Cleopatra

(written from the perspective of a fictional six year old)

I have a cat. Her name is Cleo.

I don't know where she come from. One day, Shawn gor gor bring back this white cat. He call this cat Cleopatra because he says she acts like a queen. Daddy said Cleo cannot come into the house because she is not our cat. But Cleo love our house very much. She likes to come and sleep and lie down on the floor. I like to rub her stomach and Cleo love it too! She will turn here turn there and rub her face on my leg.

Cleo is special. She cannot meow meow much like other cats. She will only meow a lot when we want to give her food. We will usually give her the food we do not eat, like chicken skin and extra rice. Sometimes I only eat little bit so that Cleo will have rice to eat.

Many many months ago, Cleo's stomach start to become bigger. Shawn gor gor says it is because she is pregnant and will have babies! We are so happy to see when Cleo make 2 baby cats. The baby cat is very cute and I hold them in my hands. But we cannot keep them inside so I don't know where Cleo take them.

A few weeks later we see a baby cat following Cleo. I only see 1 baby cat. This baby cat is very shy! I try to touch her but she always run away and hide behind Cleo. At first she only drink milk from Cleo but after a few months she eat together with her mummy. She keep growing bigger and bigger and one day she is not shy with us anymore.

Cleo (white) with her main offspring

Then a few months ago, Cleo's tummy start becoming bigger again. I can see gor gor and daddy are not happy with this. Daddy also stop feeding them because he said they are not our cats. But the cats still come to our house when there is no food. Last Saturday, Cleo give us 3 more baby cats again. Gor gor and daddy decide to phone SPCA to take them away. I was sad because I don't know what will happen to them.

SPCA come in big metal lorry. The uncle ask me to bring the cat to the lorry. Daddy carry Cleo and I carry the 3 baby cats. We put them in a metal box. Cleo was relaxed and didn't fight back. Maybe that is why Shawn think she is a queen and call her Cleopatra. I also catch the other baby cat (now quite a big cat) and put her in another cage. But this cat very angry and try to run away. Lucky the uncle is fast enough to close the door.

Daddy gave some money as donation to SPCA, then the lorry go away.

I wonder how is Cleo doing. =(

When you need to rest, just lay your head down

Hainanese Delights

In my earlier post today I mentioned that I enjoyed my first visit to Hainanese Delights more. Well I went back to my photo archives and found photos of the food we ate then. I don't remember how much we paid so here are just the photos.

Curry Kapitan Chicken

Choon Piah

 

Yam Fish

 

Braised New Zealand Lamb with Ladies Fingers (highly recommended)

Macaroni Pie

Mixed Vegetables

Hainanese Delights & Esplanade Rojak, Penang

As mentioned last week, I left earlier on the last day of the BlogFest.Asia conference because I was tired and wanted to rest before my dinner appointment that night. My appointment was to host a KL blogger (Jino) and his partner, along with The Pooh.

Earlier in the day I gave Jino 3 choices - hawker fare, Nyonya cuisine, or Hainan fusion cuisine. They are all uniquely Penang, and he chose Hainan fusion, so I brought him to Hainanese Delights at Hotel 1926. This was my 2nd visit there - my first was a farewell dinner for Ivan. Though pricier than standard Chinese restaurant, it has a unique style that is fast disappearing. Though to be frank, it has hits and misses, and I enjoyed my 1st visit more.

(There are more comprehensive reviews out there. I am just discussing the dishes we actually ate.)

Chinese tea - RM1/pax, Peanuts - RM1

Jino ordered the tea, which I have forgotten the name to. At any rate, it went well with our dinner.

Asparagus, long beans, and winged beans in sambal - RM12

We asked it to be kept to minimal spiciness and they did. It was perfectly balanced and crunchy. And I just learned that kacang botol is known as winged beans in English.

Steamed rice - RM1.20/bowl

OK, the first snag I hit. I am usually not picky about the quality of my rice, since it merely provides a buffer for the other dishes. But Dad is, and he demands a level of fluffiness and softness that only decent rice and cooking technique will provide. Unfortunately, the rice here barely hit the mark. It's edible, but it definitely didn't make me want to get an extra bowl.

NZ Lamb Stew - RM35

 You need to pre-order this since stews need time to... er, stew. We didn't and were thankful that they still had it. While delicious, let me brutally honest. RM35 for 6 bites of lamb (tender as they are) with potatoes does not actually equate good value. The first time I dined there I ordered the NZ Braised Lamb with Ladies Fingers, which was the same price but wayyyy superior to this. You should go for that instead of the stew. I know I should have.

