he works is so huge that I can't get the whole building in a picture.

In this place is his throne where he sits and also consult his advisors and meets his magistrates.

In front of this hall is a huge square where ceremonies can be held.

However, every reign or dynasty of an emperor, the emperor's seal is the most important. With the seal, it's the power of the rule. He will put it on every decrees that he made and also there are plates that shows his power. NO one can or dare to hit on the seal nor the plate that bears the name of the emperor.

Anyone caught disrespecting the emperor can be punished, and usually death. Not just himself but the whole family have to take the punishment too.

As the emperors are known as son of god, all their belonging have the pictures of dragon. The seal also have the dragon carved on it. Everywhere you go, there are dragons everyone. This is to symbolise their position also for lucks.

The dragons are on the floors and also on the walls...

However, despite the popular belief that the emperor are the son of god, they don't stay in a very grand and lavish rooms. Their bedroom is small for an emperor. This is because they belief that big rooms have more evil spirits. As such, their bedroom are small.

Ini Itu...Sana, Sini, Situ

2009-08-26T04:31:00.001-04:00

So much to complete in such a little time!

Time management! Must learn to make it better.

Sorry for not much of updates.

Hopefully, I will be able to blog more soon.

1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now

2009-07-21T23:53:00.001-04:00

As I sit in the office, I am pondering and thinking about what I have been through this morning.

I have recently graduated from a public university and currently working on my postdoc with a university in US. However, I am now back in Malaysia for my field work and my wife is still a PhD student with the same public university I had graduated from. However, lately, the authorities had cordoned off all parking bays in the campus and students are not allowed inside. We are all asked to park at the 'park and ride' and ride the bus.

However, as a graduate student, our work and research doesn't just confined to a specific lab. We worked with so many research labs and also places. We also don't work with just books but with equipment and kits which we have to carry around. Our time is flexible yet at a very fast pace. We can't afford to loose our time with the research materials we are carrying. Every minute that we are transporting our materials/ subjects will cause it to degrade.

As such, how do we parked our car outside the campus and take the bus into the campus and then, do our work. After that, take the bus again, to get to our car and drive it in to load all our research equipment into the car? How long will that take and how much time will it be wasted?

We went to complaint but the answer that has been given is this:

1) Staff also don't have enough parking - so, how do you solve this and that will the benefit both sides? Most of you clock in and then clock out without necessarily needed to go out.

2) Student parked at the lecturer parking lot. Our dean also don't have place to park - so, now you asked all student to park outside so that the dean have a place to park?

3) Talk to the dean - where the heck is the dean? will he meet us?

4) Thanks for your complaint -so what are you going to do with it?

So, whose performance are we trying to help to push?

When did the university try to help to give us better facilities to promote a better environment for us to work. At first, they took away our rest area/ sitting room. Now the car park. What next? The lab?

The student can't work if we are always embroiled with campus politics and also problems that caused us to work inefficiently!

Who is the people first? Where is the performance? It seems all this benefits the staff only!

Wake up!

P1 Wiggy Wimax

2009-07-21T00:44:00.000-04:00

It has been three months since I was given the privileged of trying out the P1 Wimax Wiggy!

Then, the Wimax coverage has not reached this Satay town (Kajang). But since June, we have been in the coverage area and I am happy with my Wiggy thus far.

Right now, P1 is having their promotion again for WIggy and it's going only for RM69 per month with up to 800kps of WIGGYLICIOUS fun!

So hurry up and sign up for wiggy now!

Previous related post:

P1-Wiggy

P1 Wimax Wiggy Sneak Preview

My own search engine

2009-07-19T23:53:00.001-04:00

I was just surfing online and I came across this search engine. I thought this is cool and I also create my own search engine.

Now, graceupondoulos also has its own search engine. Try it here.

Am I overdoing it?

2009-07-18T23:11:00.000-04:00

It never occur to me one day I will asked myself this question, am I overdoing it?

If you have been following my blog, you will realise by now that I love travelling and capturing every moments of it in pictures. However, lately, I have been travelling quite a lot. In fact, for the past 2 months, I have only stay at home for about a week.

I have been to New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Hershey over in US for about 3 weeks. From there, I flew back and travelled to Kuching and Sibu for week before travelling back to hometown for about 4 days to visit my parent and grandparent. Then, I have about 5 days at home to do some work and catch up with some errand and church work. Then, I travelled to Beijing, China for about 8 days.

