First CNY Reunion Dinner with Kok

This is my first year of Chinese New Year reunion dinner with Kok's Family. The food are prepared by my mother in law. I went out for a hair cut and by the time I reached home, it's almost done. What to do, I am in a group of infamous CSP Club :P. I did "try" to help, stood besides and helped out whatever she needed.

This is the first time I don't have steamboat as CNY reunion dinner. The first time I had it without my own family. The first time no food fighting with my sisters. A little quiet, a little unusual to me. Just 5 of us. The food is great but just, I still miss my family.

突然之间

今天收到了一位在远方朋友的一连串 e-mail. 哦，原来她寄来了我结婚照片。 不知不觉都两个月。。。

看了照片，突然之间，非常想念我那一帮疯狂的朋友。 突然之间，发觉我原来已经不可以在槟城过除夕夜。 突然之间，非常伤感。突然之间，我好想好想哭。。。。。。

Melancholy Winter

Winter is so miserable. The cold and gloomy weather make the mood sullen and melancholily. Trees welcome you with their bare branches. The cold reaches your bones and chills throughout your body. This is my first real winter experience. I really wish I can speed up the time and pass through it quickly. I want my sunshine.

一个人的午餐也可以精彩 - 春水堂

认识春水堂是在去年台北旅行. 朋友介绍了珍珠奶茶的鼻祖, 发源地 - 春水堂. 那时喝了春水堂的奶茶, 回味无穷.
上海的春水堂有一间在正大广场, 今天兴起去了春水堂吃午餐, 叫了功夫面 (RMB22/RM11) 和绿茶珍珠奶茶 (RMB20/RM10). 奶茶香味还是那么的香, 那么的滑, 珍珠小小颗, 非常好嚼. 功夫面, 还不错, 好吃, 卤肉汁加卤蛋, 不像其他上海食物那么油腻. 不知道为什么春水堂的顾客都不多, 不过我以后还会回来喝奶茶.

莫干山路50号

一个没有艺术细胞的人跑到一个充满艺术气息的园地. 说真的, 有些看了,是懂又不懂; 有些艺术品的大胆风格, 有点错愕. 艺术真的 very personal, 我想我身上真的没有 sense of arts.

莫干山路50号, 就由这里了解吧, http://www.m50.com.cn/.

无喱头 - II

不对，可是又不是完全错， 懊恼。。。 懊恼。。。

First Hair Cut

I decided to go for a hair cut today because I can't stand my split ends anymore. I surveyed 3 salons in Super Brand Mall and made up my mind in Toni & Guys. As I am not willing to pay for higher price, I ended up with senior hairstylist which also cost me RMB150 (RM75) for wash, cut & blow. I told the stylist I wanted to cut my split ends and when I noticed my hair length, it already reached my shoulder. Aikss......

It was pretty decent and tidy after cut and blow but when I got home and took a bath and wet my hair, the bad hair day starts........ yew yew yew...... Now I am thinking, should I really cut it into BOB..........??!!???

My before and after look.

何谓一餐？

翻炒了周末在外吃剩的XO酱炒饭和芦笋， 加个蛋， 这样就一餐。
想到下个礼拜回家乡，nasi lemak, 云吞面，虾面，卤面，经济炒面，印度 mee goreng, mee jawa .....我来了，我来了！！

无喱头

精神粮食

书是精神上的寄托， 食物是精神上的活力。

两个都一样重要，一起放咯！

p/s：其是是小小的厨房没位子啦！

算了吧，退一步 海阔天空

刚新婚的朋友对我说， 两个人一起生活不简单，尤其离乡背井，朋友不多。
朋友的丈夫在家，娇生惯养，生活起居，衣食住行一手由他母亲包办。 那我朋友何尝不是， 在家十指不沾阳春水。
朋友对我诉苦，丈夫因为对洗碗液，洗衣粉敏感，那就我朋友负责。
早上，早餐要准备，不然丈夫就会草草了事，喝咖啡，吃饼干，维他命也不会自己拿。
早餐，晚餐吃完后，碟子，杯子就将放在桌子，经过一轮 ngam ngam cham cham, 现在丈夫会放在厨房， 不过有时看到茶包还在杯里也不扔, 无名火冒起。。。。
我安慰朋友，算了吧， 放在厨房已经很好。
每次喝完水，杯只会放在桌上；家里衣服，一天比一天多挂在架上，不会放在 laundry bag。 衣服干了，也不会帮忙收。 朋友折好了放在厅，也不会拿进衣橱。
老公对家务一窍不通， 通通由我朋友负责 - 买菜，洗衣，煮饭，做家务，我朋友说做人老婆不容易。
每天晚上等老公回家的滋味，不是很好受。 我安慰朋友，算了吧，工作赚钱不容易。
我对朋友说啊，比上不足，比下有余。你老公周末陪你，都有给家用，也很疼你。
只是，我也可以感觉，我朋友的寂寞，无奈及 frustration。
算了吧，退一步 海阔天空。
不用紧，找到工，就不会胡思乱想。还是自己赚钱，自己花好。

你看到了吗？

今早起来，在客厅从窗外一望， 哦。。。 啊。。。 哇。。。

It's finally HERE

Ohhh my long waiting parcels are here. Due to Chew Chin's visa delayed, our parcels from home only arrived here TODAY after 1 1/2 months. Ohh yeah.. so excited.

