A homemade sundae, Cendol and Chicken Rice Ball

Small talks:

With the Malaysia political scenes changes everyday, more and more drama is expected.This will be more interesting than the Hollywood produced movies and award of the year can be given out too. Check out the award list.

Come to my place now and your nostril will be 'punched' with wonderful smells of food and fruits! Not that we have a lot of food and fruits but I think fruits will last us for like a month.

Last week, my grandparents brought some fruits for us, 8 pandan flavors coconuts, 2 pamelos, 10 starfruits, 2 papayas, 3 combs of bananas and a box of strawberry! So, what do you think? To top it up, we have a watermelon in our fridge which I bought in Tesco weighing 8kg and 2 kilos of guava! We can't finish the fruits and the strawberries are too sweet sour to eat it just as it is. So, I decided to make some sundae. Oh with three tubs of ice-cream, there are lots of sundae to go around! Three scopes of ice-creams and top it with strawberries and bananas... ah! A bliss to have in this unkind hot weather!Sundae apart, I have been making trips to Melaka more than before. I went on Monday and then on Wednesday, this time to confirm the venue for leader's retreat! And a trip to Melaka is incomplete without Chicken Rice and Cendol! This time round, we went to Melaka Raya to try the Heng Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball. This is the first time I ate in this shop.
The menu is nothing to shout about and the chicken rice is not so impressive but the helping is good. There were 5 of us who had skipped our breakfast and by lunch, we were hungry. Not to mention that we parked our van so far away, we had to walk so far, we could just shove a cow chicken in! We tried the steam chicken and roasted chicken. Apart from the normal chicken rice, we ordered the rice balls!!

Story has it that the rice ball was created when the koolies had to eat when working at the port during the 1900's. Thus, they couldn't stop to take lunch, so rice were packed in ball and they ate while loading and unloading the ships' cargo. The size of the rice ball now is just about 1/5 of the size then! Isaac and his mum met us at the shop to chat with us. They are from Melaka and she told us the story of the chicken rice ball. Full as we were, we were not going to leave Melaka without having a bowl of cendol. So, we made our way to Jonker Street. Along the way, we had to make a detour because one of the road was closed for filming. We reached the famous A1 Cendol shop 15 minutes later.

This shop is famous for its cendol (shaved ice with coconut milk) with gula melaka (brown sugar made from coconut)! We ordered 5 bowls and this is definately good especially in the unforgiving, scorching sun in Melaka town!

The shop has the old rustic feel to it. As we entered, old china porcelins and currencies were on display. Some Melaka food could be found on the shelf too. We made our way to the back of the shophouse to look for a sit.

The price of the cendol are not too expensive but depends on what you order, the prices differ.

A bowl of durian ice kacang will set you back RM4 but a normal ice kacang (shaved ice) or cendol will only cost RM1.70.

This place is self-service but I enjoyed standing there waiting and seeing how they prepared it. Once you have tried this cendol, you will not like others. The shaved ice is small and smooth and the taste of gula melaka is so good. It's thick and flavored. The amount of coconut milk is good too.

And, to sit in the old courtyard to taste it with 60's musics playing behind, this is a good place to go to. I know I will definately come back for more and recommend people to come here next time.

KAOG's Got Talents

Recent weekend was one of the busiest I have in 3 months. My day was packed with meeting and appointment to keep up! And this week is also our audition weekend ala American Idol style! Okie maybe not but there was line waiting to go into the audition hall! While the American Idol line runs to kilometers long, ours is better... a 100 meter long! ahh...but again, there was A LINE!!! Or maybe at least two! TWO...Wow! I am so proud of it!
We started about 2pm. Auditon for singers and carolers were brought to the other rooms and in the main hall, we have all the main cast! Velu was the first to come in! We have a good time and he entertain us with his head twisting speech and great emotions!We were seated in the America's Got Talents style but we are no where near that! What we try to do is to give them the background of the characters and emotions involve!
This two children really were great and they really can act!
Pau Soh too entertain us with her act and dramatic style of the characters! So much so that our judge just have to get up and play along with the characters!
Ahhh... him? our Kai lo! Ya lar! Who else? I know, this Kai Lo is more modern with bluetooth headset stuck to his ear, but cannot meh?
But then again, I think if we were to play the host to American Idols or America's Got Talent, the show will shoot up the ceiling! It's so popular that everybody who comes, got a role to play!

So, stay tune for more to come!

KL Butterfly Farm

Merdeka for most people is to watch the parade or to sleep in... for others, it's the usual 'balik kampung' in masses. I am one of those who will always try to go back hometown and savour all the Penang foods! But this year, I decided not to do that but to stay back in Kajang! And only to find out, it's so hard to get a friend for a meal. This is when we decided to do something or go somewhere near.

KL Butterfly park, that is! Nested in the KL Lake Garden, this butterfly farm is home to about 1000 butterflies. Around the vacinities, you can visit the KL Bird Park, one of the largest covered avairy in the world, the Lake Garden, the Orchid Garden, Asean Friendship Park, the National Monument, National Museum and many more! We drove down about noon, and was there about 2pm. The entrance fees cost us RM8 per person and an additional of RM1 for camera and RM5 for video camera. Tripot is not allowed in the Butterfly Farm!
Appart from butterflies, there are lots of flowers and plants around to make this place a haven for butterflies!
The whole farm is created in a way to be like the jungle! There are ponds and water flowing around the park. Trees are grown in every corners and flowers are blooming everywhere. These helps in providing the nectars for the butterflies!
The butterflies roams freely in this covered park and some are not afraid to come near to you!

My purpose of going there is to take pictures and at the same time to visit this place as I have not been there before. I have heard about this place many times from people and friends, and most recommended me to pay a visit.
Armed with my camera, I just clicks away in this place. Well, my beloved just spend her time walking around and patiently waits for me as the 'bugs' continues to hit me! Before we know it, we have spend about 1 hour in the park but hardly cover a quater of the place. And our ticket only allowed us to be in there for 4 hours! (this is the downside of the place)
We read that there are many species of butterflies that can be found in here but some continues to be elusive. We spotted a few nice one but some are really hard to spot! Patience is a virtue in this place and we have to keep our focus and look carefully between the leaves for butterflies.
Things get harder when rain started to fall, an hour and half into our visit. We found a pagola for shelter and this is built high. From up there, we can see a lot! In fact, we can see 360 degrees of the park! Rain stops after half hour and the butterflies are out again. Some just try to find some sunshine to dry their wings while a lot are dead!
This particular one, fly and stop by our side and flipping its wings to dry it!

We continue to be in there for more than 3 hours and I continue to shot away!

This is one BIG toad that we spotted in the pond. The sound of it can be heard throughout the park! This frog is huge and this photo does not do any justice to it! I think this frog must be as big as my feet!
Here are more of the pics I took during my 4 hours trip to Butterfly Park!
Flowers are common so are the grasshoppers and dragonflies!
I spotted this grasshopper and try to take a picture of it before it leap on the next leaf! Then, here are two!

And then, before we leave, my beloved just asked me to take a pictures of the Hibiscus flower since this is our national flower and the day is our National Independance Day!
I know this is way to late, but Happy Merdeka!

And by the way, do you know that we have a national butterfly too? Guess what is it?

The Rajah Brooke! Now you know it!