Hello!

This was the reason why I have been unable to cook for the past three months (can’t stand the smell of raw meat), feel so sick at night (morning sickness my behind) and just sleep and eat whenever I get the chance. In fact, I still do that…seems to need loads and loads of rest. No bentos for me either, I could barely cook dinner let alone lunch….so poor bacon have been doing all the cooking and cleaning and letting me nap. When I go out, all I want to do is come home and crash in bed…..extreme tiredness is one of my symptoms. It’s been quite unpleasant, but it was mostly due to my incessant worry that something might be wrong. Apparently the worst is behind me now…so I’m looking forward to some months of somewhat feeling more myself than I have done in the past few months.

Probably being off the caffeine is not helping with my tiredness…there is just so much that you’re supposed to limit your intake of or just cut straight out of your diet. I don’t really mind things like liver and certain fishes, but caffeine limitation is not one of my favourite. You’d think that after avoiding it for two months (had no idea during month 1) that I’ll be completely off it…but no. I’m still sleepy, and crave for coffees, teas and chocolate. Yeah you didn’t know chocolate contain caffeine huh? So does soft drinks. I have been going de-caf but even that contains some caffeine. Sucks. I can replicate the taste but not the effect!

Other than the random bits of being uncomfortable, me & bacon are looking forward to welcoming our new addition in January. We’ll hopefully be finding out the gender in the next 6 weeks or so – buying items for team yellow is just too hard! We both have an inkling that it’s going to be a boy. Nothing scientific, just a feeling….but we’ll find out in about 6 weeks!!

PS: Yes I still have loaddds of pictures of China. And no, this was not made in china

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My bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I am heading off to China; with about 30ish members of my extended family meeting us there. We are only heading there for a week, not much – for a long-planned family visit. We don’t actually have any close relative members living there any longer (my great grandparents migrated to Penang a long long time ago)…and none of us had ever been back, including my grandparents and their siblings. However, as it is pretty much a clan in Malaysia and in China, relations have been maintained throughout the years, with the people from China visiting Malaysia every so often. Some of our second cousins (it is after all, a clan) visits regularly, spending time at the village on business and pleasure.

I really have no idea why it took us this long; China really isn’t all that far from Malaysia. Why did it take over a century before anyone in the family (second and third cousins ignored) headed back to the land of our forefathers? Most of us have been to China, hitting major cities and attractions over the years. I for one had not seen much of China at all, and this will be the first time that I am in China for a whole week. It is only going to be one area, I won’t be heading to the major sites like Shanghai and Beijing and will see nothing of the Great Wall – but I am heading home.

It took the clan (it’s too big to be simply a family) a decade or two to plan this epic trip. In the meantime we have travelled far and wide; and I have been fortunate to discover countries and cultures across continents and the opportunity to live in a few. But in a way I am very glad that it took them so long to plan the trip – and on perfect timing as well. My parents did not actually think I would even consider on going; they were just letting me know that they are going. I insisted on going, because this is most definately a once in a lifetime trip. It took them decades to plan this trip and there will not be another.

Being a lover of history and stories, I for one am extremely excited in visiting the land of my forefathers. Even with the impending dread of spending five full days with a bus-load of relatives, I am excited. I want to see how they live, what they ate, how their lives were.

To add on to my impending doom, the clan have been invited to lunch by the Chinese Government. Uh. Yeah. **gulp** I could really do without that as I am not a big fan for etiquette, pomp and splendour. But I don’t quite know how do you actually say no to the Chinese government. I would much rather spend time exploring and reflecting, but oh well.

We will be spending a few days with the clan sightseeing and visiting attractions around the city. We are only spending a day in the village, with the clan leaving the next day back for Malaysia whilst me and bacon stay for a couple more days. To be honest, we are in desperate need of some relaxing time, so in the last few days we might just be chilling out by the pool and recharge after the massive stress (of my part) in dealing with family members that I have not seen in years (for a good reason mostly). It’ll be exciting for bacon (heh) I’m sure in being surrounded by cackling, loud people chattering in a foreign language. He’s clinging on to the fact that there is a KFC next to our hotel

Wish me luck – and have a great Easter wherever you are in the world my dear faithful readers. And this time, I will be blogging about my adventure to China here – you can bet on it. This is one trip that I want/need to document for posterity . I’ll get bacon to do a blog post review as well on beers and other strange alcoholic beverage consumed for those of you interested

PS: All cooking posts have been moved to eatwithsticks – I am currently running a GIVEAWAY if you can spare 3 minutes to join in the fun!

