Home Sweet Home!

I was in Sibu for 2 weeks before coming to Kuching last Satruday. Hubby accompanied us from Johor to Sibu and he went back one week later. He will be coming to Kuching later this week to attend my brother's wedding and accompany me to bring our girls home.

During my stay in Sibu, I had a great time indulging in Sibu food that I had missed so much. I had not return to Sibu for 3 years since I was pregnant with my second daughter.

It was a pity that hubby was not there for longer duration so that I could bring him to newer and fancier places that are popular among the youngsters now. We only brought him to a few 'Must Try' places for typical Sibu food and one Sunday morning, we went to the Tien Ming Ngu stall that we frequent since we were kids.

The stall was packed so we had to sit at the coffee shop opposite the stall and order from there.

The long awaited Tien Ming Ngu finally arrived!

When the Tien Ming Ngu came after a long wait, we were quite disappointed with the taste. It seemed to have lost its signature 'dried cuttlefish' fragrance and the soup tasted somehow 'diluted'.

We did not finish the servings and the girls (who had their father's gene of eating only tasty food) did not want to eat them as well.

Then we saw many passers by stopped to buy something from a small confectionery beside the Tien Ming Ngu stall. We saw that their 'kuih bahulu' and 'kompia' were quickly refilled and thought those must be quite good.

These 'kuih bahulu' cost only RM1 for 4 and tasted quite good with egg fragrance and very soft unlike those sold at stalls in shopping centres which contained mostly flour and very 'brittle'.

We also bought some 'kompia' to try (RM1 for 5, really cheap) and we liked them as well. My elder girl liked to scrap the sesame seeds out and eat them first.

We ended having those 'kuih bahulu' and 'kompia' with our coffee-O and teh-C and the girls enjoyed them very much.

I don't think I will miss Tien Ming Ngu anymore when I am back to Johor.

Mid-Autumn Festival

We did not not do anything fancy on the Mid-Autumn Festival last Monday. Parents in law just came back after a week of shopping trip to Thailand (Haadyai and Samui Island). MIL fried beehoon and we ate the 'steamed salted chicken with Chinese herbs wrapped in paper' that they bought on the way back from Ipoh. (I do not know that actual name for that dish)

The weather here was quite hazy and luckily I had already let the kids play with lantern a few days ago.

The girls playing lanterns with neighbours' kids last Saturday

On the actual Mid-Autumn night, we just brought out some kids tables and chairs and had some moon cakes and Chinese tea. The girls carried their lanterns around but they got bored after a while and would rather eat.

About moon cakes, we did not buy fancy and over-priced moon cakes with weird ingredients from those advertised famous bakeries and franchises. However, we did have some friends who gave us moon cakes.

'White butter skin pandan sweet corn paste' moon cake given by MIL's friend. It was exchanged through some points for going to Sentosa's Casino in Singapore. It was nice, fragrant and not too sweet.

However, we were used to traditional flavoured moon cake like red bean paste and lotus paste with egg yolk. Therefore, we bought from a bakery in Kluang. The moon cakes there were so popular that people from far would go there and buy in boxes, not to mention they were cheap too. No gimmicks, no advertisements and simples boxes that consumers were just paying for the moon cakes. There was also no preservatives added and we had to put the cakes in refrigerator after 3 days if not consumed.

Red bean paste moon cake that cost only RM13.00 for 4 in a box

Lotus paste Shanghai moon cake with double salted egg yolk that cost RM24 for 3 in a box

Too much durians....

Hubby grew up in kampung with plenty of fresh durians to eat. Even now he has an uncle (FIL's brother) and an aunt (MIL's sister) who have durian plantations nearby. So what does that mean? He has become a durian gourmet (snob). He only eats durians within 24 hours after they dropped from trees. He does not even want to taste durians with ends that are split (the flesh would not be dry) and he certainly would not touch durians packed in polystyrene packs at hawker stalls or durians that has been kept in fridge as that would be too inferior for his taste buds.

During this durian season, we had relatives and family friends who would give us durians but they always gave too much and due to hubby's expectations of durians, we ended up having A LOT of leftover durians that I would pack in freezer to eat after durian season ends. This year, due to pregnancy, I had to control myself from indulging too much (I normally could have about 20 plus seeds of durians at one sitting) because I was worried about effects of heatiness so I had only about 6-10 seeds each time.

