In view of recent major disasters & turmoil around Asia Pacific region, this BLOG shall temporary cease updating till the end of this week.

Will be spending much time reflecting how blessed we are over here while sending daily prayers to those affected, hoping all suffering will be over soon & wishing them a speedy recovery & restoration.

I remember it was in the Nov 2002. After getting out of the airport, we grab a RED HOT BABE!

We drove thru repaired roads which was damaged by landslide caused heavy rain.

and got “pushed” by moo-mooooooos along the way

and have several grueling”uphill race battles” with various automobiles of bigger anatomy.

not forgetting, delightful winding & dusty country roads

before we finally took a longer breather at the foot of the mountain.

having our much sought after caffeine fixes while gazing nonchalantly over peaceful rice fields

We are at the foot o DOI INTHANON, the highest mountain in Thailand. Located at CHIANG MAI Province & standing at 2,565m, its often dubbed “the roof of thailand”. Near the peak of this Doi (mountain), Two Chedi called Napamaytanidol Chedi are built to honor the 60th birthday of the King and Queen in 1987 and 1992 respectively.

Chedi is the word used in South East Asia for stupa. They are buddhist strutures where relics of the Buddha are kept.

Aside from the Chedi, the view from the roof are spectacular as well. Climate here is cool but can gets very chilly because of the wind. Mist/clouds come & go swiftly, creating interesting shadows, shades & tones. Unfortunately, that also means the light condidtions are unpredictable & varied, creating much challenges when I try to photography the scenary. Too bad, that’s all I can manage

Cheers!

April 2006 was a veryvery busy month. I didn’t spent enough time with my electronic pet aka Camera. So, I’m going to pull out one of my archive. Taken in 2002 in (country), (mountain) is the highest peak in (country).

Ha! Don’t expect readers to know the mountain, I won’t even ask you to about the region. However do try to guess which asian country this photo was taken from. Obviously not Singapore! kekeke …

With that, gonna make a short disappearing act again for some relax-relax hours lah! Probably post the answer this coming weekend. Till then, have fun!

Of late, there seems to be terribly lots of doggie post on blogs I frequent. You can find it here, here, here & here! I’m suffering major indigestion from too much *ahem* dog food Fortunately, I have a perfect antidote for this situation, 以毒攻毒. Yes, I’m going to use poison to counter against poison. So there, I got doggie post up as well too hahahaha … *kidding*

Taken in 2004, these are not my doggie, I don’t have any. They belongs to some friendly owners that I met at a park. Really grateful to them for allowing me to photography their cute & fun doggies.

Oh, I think there is a saying that “All dogs goes to heaven”? Do anybody knows why? No? Try writing the alphabets of DOG in reverse order, I’m sure you find the answer there. Cheers!

Left- Sheltie or Shetland Sheepdog; Right - Maltese

Left - Cocker Spaniel; Right - Miniature Schnauzer

p.s: I’m pretty poor when it comes to identifying dog. Do let me know if I got their names mixed up!

There are times when I just don’t feel like eating out because I’m feeling dead tired or perhaps realise there are some leftover in the fridge that you need to finish fast. These are the times I will have something simple at home with whatever available.

Being a lousy & lazy cook, or I wouldn’t even consider myself a cook at all. Home made meals are always quick, simple with no attention paid to the presentation. So what I have tonight then? Sandwiches what else?

Let’s look at the assemble. bread from local bakery (they got discount after 8pm), few pieces of assorted ham, mix of leftover salad greens (Rocket, Radichio, Endive, Red Oak) and a few splash of Balsamic Vinegar (I got at 50% discount) to taste.

Home made means you can have it anyway you want, single deck, doubles, loads of greens or ham. Well, it may not look nice, but it’s certainly delicious for me. Hmm … maybe I’m just hungry?

For fruits, I bought some red jambu (rose apples) to try. While they are not sour, they aren’t very sweet as well. I just need to sweeten things a little here.

Fortunately, I’m spoiled for choice in sugary department. Let’s see, I try the Burnt orange & Cinnamon Sugar tonight.

On it’s own, the red Jambu have a very subtle sweetness and are thirst quenching juicy & crunchy. But I dislike a mild astringent taste that comes from these fruits, probably from the skins. According to ayurvedic medicine, Jambu helps on your simulate the liver, help your bowel & digestive system. Well, that certainly sounds good as after-meals dessert. Don’t like astringent? Try adding sugar, I’m sure you like Jambu once again.

Slurp!

I mentioned earlier that I bought a cute chess set while in NZ Coromandel. Here is a closer look at the moo moo & meh meh chess pieces for those who are interested.

The MOO-MOO (COW) gang
L-R: Pawn, Castle, King, Queen, Bishop, Knight

The MEH -MEH (SHEEP) gang
L-R: Pawn, Castle, King, Queen, Bishop, Knight

Cheers!

It’s weekend and time to slow down on the blogging side while pickup the usual boring weekly to-do-list. Arghh … I’ve got laundry to clear, household work to clean, (junk) mails to sort out and as well as some special delivery to make hehehe … All these “hardwork” naturally created some empty spaces in my tummy when night falls. Besides porridge at chinatown, one of my favourite got to be roti prata, roti john. Simple, quick (hmm well, sometimes it depends on the crowd) indian meals. And oh, it have to operate late into the night as well if not 24hours.

