Miscellaneous Picture #34: January favourites

January is a month of celebration, so I am celebrating it with this delicious cider drink. Tasted like Zapple with an alcoholic ting to its taste.

We also spent a lot this month especially on the house. Bought new basin, bath rack, kitchen utensil but the most expensive one have to be this! Bought a couch for the family hall so the kids would be spending more times on it.

A friend came back from Shanghai holiday and bought me this lipstick pouch. Used to have one too when my dad bought me one many years ago but it was torn and I have thrown away. Now I have a new pouch to keep not one but two lipsticks in it!

CNY is more than 2 weeks away and I am sure most of you have gone for new clothing shopping. It has been few years since I stopped shopping extensively for new clothings but I must at least get myself a new dress. So this is my new CNY dress. A one-piece dress with lovely gold and black waist-band look and opaque wide trim.

When was the last time I saw people sold this childhood favourite meat?? Hardly! So, how happy I were to see this in my night market one night. But still cannot beat the original one in the Main Bazaar market.

It is actually char siew with liver. Not sure why it was called "wrapped duck's feet" as directly translated from Hokkien as it was neither both.

I don't take the liver part so I would separate the char siew and the liver that tied with edible string and just eat the char siew.

Come to a close

I have so much to write this evening but can't get my thoughts organised. Hmm. A bit of a writing block, I think I have at the moment.

But I think I can do with a little summary of what I have been through this month, the very first month of 2015.

The sun is almost setting now as January 2015 is almost come to a close. It feels great and blessed to be able to see the sun every day, don't you think?

January has got to be one of the wettest months. Most of the days, it is cold and wet. However if last week was the wettest this month, this week has got to be the warmest! I am sweating profusely this week.

I were not feeling well on the first week as my three friends (flu, sore throat and cough) were visiting me. The kids also caught the sickness from me.

And splitting headaches attacking me this week, and I have to sleep early to get some rests. And when I said early, there was one night when I went to bed around 8pm after Jamie slept. Too tired and my headache was killing me. I could not believe I actually slept for almost 10 hours that time!!

Clearing my old clothes from the wardrobe and donate to the needy organisation. Glad I did that as I should have done it long long time ago. In the past, I used to complain that I have a wardrobe full of clothes but nothing wear. Now I can proudly tell my hubby it is empty and I really have nothing to wear!

Both Jan and Jay are happy to be back to schools and they are adjusting well to our current arrangement.

Jan is officially wearing glasses. Brought her to check her eyesight last week and confirm her near-sighted with degree of 250 (right)  and 300 (left).

And here is Jamie in his birthday suit enjoying his bath. He is 16 months old and counting!

We are furnishing our home with more furniture and fixtures. We did spent a lot this month of the house.

I am still planning of way to revamp our office space in the house but too many clutters in that room. More like a store room than an office now but got to think of making it more comfortable and practical. 

I am looking forward to February because Chinese New Year is coming soon. Hubby will be back for the holiday and we are going to be busy with the celebration. The whole Ling family will be flying over and celebrate CNY this year in Kuching! 

3 kids, 2 malls and a dinner

Our Sunday continues...

Our Sunday was an eventful day as the sun has finally came out and it was a very warm afternoon. Since the kids were restless we drove to CityOne Mall around 4pm for a walk.

The kids were happy to see the cny decoration is up and able to spend some times playing in the children arcade.

Jamie was excited looking at all those bright red lanterns. Kept pointing up and said "mei mei" (beautiful). ^^

Jan and Jay spend almost RM20 in the arcade within 30 minutes times! Well, finished up all the tokens and they were happy to follow me walking around the mall.

I love the decoration here. Simple with many cherry blossom trees around the mall.

And not forgetting those red lanterns hanging on the ceiling.

After all the playing, the kids were hungry since we had an early lunch in Tarot Cafe that day. They wanted to have Japanese food but the Japanese outlet in CityOne was packed so we decided to go to another mall for the Japanese.

About a 20 minutes drive from CityOne, we reached The Spring Mall and we immediately headed to Sushi King for our dinner.

My princess without fail ordered its unagi rice which she finished up the whole bowl all by herself.

I had the salmon set as I were craving for this Omega-3 rich fish.

We also have few plates of sushi. The kids had few plates of surimi scallops from the conveyor belt.

Jay ate most of the fried scallops while we have to finished up the rice of the sushi!

After our meal, we have a quick walk around the mall. Look look see see.