Chicken Pie - RM28

Inside the chicken pie...

The Chicken Pie never disappoints! It's quite evident that the puff pastry is hand made, and the ingredients go very well together without being overly creamy. Chicken, diced vegetables, potato cubes, and egg all come together to make a delicious star.

The portions were just nice for the 4 of us and the total bill came up to RM93.28 with 5% service charge and 5% govt. tax. Speaking of service charge, the attention we received was exemplary. Our waitress made sure our tea pot was always filled without being too intrusive.

After dinner, we picked up The Pooh's "friend" and headed to Esplanade where we had another Penang classic - Rojak! Another confession - I'm not a big fan of Rojak. While I do not dislike it, I do not eat it unless someone else orders it. Perhaps I'm too cheapskate to pay RM8 for a plate of fruit laced with rojak sauce and crushed peanuts:

Esplanade Rojak - RM8

While eating the Rojak, we played 5 rounds of Monopoly Deal. Now, if you haven't heard of this card game I suggest you try it out soon. It's quick to pick up, quick to play, has layers of strategy, and you look really smart to blur onlookers.

Playing Monopoly Deal - priceless

Unfortunately the sea breeze was not forthcoming that night, and so we called it quits after 5 games. It was also past 11pm and since I was working the next day, I sent our guests back to Tune Hotels and called it a night...

New Zealand

New Zealand is a unique country. My first exposure to it was through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Who could forget the natural splendor on display? A few years later, I was reintroduced to this country via Les Mills, the group exercise franchise that has been equated to the McDonald's of workouts. While Lord of the Rings showed me the beauty of its earth, being a BodyJam instructor showed me the beauty of its people. Relaxed, easy-going, and fun-loving is how I would describe (most) Kiwis! Just view any of Air New Zealand's videos (especially the flight safety ones, or this one) to get an idea of what I mean.

Akaroa (from Simon Tong)

Sheep!

It would be impossible to mention New Zealand without giving a token paragraph to sheep. After all, they could probably kill all of NZ's 4.5 million humans if they banded together (or were zombified).

There are about 40 million sheep and 5 million cows in this nation of 4.5 million people. To get an idea of its isolation, consider that the United Kingdom is only slightly smaller than New Zealand, but has a population of 62 million.

Another place I often see New Zealand is in the ranking of the world's cities. Many consultant companies produce annual lists, and it's no surprise that most of New Zealand's cities frequently make the Top 10. Mercer's Quality of Living survey ranks Auckland #4, The Economist' World's Most Livable Cities put Auckland in the 10th spot, and Monocle magazine's own list shows Auckland in 20th place.

At the same time, it is only the 138th most expensive city to live in for expatriates, according to Mercer. This provides a nice counter balance. (All figures obtained from Wikipedia) Unfortunately, as reported recently, New Zealand has the 3rd highest obesity rate among OECD nations.

Lucky

Humans settle easily into their comfort zones, and love to complain about their current state even though it is much better than ever before.

I was reminded of this during one of our lunches at the BlogFest.Asia conference 2 weekends ago. Borey, the Cambodian remarked something along the lines of, "Malaysians do things opposite from us. In Cambodia we eat a lot of rice with just a bit of the side dishes. Here, you guys eat very little rice with lots of side dishes."

And it struck me - yes, we're lucky. Malaysia is one of the most prosperous countries in South East Asia and this has enabled us to have better food, including the ability to have more side dishes than rice. I believe most of us are oblivious to this fact - I am certainly guilty of taking only very little rice but load up on side dishes.
Other countries may not have that luxury.

Decisions, decisions... (from Penang Foods)

2010 BlogFest.Asia (Day 2)

[continued from Day 1]

I had an eventful Saturday night and arrived home past midnight. Although Sunday's events will also start at 9 I already planned to arrive late. Hey, don't judge. At least I showed up. By the time the event actually began at 9.45am, it was evident that more than half of the local attendees skipped the thing.

Typical Malaysian behaviour when it comes to free things.

As we started late, the schedule kept going out of whack. It didn't help that time management wasn't strict and some speakers tended to ramble endlessly. I spent the whole morning surfing the web on my Nokia C6-00 phone - I'm so thankful it has a real QWERTY keyboard that enabled me to surf easily, even if text was a bit hard to read. Even a panel session represented by a DAP MP and a MCA man didn't pique my interest much as they only skimmed the surface.

