My friend and I went to a Japanese restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. My lunch was Chirashizushi set. Chirashizushi is raw seafood on top of rice. The set included Chawanmushi (the egg custard on the bottom right), miso soup (not shown), vegetables (not shown) and fruits (top right). Yes, it was a big meal! Yummylicious.
I hope everyone is well. I have been a bit busy lately, so I am going to take a short break. I hope to be back soon.
It feels like ages since I last posted. The truth is that life got a little busy in my world.
Anyway, here are a few more photos from Malaysia.
Do you know the fruits shown on the right? They are langsat, (on the left) and maggis (on the right; mangoesteen in English).
Both fruits are widely available in Malaysia. My sister-in-law came home with a bag full of these exotic fruits which I haven’t tasted in over 10 years. It sure was a treat. The skin of both fruits are discarded. The small langsat (make a circle with your index finger and thumb – that’s about the size of the fruit) is easily eaten as the skin is soft and can be peeled away like banana skin. The skin of the manggis is harder. Place it between both hands and gently press your palms together. The pressure will pop the fruit. The skin has a reddish stain so I am careful to keep it away from my clothes.
Chocolates
My friend just arrived home from Hokkaido, Japan and she gave me this beautiful box of chocolates. Don’t you just love the packaging and colours?
There were many flavours such as passionfruit, berries, chocolate (of course!), green tea, etc. You’d notice that two pieces have gotten a little bit misshapened – the hot weather in Malaysia made the pieces soft, and when I tried to pick them up…
Hope you are having a great new year so far.
Mom, Sis and I went to Central Market in Kuala Lumpur. It is a cultural shopping centre, which in the old days was a wet market selling meat and vegetables.
Today, the shopping centre offers visitors a lot of unique Malaysian made goods, and a pleasant place to walk around.
I am not keen on going to a modern shopping centre for brands that can be found all over the world (such as Gap, Esprit, etc.) At this place, my sister bought a lovely blouse, and I bought a shirt and a scarf – all made locally.
Indoors (the blue building on the left of the 2nd last photo is the Central Market) is lovely and pleasant, but there are also more stalls/shops outdoors. It’s quite hot and humid outdoors, but I enjoyed walking around and admiring the architecture of the old buildings seen in the photos.
I have been a bit busy catching up with family and friends, and haven’t been drawing or painting. So, for Paint Party Friday, here are pieces I completed in Tai O Fishing Village in Hong Kong mid last year.
A skinny 4 storey house. The top (green section) of this house was used as a laundry room.
I wonder if this was a house. It resembled a surf rescue station. It was low tide, so there was no water below the house/building.
A beautiful old house which I think can be restored into a very lovely place.
Now to a totally unrelated topic…
Chinese New Year is celebrated in Malaysia in late January. My Mom and Sis-In-Law were busy in the kitchen making arrowroot chips, which is a popular snack made for the festival.
I help a little, but I was also taking photographs. Here is the finished product (above) which is crunchy and stores very well in airtight containers. If you are curious about how it is made, keep scrolling down. It is quite easy.
The arrowroot bulbs were washed and their skin peeled.
When using a slicer like the one above, leave the arrowroot stalks intact to be used as a handle while slicing.
Without adding any flavour, the slices were then deep fried in oil (I guess you can add some flavour if you like, but in this case, none was used).
All done.
I went to the outdoor morning market with my Mom and her friend. My Mom has been shopping here for years. This vegetable stall owner allows Mom and her friend to deposit their purchases here, until it’s time to leave. The man would even help take their bags of food to the car. Fabulous service, don’t you think?! In case you are wondering, he doesn’t do that for everyone. Mom is a loyal and special customer.
These are popular Chinese snack that have been around for many years. Fried dough – they are crispy on the outside and soft inside. The long ones on the left (Yau Char Kwai in Chinese. In Australia, these are referred to as “Chinese doughnuts”) are lovely when dunked in local coffee. It is also commonly eaten with Chinese congee.
There are a few varieties of round ones on the right (Ham Chim Pang)– sweetened dough with seeds on top, sometimes containing sweet fillings made of beans or rice, etc.
Char Kueh Teow is a favourite street food. It is made with thin flat rice noodles fried with bean sprouts, prawns and Chinese sausage (which is the red piece on the top). The sauce to flavour this dish is a concoction of a few ingredients including light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, salt and oyster sauce. The green leaf that the food is placed on is banana leaf, which in this case is just an aesthetic feature.
Malaysian desserts tend to use a lot of shaved ice, which I love since the weather is always hot and humid. This dessert has many varieties of local fruits and sweet potato, served in freshly squeezed coconut milk.