The Spring has never fail to impress us with its festive decoration. They reused the Christmas backdrop and revamped it with CNY lanterns and cherry blossoms.

And they have a cny bazaar too. I just had a quick look around the participating stalls; did not buy anything.

That is! Wrapped up our Sunday in 3 posts. Hope you enjoy reading my posts.

Not only tarot

You could book an appointment for a tarot reading here. However, on normal days, people come here for its food and drink. It is a good dining place to enjoy some decent and reasonably-priced food. 

Tarot Cafe in Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce (Jln Keretapi) is more well known for its drinks and toasts. I have been there once when I were pregnant with my 2nd baby. So you can imagine that was a long long time ago as Jay is almost 6 years old now.

All the tarot cards display on the wall

I bought a Groupon voucher for its signature toast. RM12 for 2 persons (normal price RM16.90). Isn't it look colourful and delicious?

Loved the crispy toast with the sweet filling of ice cream, watermelon balls and blueberry sauce on it.

That was only our starter. We also bought Groupon vouchers for bento sets for 2 persons here.

We opted for chicken katsu and chicken teriyaki bento since the kids did not know how to eat spicy food.

How our bento looks like

Teriyaki chicken

Chicken katsu

Oh yeah. For the RM12, other than their signature toast, we also get 2 side dishes. We chose fried hotate (above) and tako balls (below). I did not taste the hotate but I tried one tako ball. I never really fancy those Japanese balls that much.

Again, this cafe has some of creative drink names around. I had "The Lover" which is a vanilla smoothie with dragon fruits cubes in it. RM8.90 for this tall glass of goodness.

And sis said she needed "The Strength" drink (RM6.90) that afternoon, which was very refreshing.

You bet that we did have an enjoyable lunch.  The address of this cafe below if you would like to try its food or get your fortune telling here. It is just opposite Bing! Coffee.

Came here again

My second time having breakfast at this cafe. It was raining yesterday so we came here since it is nearer to my place.

I had my favourite Batu Kawa meatballs noodle. Very satisfying to have this RM4.00 bowl on a rainy morning.

Happy that they served the meatballs in a bowl of soup separately from my noodle.

My sis tried out the breakfast stall as she was not into noodle that morning. She had this breakfast set for RM4.00.

I guess this stall does not serve non-halal food as no ham or luncheon meat in the menu. My girl ended up ordering this sandwich for RM5.

It has chicken ham, sausage, egg and cheese in the sandwich. Quite nice with a serving of mayo in it.

A quick and simple breakfast we had here. Not many stalls open in the morning so we did not have much choice. The cafe played CNY songs and it did brighten up the mood amidst the rain.

After our breakfast we headed home before we went out again for lunch (coming up in the next post!).

In the evening we went for a walk in not one but TWO shopping malls! Just window shopping and dinner. The kids have been restless for the whole week as confined at home due to rain. So how happy were they to be able to go out and enjoy a bit. ^^ Stay tune to my upcoming post!

Young hearts

I were surprised when the boy asked the sister for a game of chess the other night. Since when did he show interest or start to play chess?? 

Jamie started it first. He was playing with the chess set. After a while he grew bored of it and left all the pieces scattered around. Jay started to pick all of them and asked his sister to play with him.

The sister obliged and taught him on rules and steps. She ever saw her dad played before and learnt from him. I were listening nearby and did give some tips as they played along. I am not really a good chess player but I do know one or two about strategies. 

They played a game and although there was some arguments among the siblings, it went well. It just turned out Jay wanted to play with the chess pieces. For his fighting game. But he did try to play. 

Whose know, he may eventually like and play it.

TGIF

TGIF! Friday has come around again and I am happy that I can breathe better this weekend.

It has been a rocky week this week with the bad weather and I had a little tyre accident early of the week.  Hit the side of the road and punctuate my front tyre but luckily that was over for us now. And thanks to dad for helping us during such time.

I hate going out under the cold and wet condition. But for kids' sake, we survive this week without much hardship. Thank god that everyone has recovered from a bout of cold.

My area is flood-free unlike other low areas which flooded and affected families needed to evacuate and stay in relief centres early of the week. Raining every day on and off; hardly see the sun coming out. However weren't happy we are to have some sunshine yesterday afternoon. Feel like a long time since we see the sun shines warmly on us. We did see an improved weather yesterday and today.