Freshly dropped durians given by relatives.

This is the best type of durian I have ever eaten, called 'Shen Xien' in Mandarin and translation in English would be deity. I prefer this than those 'Mao Shan Wang' (Musang King) sold around JB.

The durian supply kept on coming and our consumption could not keep up with it and our freezers were full with durians. Coincidentally, we watched a program about a visit to Thailand and it showed how durian cakes were made. Simple. Just scrape the flesh off the seeds, stir in the wok over low heat and add sugar.

Durian and sugar in the wok.



After left to cool for a while, I wrapped the sticky dough into plastic cut lengthwise and tied the ends with rubber bands. Tadaa! Homemade durian cake with natural ingredients and without preservatives and chemicals.

Accidents in young children. Are they preventable?

I read a very heart wrenching news yesterday in the newspaper. A 1 year old plus toddler was thrown out off a car that he was travelling with his parents when collided with a vehicle. Another vehicle coming from the other side of the road could not stop in time and crushed the boy to death. The incident left the parents in shock and they were unable to provide any information required by the police after that.

I pity the family but one question that popped out in my mind was, 'Why was the 1 year old boy not safely strapped in a car seat?' That would have prevented the boy from being flung out of the car when the accident happened.

Many parents will think that car seat is only needed when there is nobody in the car helping to hold a baby. When they are other adults in the car to supervise/ carry the toddler/ baby, why bother with the car seat?

Of course I would think differently because I have had a few minor accidents before (who won't if you stay at JB and people are driving at a speed as if rushing for re-birth) and once with my 4 yo in the car and luckily she was strapped to her booster seat although I was just fetching her home from her pre-school.

I am the one who will insist to strap my kids properly at the car park even with drivers waiting impatiently to park at our space. It takes time as I have 2 kids to strap but if people want our parking space, they just have to wait patiently, right? If we need to travel using another car, I will insist to take our car seat (for our 2 yo) and booster seat (for our 4 yo) from our car to another car that we will be using. I will only forgo car-seats and booster seats when we are travelling to another state and I can only pray for our safety.

Conclusion: Use car-seats/ booster seats whenever possible because we are not able to predict accidents.

One Night in Kuching....

I was in Kuching from end May to mid June (school holidays) with the girls and we stayed at my brother's house. My mum was in JB so she helped to accompany me to bring the girls back to Kuching and hubby went there one week later so that he could enjoy himself and accompany us home.


One night, my brother took out a red wine from my dad's collection for hubby and I to try out. He said if they were good enough, he would use this brand for his wedding at the end of the year. Nothing grand about the brand and the red wine was from Spain (not France or Italy where red wines were supposed to be more well known). To our surprise, the red wine tasted really nice. Smooth with a tinge of sweetness.


Hubby wanted to have some food to bring out the taste better so we raided my dad's cupboard and found a packet of straight dried shrimps. We ate some and finished that bottle of wine.





On the next day, remembering the dried shrimps I went to nearby grocery shops to buy shallots, chillies and lime and used them to marinade a bowl of dried shrimps with a bit of sugar. Hence, we had an extra dish to go with rice that day. I liked this dish as my mum used to prepare this when we were young.

So my dad gave me some of the dried shrimps to bring back to JB but before I could make another round of dried shrimp with marinade, I had 'accidentally' finished eating them all as snack. Whoops!

Tian and Tao's Birthday!

Today is Tian's 4th Birthday and Tao's 2nd Birthday two days later but we celebrated the girls birthday together last Sunday.

I had quite a hard time planning their cakes as I did not want them to share a cake for candle blowing (superstitions?) so I had to find a way to buy a cake for eating and another 'spare' one just for candle blowing (My hubby and his parents do not like sweet stuff so I know I will end up having to finish up 2 cakes and it would be a waste if I was not able to do so). Tian mentioned she wanted princess cartoons on her cake and Tao was into anything Mickey Mouse at the moment so I decided to order a black forest cake with a Mickey Mouse as decoration and I more or less forced the bakery to sell me a sugar/ icing thingy with princess cartoon. Then I bought a normal sponge cake from another bakery, did some chocolate frosting for the sides, sprinkled some colourful sugar rice onto the cake before pasting the cartoon on the top. So I got another cake for Tian according to her request at a cheaper cost and to her satisfaction. Heh!