Up Left : Can you see the papers they used for wrapping? Aiks.... not environmental friendly.

Up Right : Boxes for my kicthen, mainly food stuff, I will show later :P

Down Left : Can you see my wok and rice cooker? Yupiee, I no longer need to cook with pan and microwave rice (as if I can cook very well) :P

Down Right : Boxes for my room ---> CLOTHES hehe

Take a break

Yesterday I was out for whole day. For lunch, I met up with an ex-colleague. She brought me to a Singapore cuisine at Kerry Centre Shanghai and we ordered the chicken rice - 海南鸡饭. The chicken "rice" tastes like the home cook style back at home. Yummy.... It comes with a bowl of soup and 3 types of sauces - chili, ginger & black soya sauce, my favorite. However, there is a lot of MSG because I felt quite thirsty later on. I saw a lot of people ordered the Bak Kut Teh but my friend told me the BKT is not really nice because they uses black pepper based soup. Hmm hmm.. Singapore food....

After meal, we went for shopping, there are sales everywhere, Esprit 50% off, Zara 50% off. I was so tempted to buy the clothes, bags, shoes etc and finally I couldn't resist ended up with a Zara Bag, ngek ngek. Shhh.... mustn't tell Chew Chin.

Later on, I went to meet Hwai Chuin for dinner. We ate at the food court, Food Republic in Raffles City. We shared a hot pot of beef and mushroom. Somehow I always think cooking oil must be very cheap in Shanghai. Can you see the reflection of the oil in the hotpot?

肉干记 - Bak Kua

This is my second attempt to bake the bak kua. The first trial was failed because I didn't drain access water in the meat properly and resulted I over baked the bak kua in order to make it dry. Thus, I am "boh kam muan" and now this is the second attempt. I referred the recipe at ohbin's blog (http://ohbin.blogspot.com/2008/10/ohbin-bah-kuah.html) and twister's blog (http://twister733.blogspot.com/2009/01/twister_12.html).

Honestly, I still can't get the proper taste this time, I think it's not salty and sweet enough (because I "cho gao gao" reduced one tea spoon of soya sauce). It does smell like bak kua but the taste wise is a bit out. Should I have another third attempt? At this moment, I think I will go straight to 美珍香 and get a packet instead. The process of baking and cleaning is a bit tiring :P.

Book Shopping in Popular

There are two things that definitely worth to buy in China, one is the Chinese book as in Mandarin books, another one is CD, music CD.

The CDs which are selling in big store like Popular, I deemed as original, just they are repackaging here to have Chinese words and translation, it's around RMB30-RMB60 (RM15-RM30), including those western singers. So those who are interested to get, can just let me know and I can check the price for you. I love Shopping!

For books, after the Saturday dinner, Hwai Chuin and I went to the Popular as I wanted to get some books. I bought 5 books with the Popular discount card and I paid around RMB110 (RM55), it's super cheap. Hwai Chuin said, "I have no eye see when u move back to Malaysia one day with all your junk"

Hwai Chuin insisted to take a picture of my aunty book shopping look.

Look at my penguin and bak chang look. Gosh.......

Saturday Outing

I cooked a Saturday brunch, just dried mee (干捞面） with pork ribs and broccoli. This is Chew Chin's portion of cause, don't get it wrong :P.

During dinner, as Chew Chin went for a dinner appointment, I also got my plan with Hwai Chuin. I was too lazy to go over Puxi so Hwai Chuin made the scarify to come over Pudong and we met at Super Brand Mall, ha, it's the mall name - "Super Brand" under Thai's Company. Due to the cold weather, we decided to have steamboat, but the steamboat restaurant's Q was too long, thus we decided to get a Korean steamboat instead. We went to this restaurant called "明洞“ - Bright Hole, hehe. The food is not bad but I still prefer the cold dishes in KL, they don't have the ikan bilis I like. I missed Daorae, sobs sobs. Look at hiao hiao Hwai Chuin.

淘宝乐

刚才冲凉时, 手机响了, 也不知怎样搞的, 通常都在我冲凉时响. 包着毛巾, 冲出去, "喂... " "有快递" "哦, 我在冲凉..." "冲凉啊, 那我放前台." "好, 那我好了下去拿."