The most entertaining part of the morning was the Country Report, where representatives from different Asian countries came up to talk about the state of blogging in their homeland.

Representative from Taiwan

Lunch came, and once again it was at WOU's cafeteria. Dishes consisted of curry fish (very mild), fried chicken and stir-fried cabbage. Simple fare that I will not be criticizing as I do not have a food fetish. In a nice gesture, Duy and Ami (the Viets) gave me a small souvenir from their country. Within South-East Asia, I haven't visited Indonesia, Phillipines, Brunei, Laos, and Vietnam but I'm putting Hanoi at the top of my list since I have some new contacts there!

 

Souvenir from Vietnam



Queueing up for lunch at WOU cafeteria

We had breakout sessions again in the afternoon, but I only went for the first out of three sessions. I enjoyed Tactical Technology Collective's sessions the most because the speaker was very natural and the mood was very informal. I already know many of the things he taught (coming from a technology background and all) but I really respect their efforts to use technology to build up civil society.

Tactical Technology Collective workshop



I was still tired from last night's gathering, and I had another dinner appointment in the evening, so I left at about 3pm to go home. I'm quite sad to have missed the closing ceremony and I didn't even get the chance to say a proper goodbye to my new friends - sorry all!

In conclusion, I think this BlogFest.Asia was quite informative and empowering. Well, it got me to restart this blog, didn't it? There's talk that next year's conference will be in Myanmar (Burma). I'll probably not be going - don't think I'll even be in Asia this time next year!

That concludes my imperfect coverage of this conference - normal blogging topics resume next week.

2010 BlogFest.asia (Day 1)

[continued from Day 0]

The actual conference was held at Wawasan Open University. I really like this place thanks to its large grounds, colonial mansion in front, and the sea directly behind it. The place is well maintained and it really gives me a peaceful, out-of-town feel even though it is merely 5 minutes from the CBD.

I want to study here when I grow up

In my Day 0 coverage I lamented that I didn’t meet anyone new, especially foreign friends. Well, I shouldn’t have worried. As I was queuing up to register my attendance, someone stood behind me who was obviously not a Malaysian.

I immediately offered a handshake and introduced myself. Borey is a Cambodian IT student, and through him I got to know his hotel room mates, all 4 of them (5 of them squeezed into a single hotel room!). From one handshake I got to know Cambodians (Borey, Both), Vietnamese (Ami, Duy), and a local guy too (Lex). I stuck around them for the rest of the event.

Back to the conference…

It was obvious that the schedule was very organic and agile. Sessions could change in the last minute without prior notification. The best I could do was sit back and be herded like cattle through the day because it was impossible to predict if a particular session will change!

The structure for both days was similar – mornings were spent in the lecture theatre while afternoons we are free to attend our choice of 3 breakout sessions. I won't reprint the program which you can view at their website. Here are some photo highlights from Day 1:

Keynote by Prof. Peter Herford

An example of a panel discussion

Day 1's breakout session ended about 5, and since dinner started only at 6.30, I took the chance to go home to catch 40 winks. When I returned, the field in front of WOU has been turned into a garden party (one can fantasize). While food was not as tasty as the night before, Bamboo Catering is one of the better known caterers in Penang and they did a good job of introducing foreigners to cafeteria-quality food.

...

Sarcasm aside, at the very least they had fresh Char Kuey Teow but the queue extended almost 10 minutes for a measely plate and I gave it a miss. The Ais Kacang contained the bare minimum of red bean, sweet corn, and herbal jelly but managed to impress my international friends anyhow. If only I had the chance to bring them to Penang Road's Cendol and Ais Kacang...

Critical review aside, I should be grateful to the state government for sponsoring this dinner and the performance that followed (cultural dance and Chingay demonstration).

Dinner sponsored by Penang State Government on WOU grounds

Queueing up for dinner, catered by Bamboo Catering

Belacan Chicken, Fried Spring Rolls, Shrimp, Chicken Coctail, Vegetables, and Fruit

Chingay performance with WOU in the backdrop

The night continued with the MyBloggerCon awards, which honoured Chinese blogs. Since I can't read and write in Chinese (my conversational skills are elementary at best), I gave it a miss. Also, I had another birthday dinner to attend.... (yes, I had 2 dinners that night!)

[Day 2 continued]