I did not go anywhere other than have a quick shopping in the neighbourhood mart, send and pick the kids.  On Tuesday, I received a surprise mail in my mail box. As you can see, the envelope was wet from the rain but the content was not. Thank you to Libby for this thoughtful bookmark. I love it.

Nice quote on the leaf bookmark.

On another good note, I have some times to watch tv this week. Catching up on some tennis matches. Australian Open 2015 is on-going now.

And I am typically not into musical film but my kids have been bragging to me on watching "Into the woods", the latest Hollywood movie. They have watched it last Sunday night with the dad. So I guess they wanted to watch the movie again. Well, I guess that would be what we are going to do tonight.  After all, it is Friday. No school tomorrow and we can stay up late. ^^

Sleeping beauty

All I want to do now is sleep!

My sleep has not been good lately. Waking up a couple of times at night. Or do age is catching up with me??  People said that as you get older, your quality sleep is getting lesser. Damn! Now I have to admit that I am old!

And last night, Jamie was not helping me at all in my sleeping department. He woke up middle of the night, crying and throwing tantrum and finally I have to give up and watch tv with him for almost an hour. He has been doing this crying stuff occasionally. Not that he is hungry or anything. Probably he has a bad dream.

As of now, he is still sleeping. He woke up early this morning, way before my alarm clock rang so he dozed off while we were on our way back after send Jay to kindergarden.

Hope he gets to sleep well so I could get my sleep too. Actually now I wish I could just fall asleep and sleep the whole day like nobody business. The weather is so nice to sleep in. But there is chore to be done. So got to go now. Yawn!

Soup on impulse (non-halal)

Some days I see what I have in the kitchen and use up for my cooking. Do not want to waste anything. 

Like the other day, I were thinking of cooking soup as it was very chilling day that evening. So digging through my spices and ingredients rack, I thought of using red dates, gingko and black beans for my pork ribs soup. 

I wonder anyone cooked this soup before because I could not find anything on this in the internet. Luckily it turned out alright. Not too bad but next time, I will try it with chicken instead. I seldom cook pork at home but as hubby was here over the weekend, I cooked this pork rib soup as he prefers pork than chicken.

 Very simple recipe for my pork ribs soup with red dates, gingko and black beans. Soak all 3 ingredients for few minutes. For gingko, remove the inner bitter stuff in the nuts. 

In slow cooker, cook all 3 ingredients so gingko and black beans will soften before add in the blanched pork rib. Dash some white pepper and add salt to taste after add the pork. Let it cooks for another 1 to 1.5 hours before turn off the heat.

Serve it warm with white rice!!

The gloomy weekend

Oh no! It is Sunday evening already??? Got to wake up early and rush all over again starting tomorrow. Sigh!

Hubby flew back from KL yesterday but only stay over for 2 nights before he is heading back to Miri. 

It is a very wet weekend. Cold and gloomy. Not a glorious weekend that I would want it to be but alas. What can we expect during this time of the year? The King Tide begins today so some parts of the city encountered rising water level today since it rains non-stop since Saturday morning. Now that discouraged me to drive out even more! No mood to go out at all.

Situation in Kuching waterfront. Overflow of Sarawak river. Cannot see the staircases beside the crocodile statue!

From Petra Jaya looking across the Sarawak river

For dinner on Saturday, I cooked a simple meal. All hubby's favourite dishes.

Fried pomfret, steamed egg custard, lady fingers with fried garlic and oyster sauce; and braised pork trotter

This morning the rain continues to pour. We went for our breakfast in Sing Garden, Hui Sing.

I had fish head mihun soup for RM7. Not as tasty as it used to be but can taste the sour and spicy in the broth. Used to be cooked by the father but the son has took over the cooking.

The rest of the day? We are hibernating under this gloomy weather. Just stay at home and do some spring cleaning, take nap and cook dinner.

The little one is also busy doing some exploration himself.

Ok, good night guys! Tomorrow is another day.

P.s. as of this time of post, it is still raining heavily outside and the river beside McD's drive-through near my house is almost as high as the road. Worry it will flood the road soon!

Miscellaneous Picture #33: glimpse of yellow

Okay, Christmas and New Year are over. Now it is time to get things ready for Chinese New Year. I know, CNY is more than a month but times can fly very fast with just a blink of eyes.

Today's post is on yellow flowers since it is one of the auspicious colours of CNY.

Hope you like my photos as much as I do. Let the pictures do the talking, shall we?

Happy weekend, guys!