I cut out their names from coloured A4 paper and it was too tiring so I decided to print the 'Happy Birthday' wordings from computer and cut them out.

Tian's Princess birthday cake. She thought I made the cake for her but in fact I only decorated the sponge cake.


Tao's Mickey Mouse birthday cake.


Jelly made from Dutch Lady strawberry flavoured and chocolate flavoured milk. I wrapped the packet drinks with coloured paper and pasted Disney cartoon stickers and the girls were happy to drink from their favourite cartoons.

'Mee Suah' in red yeast wine chicken soup. Foochow people in my home town practise cooking this for birthdays and we have adapted to that culture.

Tian and Tao getting ready for candle blowing.

My 2 sweet girls: One is 4 years old and another one is going to be 2 in 2 days time. I hope they grow up happy, obedient and healthy.

More vegetable planting....

My father-in-law was 'invading' more and more land for planting vegetables. Haha! Actually, those were public land at the side of the road, in front of TNB sub-station etc. It was no easy job to turn those barren soil into plantable land. He had to remove all those rubbish buried by contractors when houses were built, condition the soil with fertilizer (chicken feces) and turn the soil every few days before actual planting could start.

Those small vegetable patches are now full of variety of vegetables.

Sweet Potato Leaves. This is Taiwanese species as the shape is different with the normal types with pointy edges. More tender to consume.

Okra. Our favourite

'Di Wang Miao'. I don't know the English name for this vegetables. Holes can be seen on the leaves because we do not apply pesticides on our vegetables.


Chilies. This species is extremely hot and we end up seldom using them for cooking. Using half for one dish is more spicy than 'cili padi'.

Aubergine. We plant our own because aubergine and chilies are two types of vegetables with most pesticides if we buy at market.



Our little helper helping to carry our harvest.

Things they did

On most Saturdays, Hubby needs to go to work (although self-employed) and I am stuck at home looking after my 2 girls as my parents-in-law will go back to their home town nearby for a break.

I try not to 'work' but try to accompany them as much as possible. I will also get hubby to buy simple lunch like chicken rice or fish ball vermicelli so that I can skip cooking. Sometimes when I need cook lunch for them, they will end up watching TV and I think the time is better spent on bonding time with them.



Several Saturdays ago, I did some simple crafts with them. I helped to cut out shapes from coloured paper and Tian could do her own pasting. I would deliberately leave some details undone, in this case, the ladybird's spots so that Tian could colour by herself. After the bug was done, I pasted it onto a straw and she used it as a magic wand.



I also bought a 'pool' so that they could play with water without having to go to beaches or swimming pools.

They had a great time playing but Tao (my younger girl) could not understand why she needed to come out of water after playing for about 20 minutes and she would cry for more than one hour. Every time she peeked outside and saw the pool, she would cry again. Since then, I have kept the 'pool' in storeroom until she could understand "Enough is enough".

I know it is unfair to the elder girl as she kept on asking me when she can 'swim' in the pool again. Maybe one day, when hubby is at home and can help to keep an eye on them, I will let them play once in while.

Double Expenses

My girls have reached a stage where I have to buy everything for them in pairs. Tian usually refuses to share her things with her younger sis and the younger sis will throw temper tantrum to get anything her sister is having.

Usually we will insist for the elder girl to share her toys with her sister but on some days, I just simply could not resist to buy something for both of them so that they are both happy (and I do not have to start persuading, lecturing......and punishing).

Another reason is that I will do anything to encourage them to drink more water and I do not mind to stock up on all those formula milk powder for this.

Free gifts from growing up milk for Tian.

Tian is such easy-going girl and I can alternate between this and another more premium brand depending on sales and free gifts available. She used to drink the 'dolphin' brand but I started to mix organic soy, millet, oat milk into the girls milk one year ago (which is more pricey) so I balanced out by buying less premium brand for her. I plan to switch Tao's milk from 'lion' brand to less premium brand when she is four like Tian. After all the recent hoo-haa about added sugar in formula milk, I am even more determined to cut down on formula and replace with organic soy, millet, oat milk which has less sugar.