My late Grandma made this basket. She came to visit us over 20 years ago, and asked my Mom to buy some wire for her to make a basket. With pliers, she twisted and turned the wire, added her magic and out came this basket. Mom said Grandma taught herself to make this. Pretty clever huh!
It was for eggs, but today, Mom is using it for clothes pegs.
My brother took me to a special place for lunch while I was in Malaysia. Klang is a town, and Bak Kut Teh is the dish.
Bak Kut Teh comprises pork plus all parts of the pig cooked in a herbal broth. There is a bowl of tofu, and a bowl of boiled eggs cut in halves in the photo. Bak Kut Teh is served with steamed rice.
Here’s a better look of the stall. The big pot on the right has all parts of the pig, and I think there’s intestine in the smaller pot … LOL, I can almost hear some of you cringe!
Business was good that day. When we arrived, they had to replace one of the big pots, and before we left, it was sold out.
They was a basket of tea leaves on the table. It was DIY – select your own tea, and make it yourself.
Here’s boiling water for the tea.
My brother made the tea. My niece was getting bored I think.
Part of our meal. We had pork meat (top), pork stomach (right), eggs and tofu with steamed rice, plus lots of broth. DELICIOUS.
Not the typical tourist haunt, but this post is for Scenic Sunday!
Taken in a Japanese restaurant while I was in Malaysia recently. 2 mirrored walls facing each other…
Mirrors covering escalators… taken in QVB in Sydney.
Visit James at Weekend Reflections for more.
Zooming in to a Malaysian kueh – a sweet snack made of sago and covered with freshly grated coconut. Further back are a few different kuehs. The term kueh is what locals use to refer to Malaysian snacks.
I first saw the abacus used by Chinese traders when I was young. Then I saw less of them and more electronic calculators. But today, kids in Malaysia are attending Mathematics classes outside of the school curriculum, and using this tool in these classes.
Here’s a wiki page on abacus – it dates back a long long long time ago.
My brother’s dog, Ollie. So close that I can almost feel it’s breath. Yuck – I don’t like dog’s breath!
After the last photo, let’s have something more refreshing. Zooming in to papaya leaves.
Happy Macro Monday.
Embarrassing fact but…I’ve never noticed the sun rising nor setting in Malaysia until I took this photo… Maybe I never got up early enough, and I never left work until it got dark (I worked in Kuala Lumpur for 12 years). Or maybe, I just didn’t stop to smell the roses… This was taken slightly after 7 am a few days ago, when I went to the market with my Mom.
Visit Skywatch on Friday for more photos of the sky…
These chickens will end up in a dish on a dinner table… awful thought, now that I’ve come face to face with them. 
Or they may end up like this… roast meat. I think this lady is selling roast duck.
A stall offering dried seafood.
The umbrellas close to one another formed a canopy… not good for photography especially for someone who doesn’t like to use the flash… Anyway, a lady waited for her purchase at a food stall, and fruit sellers got busy as more customers started to arrive.
This must be Mom’s favourite stall. When she arrived, she left her basket with them, and came back over and over again to drop off various purchases. When it was time to leave, I was surprised how much she had purchased and accumulated here. No problem though; one of the men collected and arranged them on a trolley. Then he took the trolley to the car and even unloaded the goodies into the car boot. Now that is good service!
I love the colours!
Meat hung like laundry! A smiley butcher…
Selling poultry. Another smiley butcher… I love the atmosphere here. Lots of greetings, well wishes and jokes everywhere we walked. Guess they all know my Mom, coz she’s been coming here for 30 years! They didn’t even mind that I poked around with my camera.
This post is getting too long, so I will continue in another post. Hope you are having a nice week.
Not the typical scene for a tourist, but I will add this to Scenic Sunday.
I can’t decide if I like this picture or not. It’s not crisp… but I like the colours.
The bigger picture - I love the huge leaves floating on the surface of the water… Seems peaceful but there is busy freeway just behind those the plants at the top of the photo. Its’ wall is reflected on the water. These photos were taken just outside the city of Kuala Lumpur.
Here are some heart shaped leaves for Valentine’s Day. Hope you all had a nice Valentine’s Day. This photo was taken in Hainan Island, China.
It is hot in Malaysia… 34°C in the afternoons (about 93 °F), with loads of humidity. It is usually very uncomfortable outdoors.
I went to a department store. Department stores are one of the favourite places to go because of heat outdoors. It gets crowded but it’s cool inside. Looking up, I noticed an interesting roof structure below the blue sky. There is a bridge up there too…
When I got home, I opened up Photoshop…
There is a big Indian community in Malaysia.
I was in an area with many Indian shops and I had a really fun time taking these photos.
This shop sells all sorts of nic nacs.
Beautiful and colourful garlands.
More colours…