However, I don't really enjoy the trip in Beijing as much as I would love too. When I am there, I longed to go back home. I have never had that feeling before that is so strong. Every time I longed to go back home is because I missed my wife too much to be away from her. But this time, she is with me in Beijing and I longed to go back home.

So, am I overdoing it?

But then again, this will not stop soon. It will continue till year end. I have 8 Orang Asli villages to visit in 2 months when I get back to Malaysia. Then, I am leaving for US again in October and to Dominica in November.

I guess this is working life!

On another note, I am not looking forward to the trip in October because that means I will be away from my wife for a long period. We have never been away from each for more than 3 weeks before and this time round will be for about 6 months!

I do hope I can stop the time! But then again, God always in control.

Forbidden City, China

2009-07-17T23:10:00.001-04:00

If you want to have a taste and know how the emperors live, you should try to visit the Forbidden City. It was once forbidden for commoners to enter this massive palace that when it was open to the public, it was know as Forbidden City. This place is so huge that it is not known as a palace, nor a complex or even a village or a town. But a CITY!

Now this place is known as Palace Museum. So, you are not entering this place to look at exhibits but the building itself hold the stories unknown to many. This place is simply massive and amazing.

Who have this massive drain to separate their compound from the public?

This is no drain...nor it is a stream. This is bigger than most rivers. And the Palace Museum has it surrounded at four corners!

And you don't just simply place any oil barrels as guard post but you built a massive command centre for it at four corners.

And at the main gate, let's built a fort! Not just any fort like Fort Cornwallis but a tall, huge fort! More like a castle cum fort!

Well, this is just the outside. Imagine what you can expect from the inside. Imagine, what will the emperor do when he is bored? How will he built his garden? Well, you have a big cascading waterfall 3 to 4 stories high!

Then, you built ponds and decorate it with stone sculpture...

nice, unique plants...

and also put up a massive 9 dragons mural!

Just to give you an idea how huge and massive this Palace Museum is, I spend the whole day in this place and only cover like 40% of the area. To walk from one end to another end without stopping takes me about 30 minutes. In this Palace Museum, they have more than 9000 rooms! Who have such a grand palace? I don't think Brunei's Sultan has such a big palace too.

Next time, when you are Beijing, do pay a visit to this place. It's open from 8.30am to 5pm and cost RMB60 for the entrance ticket. If you have your student card, bring along as the ticket only cost RMB20. Entrance to the Clock exhibits and Palace Collection is another RMB10 each!

Coming next Forbidden City II- The throne of the Emperor!

From East to West

2009-06-24T22:52:00.001-04:00

I have always proud myself being a Malaysian, growing up in a country where it's multicultural with different language being spoken and having wide array of food. Where else in the world that you can see so many ethnic people groups living harmoniously together and celebrating different festival together? Where can you get food of various culinary skills and background without having travel from China to India?

It's in Malaysia where you can find the blend of different people groups and also food that is so glorious and delicious. It's common for you to hear Malaysian says that they miss the Malaysian food when they travel. From the nasi lemak to the roti canai and char keow teow, it's the land to be if you love food.

I have been to different countries and yet I still find Malaysia serves the best food from around the world. Recently, I was in New York and I took the opportunity to see the city and try some food there too.

When I am there, I must try the famous New York deli. They serve pizza to sandwiches, from gourmet food to the simplest cookies.

Well, I must says that I do love the food there. But then, how much pasta can you have? How much cheese can you eat? How many times can you have cold turkey sandwiches? And how many types of pizza can you try?

After a few thrills of having a new diet, I started to think of my simple nasi lemak and teh tarik at home. The notion of you can saying you can lead the horse to the water but you can never force it to drink started to play in my mind. You can take a Malaysian out of Malaysia but you cannot take the taste of glorious food from them (R)...something similar.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the food in States. I always embrace try whatever you are serve with while you can.

I went to a Venezuela food place when I am try and my explorer instinct came on strongly. Not understand what was written, I just point and order the cheapest food that was on the menu...you see, I am a broke traveller.

And came this crushed, flatten corn food...it's a pancake made of corn and flour and this cost me USD6! From then on, I simply just stick to the conventional way of trying food. Choose those you can see and order those that is recommended!!!!!!

Anyway, here are more pictures of New York City!

What a customer service person will endure...

2009-06-17T22:04:00.001-04:00

Listen to

sivapratap.mp3
" target="_blank">sivapratap.mp3' target=_blank>this and have a good laugh.

It's long but this will be interesting to listen too...

Flowers...

2009-06-17T21:26:00.001-04:00

This time, no chronicles but just photos. Enjoy!