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For whatever that remained of my usual readers, you would be no doubt be sick of me sticking recipes and food-related items up here. Well, so am I. This had always meant to be a personal blog, and as my intrests grew out of control (do you remember that spate with jewelry, and then soap?) this tiny space had struggled to cope with the alarming variety of posts on various topics. So has my brain, confusing itself between the totally irrelevant segmentations of my life. Well, that will be ending as of today.

I am moving all my food-related postings in the future to a separate space. At the moment this is under construction, but it should be up soon-ish. As for my bento-related craze; it’s still going on after all this time; and you can visit it here. I have restrained from too many cross-postings between my personal blog and that, only on important issues like my bento4Japan cause – which I hope you will consider donating to.

In the past few years I have minimized posts of the personal nature. This is probably due to my increasing posts on my other interests and also some local-interest postings. I no longer felt comfortable blogging about personal rants/issues/whatevers in this space that I had publicised as a hold for recipes and my other mad-cap ideas. In time I hope to be in that space again – and it is with hope that moving a big chunk of my ‘cooking’ off this blog will help. I will still post my travel blogs here, it is after all me on holiday – but other than that I hope for this space to start becoming my own personal punching bag again. With time I will learn to divide my time between the various segments of my life – and in the meantime I hope you bear with me.

***omg it all sounds so dire doesn’t it?***

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But on to happier things

Why do I love September?

September is when the brambles comes out!

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And I get to go out and play! No, seriously, these blackberries get turned into jams that my whole family loves – it is ironic that I don’t like jam myself.

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Also September is when the tomatoes grow!

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Ain’t they pretty?

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This is just one of my harvests – I have more. Gulp.

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Speaking of produce – this is my courgette/zuchinni. No idea how it got so massive; but I love it!

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September is also when I get to go to the beach – this is the lovely Whitby

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And go camping at the Lake District – we camped right in front of the lovely Ullswater this time. I love waking up to a body of water .

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The views are magnificent, don’t you think? Which makes me miss Lake Tahoe & Yosemite even more. It’s all I can think of this past week .

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Which gives way to perfect picnic weather with friends, washed down with lovely Australian white. Ahh.

I’m not going to be heading anywhere until early October, so it’s going to be a couple of weeks rest for me, in which time I really should be catching up with all my backlog of blogs. Even bacon is pestering me to blog – apparently that’s how he remembers what we did .

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As usual, my two weeks away had flown by. This trip was filled with family duties…visited the grandma and other assorted families. But of course, the main reason for the trip was to attend dreymer’s wedding. That deserves a full blog post, so I shall leave it for now .

We also had a grand ole family vacation in Krabi, Thailand, where it proceeded to piss it down all 4 days we were there. I got conned by the ‘rents to stupidly hike up a mountain but got massages all 4 days we were there. Meh. Did’nt do much shopping this time around as the exchange rate was outrageous, which is always annoying. But personal highlights for this trip were my endless trips to 100-yen shops and wolfing down durians endlessly. Nom nom nom…but bacon was most definately not impressed!!

I have so much more to say, but there is only so much I can do with my super mini keyboard here. Will hopefully be back and fully functioning later im the week, so I’ll be back to bore you more with my mindless chatter!?

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Today I turn a decade older. Hmm. Not really a good thing. Or is it?

It just feels that I turned a decade older but age is really just a number. I am very suprisingly am still pretty much wrinkle-free. I don’t feel any different, and I even still wear my favourite army jacket that I bought 10 years ago in the states. So in many ways, nothing much had changed in life. I’m now sat on the bed I had since I was 14, staring at the apple-green walls of my room, decorated by posters that still scream ‘teenager’.

Oh, except I seemed to have acquired a husband along the way, lived in 3 different countries, partied like its 1999 ,collected many friends along the way and can now afford many things I could only dream of when I was a struggling student in 2000. I’ve lived well, made mistakes along the way, but I never ceased learning. I learnt to let go of the things I cannot change, learnt to love myself, learnt to never let go of dreams.

I look back to my 20′s, and in the words of Edif Piaf, je ne regrette rien. Its been a fabulous ride, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I would have been a pleasant suprise to my 20 year old self, no I’m not old and dowdy at 30, and I can now afford many nice things, including the travelling I’ve always dreamt of. And fabulous friends and a husband that loves me (most of the time ). And shockingly, a mortgage well within my means.