A visit to Johor Bahru Zoo

I am ashamed to say that I have been staying near Johor Bahru for nearly ten years but I have never visited any places of interest here.

Previous week, Tian came home from her pre-school and kept on pestering us to bring her to zoo. We wondered how she knew about asking us to bring her to zoo. Peer pressure at 4 years old? What will happen when she is 12 then? We promised to bring her to a zoo but I was thinking that Melaka Zoo would be too far away for a day trip with 2 kids and I remembered my ex-colleague mentioning a 'small' zoo at JB so I surfed net and found the location. A zoo only 20km plus away from my home!

Two Sundays ago, we went to zoo after breakfast and buying a new canvas shoes for Tian so that she could walk comfortably. We reached there around 11:30am and it was scorching hot (I forgot to bring sunblock for the kids, only hats) and it was difficult to find a place to park our car.

We bought tickets (RM2 for adults, RM1 for kids and free entrance for 2 yo and below and there was a compulsory ticket to buy for birds show which was RM1 per person) and the kids had a good time looking at real animals while my hubby and I was sweating all over and still had to chase after them.



There were about 100 species of animals on the 5 hectares land. Although the zoo was small compared to other zoos in Malaysia, one to two hours of strolling and 30 minutes of birds show were long enough for younger children. The compound was well managed and clean.



The area for birds show. The shops sold tit-bits and beverages at reasonable prices.


Hornbill and other birds could be seen near the entrance.

At least there were tigers and lions to see. A zoo would not be like a zoo if there wasn't any king of the beast and king of the jungle, right?

Baby elephants could be observed at close distance as they were chained as we walked pass the enclosure. I hoped that they were not chained all the time.

There were shelters with tap water nearby so it was convenient to let kids (and adults) to take a rest and for mothers to clean them up after feeding them. Tian and Tao had a great time playing in the 'hut'.

Birds show: It was a pity that there were only a few birds performing. Maybe due to smaller zoo management, they were not be able to organize performance on bigger scale.

As we reached home, hubby and I were dizzy due to the heat. I quickly cooked some cooling dessert so that the kids would not get sick. Papaya (not too ripe) and white fungus with dried winter melon, red date and dried longans. Cooling and refreshing!

Stay focused!

I am trying my best to stay focused with my most important task a the moment. That is to compile all necessary receipts, cash bills and documentations for 2010 Inland Revenue submission for hubby's business. There seem a lot of details to confirm and documents to dig out. Although there are still 2 months left but I plan to complete early and submit to the company dealing with taxes so that they will have enough time to review. There are 2 weeks holidays in June so I am sure I won't be able to get much done during that time. I keep telling myself not to surf net so much, watch movies or tidy up the house (I always like to tidy up or clean my house when I have more important stuff to attend to. Denial, maybe?).

Crafting Week

Sometimes I feel guilty being a work-at-home mum but seldom accompany my girls as much as I want to except during weekends when my parents-in-law are not with us and I have take care of them on my own. Even so, I will leave them to play on their own while surfing net or doing my admin work. However, since last two weekends I decided to accompany them on Saturdays without touching my laptop except when they are both sleeping. I actually feel better because I am able to concentrate with one task at a time and my girls are happy that I can play with them, read to them and do some crafts with them. One evening last week, I told my 4 yo I wanted to make a mask for her and she chose to be Belle, the character from Beauty and the Beast. My 2 yo would want anything that her sister had so I made her a simple mask. I was getting lazy so I just simply cut out a piece of paper with two holes on it. She was satisfied. A few days later, my 4 yo pestered me to let her draw pictures with water colour. Normally, I would only let her use water colour when the younger sister was napping. After she promised she would share with her sister and would not fight with her sister, I let them play at the garage. Reason due to I HATE CLEANING UP just in case they spilt the water and colours. To my surprise, they played peacefully for more than half an hour. Last Saturday, I cut out some shapes from a paper plate and let the girls pasted the legs, head and tail to make a stegosaurus (I got the idea from one of my ex-school mate's blog). Again, they spent about one hour doing all the pasting plus some colouring. My 4 yo even helped her sister draw the eyes and colour the body of her dinosaur.