The Cheese Prata Shop @ Clementi Road draws quite number of “night owls” that seems to become active only during the night. Besides, being close to NUS (National University of Singapore), they draws university students to have their regular cuppa & supper here.

Usually, 2 pieces of Roti Prata with Teh Tarik are good enough. However, I seems to be hungry that night and hence added a additional plate of Roti John.

Teh Tarik is Tea (Teh) with condensed Milk, and are pull (Tarik) or toss from container to container and create a foamy Milk Tea drink. The tarik also makes the tea taste much smoother to drink with. I love the tarik so much that I even asked for kopi (Coffee) tarik as well sometimes. Sure, they will look at me with bewidlered eyes, and I usually tell them: “Eh! Why? Kopi cannot tarik meh?” hehehe …

While this is not my “perfect” roti prata (Indian Pancake) kosong (Malay for empty, means without any fillings), it’s good enough to fillup my tummy. I like my freshly made. Sometimes they served you heated up prata that were made before hand.

Hence, usually before ordering, I will walk over to the cooking area to see if there are any roti prata kosong left. If there are, I will order with onions fillings. Yes, they do not pre-made roti-prata with fillings. So this way, I get my roti prata freshly made.

You can choose sugar, meat or vegetarian curries to go along with pratas. There are places that also serves sambal chilli too. Anyway, I’m not into sugar and usually like to have it with vegetarian curries

This is Roti John. I’m not too sure how the western name like John gets in. But this is basically western bread with minced meat omelette in between. You have a choice of chicken or beef here. I like the sweet & sour chilli sauce on the plate. I always asked for more chilli sauce as it’s always never enough for me.

The bread are pan fried on hotplate with the omelette mixture and finally sliced to bite sized making easier to consume. Usually it’s crusty outside & soft inside, but I found fully crispy roti john found at other parts of Singapore. So which is better? I believe merely matter of choice & preferences.

Slurp!!!

It seem like quite a long time since I posted my last foodie post. Gosh! I’m hungry.

During our Dec 2005 holidays @ NZ, after much fun times at Driving Creek Railway @ Coromandel, New Zealand’s only narrow-gauge mountain railway along with a working pottery and wild life sanctuary. We roam around Coromandel for food to fillup our tummies, well actually coffee break. While the rest settled for some cakes & coffee, I’m so happy to stump on something of “bigger scale” at umu restuarant - the Seafood Platter.

A thing about Coromandel town. I’m actually expecting town of Coromandel penisular to be something of bigger scale then the rest. However, I’m actually quite surprised that it turns out to be a really relaxing & idyllic small town.

The Umu Restuarant looks smallish on the outside.

However, it’s actually quite spacious, clean & trendy inside.

I’m fond of good & fresh seafood. So it’s quite natural that I jumped straight to Sea Platter when I sees one on the menu. So that’s the whole seafood platter. Drooling?

Let’s see what’s on the platter. We have crisp pita triangles on the right. Garlicly butter aroma that are so crispy that it readily crumbles in your mouth. Leftside is smooth & delish salmon mousse. The centre salad bowls features some light savoury liquid with raw onions. tomatos, bell peppers and some kind of marinated/grilled white fish. slightly sourish complemented by mildly sweet taste from the fish. Very good!

Here you see the salad, salmon mousse, salsa dips, smoked salmon, raw coromandel oysters.

On the top right, you start to see some smoked mussels showing up. yum yum!

Showing now are grilled oysters & mussels topped with bread crumps. All juicy, fresh & delish. At NZ$22.50, with goregous serving, and eyes of the rest popping & drooling over my platter, it’s certainly made my day! ok, I’m generous lah, at least I shared those pita triangles with them hehehehe …

Oh, did I mentioned I bought a nice coromandel smoked salt at one of the seafood shop. These are coarse coromandel sea salt smoked over tea tree woods (as I was told). At about NZ$6.75, I’m not too sure it’s expensive, but I definitely intrigued by the marvellous smoky wood aroma. Will surely use them on my favourite salads back home.

bon appetit!

Since I was thinking of Japan recently … hence decides to post some quick shots of my trip to Hakone in 2002 before I resume with my New Zealand & Bangkok posts.

Never seen Shinkansen before? Here is the interior of Tokaido Shinkansen Kodama. I was travelling from Tokyo to Odawara (if I remembered correctly )

I was hiking up some peak. It was very popular with the locals. What you see is a very dense growth of some kind of Japanese Bamboos

I learned the hard way. Never ever “trust” the duration on the signboard. 20mins? What 20mins! 1 hour later and I’m still not at the top @#$$%%%% hahaha … perhaps becoz I keep on pausing along way to take photos.

You see the path there? it goes to some plateau, the board says 50mins. hahah, no way I’m trying since it’s already late in the afternoon.

Do you love walking along the edge???

It was pretty late when I got down. So tired that after dinner, I have a quick bath before diving into bed. When morning comes …..

A nice dip in the indoor onsen smoothes all my aches away …..

Hope you enjoyed my Japan,Hakone photos!

… it leaves us a beautiful carpet of golden flower petals

Appreciating the beauty right at our “own backyard”, enjoying life!