So yes, you did ok kid,you did ok. Have a happy birthday, with many more to come.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about my attitute towards food versus my general disposition. Blame it on too much reflection time during my daily commute. I had always refuse to let distance separate me from the food I love. If I can’t get to it, I’ll make it. Self sufficiency and all that…

This attitute is generally true with my personality as well. I refuse to let things get me down or prevent me from doing something, unless it’s a physical impossibility. If I can’t buy it, I’ll make it. Just because I’m miles from home it doesn’t stop me from sourcing what I want. I’m not too sure if this is a good attitute – I spend way too much time firstly imagining, and then coming up with hare-brained ideas of what to do to curb my yearnings.

So last weekend I made bah kwa – a traditional chinese sweetmeat/jerky that I had never known anyone to make at home before. It tasted very alike, and I promptly celebrated that fact by consuming most of it at one go. The weekend before last I made yee sang, a Chinese New Year salad ushering in prosperity and what nots.

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It does not stop with food from my childhood though. After one too many dissapointing ventures into pseudo-burrito bars, chain tex-mex restaurants and even indie mexican restaurants, I have decided that enough is enough. I will NOT settle for sub-standard mexican food any more – for some curious reason the UK’s defination of Mexican cuisine is thoroughly different from what it actually is. For example, I believe that burritos does not come with rice, unless its a San Franciscan Mission-styled burritos. However, ALL the burritos that I’ve had here contain rice – how very peculiar. And not alot of pico de gallo nor cilantro (coriander).

So yes, this weekend is mexican weekend chez moi. I am proud of my ability to not let barriers get in my way of food, and life.

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It’s been way too long since my departure from the land of the brave. I only lived there three years, but it was one of the three most dramatic and memorable years in my life. Part college life, part first time freedom, but I love the good ole US of A. I love the food, I love the cities, I love the climate (well, I DID live in California) and I love the people. Ever so polite with great customer service, many have tried to replicate by have sorely failed.

When I left so many years ago (2002 to be precise) I did not think that it would take me such a long time to return. I always had grand plans of returning to do my MBA, and possibly starting a career there. I was young, I was ideallistic and naive. Now I am not so young but still ideallistic and naive. I did not realise how difficult it was for me to return to the US of A as a tourist, not to mention as a resident. My Malaysian passport would be the major hindering factor. Bureaucratic red tape, low exchange rate and general lack of holidays whilst I was in Malaysia held me back like nails to a coffin.

Well, I’m back now. It might not be for good, but at least I’m back. It might not be home (California was), but it’s close enough.

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aargh

Definately too much work aggro – and a well deserved break away from all this. Even my bento making adventures is going haywire, the FIRST time ever that I’m making a bento for someone other than me & bacon and what happens? I SCREW UP! It still looks pretty good though..

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Maybe its because I made two bentos instead of one – it’s me trying to do too much at one time. But I wanted to give the organisers something to munch on as she had to deliver the bento to the winner due to my bonkers work schedule:

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Alright, enough bento showing off (to see more, go here) – need to go off to sleep to prepare for another day of WAR at work before taking off! niteynites peeps, seeya in two weeks time!

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tetley – a man’s best friend (??- 3rd Feb 2010)

the cat passed away yesterday night. One moment he was there, the next moment he was gasping for air. And then he was no more…We think it was a heart attack, and am as upset as hell. He was the first cat I ever liked (not a cat person) but has hit bacon very hard as he’s been with him for 11 years and is the first pet he had that died on him like that. We both spent a day at work dazed, confused and of no use to anyone….I could hardly eat whilst bacon had just scoffed food down his throat nonstop. We’ve wrapped him up in his favourite fleece and put him in a box (he likes boxes) – and had just buried him next to the cherry tree that he helped planted. More like distract us by sitting in the hole we dug. And then we went out and got fish & chips….his favourite food. As usual, I left some fish for him…but this time he wasn’t there to scoff it up….and it had to go into the bin.

likes: drinking fish-infused water, picking a fight with other cats, sleeping on the bed with us, afternoon naps with me, sleeping in the laundry basket (with clothes in it)wearing my hairband, a good tickling, being cuddled, freedom to go in and out whenever he likes, meowing when you’re on the phone, sitting under umbrellas, going into the toilet with you, following you everywhere you go and his favourite thing ever; come running when he sees you approaching home after a day at work.

fave foods: melon, edamame (soybean pods), ham, tuna, smoked salmon, roast, milk, spicy curry, pepperoni off the pizza, KFC, catfood in jelly, barbequed food, kebab,

hates: travelling by car, confined spaces (he was rescued from a locked garage), collar, snow, loud noises, too much sunshine, not being able to sleep with us, no human company, us being away on holiday, other male cats, alcohol (suprisingly, seeing that he’s named tetley).

I’m so sorry for all the times when I refused to share my KFC with you. Hope you are in KFC heaven. The house is too quiet without you. We will always miss you xxxx

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