哈, 我的淘宝物到了. 前天去了邮政局, 买生平第一次的淘宝充值码, 昨天才买下生平第一次的淘宝物. 哈哈, 不用出门, 购物到我家, 哈哈..... 那我淘了什么宝. 我买两个, 还好啦, RMB19 一个, 加快递 RMB5 (Averagely, RM11 for one). 虽然两个颜色有点不同, 有待改进. 不过 beh hiam beh pai lah :P

什么是淘宝? 淘宝网 是一个中国非常出名的购物网站, 包罗万象, 应有尽有, http://www.taobao.com, 如果你们看上了哪个便宜又大块的东西, 我可代买, 不过, don't pay high expectation on the quality.

我也不想这样

我不是一个写作的材料，
英文没怎么好，华文也有点烂，
很想打一篇满满的华文作文，可是往往找不到我要的字。
汉语拼音通通还了给老师。 呜呼哀哉。。。。

请您包涵，我的文字平凡；
请您包涵，我的错漏百出；
请您包涵，我的不伦不类。

我也不想这样。。。 请多多指教。。。

My usual Junk

Today I went to Yaohan's grocery to have a walk. In fact, grocery shopping is one of my favorite past time. I always like to "ke poh" with things so normally when I shop there, I like to go one row by one row to see their products. They always have vast variety of products from all sorts of countries, I am amazed and sometimes even shock with their pricing, super duper expensive. Next time if got chance, maybe I can curi to take some pictures. By the way, see what I've got myself today - one of my favorite junks when in Malaysia but this is China Made, YAN YAN. Muakakaka. And the one on the right it's my new found babe, it's taste good as well and I bought from Carrefour yesterday. Hehe Oppsss I need to watch my diet already.

永和豆浆

I decided to take a walk today and went to this shop which is one street away from my condo. The shop is famous for their 豆浆 and normally for Shanghai people, they are eating with 油条. So, my lunch today was 豆浆油条 (RMB4 + RMB4). I ordered the sweet based, quite ok not too sweet. The 油条 with a salted soya dip, hmmm weird. The 油条 texture is more chuncy than we have in Malaysia and also longer ;P. It's my first time to try since I am here. There are also other food in the restaurant like porridge, noodles. It's one of the cheap ways to fill your stomach in Shanghai cum try on the local delicacy.

馒头和乌冬记

I was at home the whole day because of running nose. So, I decided to cook myself a breakfast - 馒头 with sambal 虾米 & egg. Really thanks a lot to my mother in law who cooked sambal 虾米 for us. It's a very good 配菜 for porridge, noodle even rice. yummy.... It is also the first time I bought the 蒙牛奶 with 麦香味 and it's actually taste good. I guess a lot of concerns raise for the safety of the milk. However, since it's selling in all the international chain hypermarkets eg Lotus, Carrefour, I think it's safe. Hehe

At night, I fried Udon with sotong & prawn for Chew Chin. I always think that my cooking always smell and look nicer than the actual taste. Luckily I have a so called "sampah tong" husband (except for pumpkin related food), any food which bearable in taste will still end up in his stomach.

芝麻饼 at Carrefour, 大拇指广场

Normally, I don't like to eat alone and will just grab something light to eat. However, today is a bit exceptional as I actually sat down and ordered this 芝麻饼 in the food court of Carrefour. It's taste like our roti canai but just on the salty side. It's actually quite good - less oily and cruncy, but just this one is RMB10 (RM5) instead our roti canai (RM1.20). It's also served with a bowl of "tong sui" which I believe is "bi kor moi" but more waterly and not sweet at all. My lunch partners were the Breadtalk and 香锅。

My weekly grocery

I've reached Shanghai about a month and still no luck to get a job. Thus, I have my temp. job as housewife and my weekly routine is grocery shopping. Today, I decided to go to Carrefour instead my usual place, Wallmart. I've learnt a lot of new Chinese words from the road name here like the Carrefour I went is at 芳甸路 as in fang1 dian4 lu4. I didn't know how to read the dian4 word before this. Hehe, pardon me for my poor Chinese.

Even though I am doing a weekly grocery and only two of us eating, I am still manage to fill up the whole trolley every time. Do I look like professional housewife with the food I bought?
I can't buy more than that because I only have two hands to carry. Normally when I paid, I will be getting 左一包，右一袋 and looks very clumsy. *Luckily I know nobody and nobody knows me here ~phew phew~*
P/S : We have to prepare own recycle bag as the hypermarkets here charge for plastic bags.

Opening Cerenomy of Siewche's Blog

Today is a good day as I found the "LOVE" at 大拇指广场, Shanghai and this "LOVE" is actually quite famous and been placing in a lot of places in the world. Maybe I should start to find all the "LOVE" in this world. This is the second LOVE I've met so far, first one was in Taiwan.

Since it's a good day, I've decided to start my own blog inspired by this "LOVE".