Finished work of two stegosaurus

'Me' Time at JB!

Last Sunday, I had a 'ME' time at JB from 10:00am until 4:30pm while hubby babysat my 2 girls at home. It was a relaxing and refreshing day for me.

First, I went to a investment talk for Public Bank customer regarding market outlook, introduction to a new unit trust fund and financial planning. I got to know some friendly bank staffs and had a very nice banquet lunch at the hotel. It was nice having time for myself and I could have undisturbed lunch without having to feed my kids at the same time.

An informative talk at the hotel

After lunch, I called up my hubby and he said the girls were sleeping and I could stay longer at JB if I wanted. Yippee! So I went to a nearby shopping centre and spent my time at a popular bookstore and bought some better quality English materials to teach Tian.

The 'High Frequency Words' book came with flashcards that we were supposed to teach kids 4 new words at a time and the worksheets contained exercises for reading and spelling skills for the 4 words. It was for 5-7 year old but I thought it was simple enough if I teach her with patience (breath in, breath out) and focused just on the reading part. True enough, Tian could read 4 new words at once and read the sentences containing the new words after some initial difficulty (I had to admit, I was not really patient and I did scold her *guilty*). I planned to let her progress slowly and not to rush her on this so that she could have fun learning.

I did not show her the rhymes book because she would be very rigid and wanted to read both books at once which I thought would be too distracting for her.

I bought a Dinosaur comic book because she was very fascinated with dinosaurs and she could differentiate between different types of dinosaurs and pronounce their names. She was not very interested in the Mandarin book so I had not started introducing the book to her yet.

Sharing needs to be taught

I have only learnt today that I have to teach my kids to share.

Before this, whenever my 4 yo and 2 yo were fighting over certain toys or books, we (adults) would just reprimand my 4 yo and insisted she should share with her sister. It always ended up with the little sister getting what she wanted and the 4 yo crying and being punished.

This morning and afternoon, I was alone at home taking care of my kids and I decided to really accompany them. No TV on the background and no surfing net for me. I took some toys and played cooking with them. When the 2 yo wanted something from the 4 yo, I would tell her it belonged to the sister but I tried to ask the 4 yo to lend her. She agreed and let her sister played for a while. I monitored them playing and guided them when they were snatching toys. They played for more than one hour peacefully. I was glad!

The 2 girls played together peacefully for the longest time

Normally when we were watching TV or chatting and the girls began to fight, we did not have the patience to know what exactly happened and we would just scold/ punish the elder girl if she hit or pushed the 2 yo in attempt to claim what belonged to her. She must be deeply hurt when we sometimes even caned her for that.

Lesson learned: We have to demonstrate and guide our children the proper way on how we would want them to behave instead of just being verbal. Actions do speak louder than words.

Green Hill at Kuching

There is one not-so-touristy place that my parents will bring guests to visit during their first visit to Kuching. The direct translation from Hokkien is 'Green Hill' but not the Green Hill with an asylum.

There were many steps up the temple

It was actually a Chinese temple built by Hokkien people when they first reached Kuching from China. It was built to protect a small harbour below, according to their belief.

Birds eye view of the harbour below

A part of the temple from outside. I did not take any photos inside. I seldom go inside temples as I was not sure of the 'etiquette' inside a Buddhist temple

'Foot Print of Lord Buddha' as what I read from the description. It was one of the sacred items in Buddhism commonly found in Burmese Temples

We were Christians, not Buddhists but we brought guest there just to show them the history as we were Hokkien and the serene surrounding was good for strolling.

We went to a seafood restaurant at the foot of the hill and the food was delicious and cheap. Again, there were about 10 adults and 2 kids and the bills was only around RM150 including drinks (mostly coconuts). Of course, there were few other dishes that I did not managed to take photo.

Teo-chew style fried oyster which was sticky unlike that other crispy type that I had in my previous post

Curry Bamboo Clam - The clams were huge and juicy

Bamboo Clams with spring onions and ginger. What we had in Johor was cooked with the shell (to make up the bulk) and the clams were so tiny

Prawns in Vietnamese sauce. It was not spicy at all with a tinge of sourish sweetish taste. We dipped fried 'man-tau' to eat the sauce. Really delicious!