Negombo, Sri Lanka in pictures

My favourite picture

Negombo is a coastal town about 40km north of Colombo. For the unfamiliar, Negombo is also where the Bandaranaike International Airport (Sri Lanka's main airport and point of entry/ exit) is located. Although it is just a mere 40km away, the unsophisticated road conditions (trunk roads equivalent) makes traveling to Negombo from Colombo city not as near as the distance seems to suggest, taking at least a 45 mins - 1 hour drive depending on traffic.

There are many tourists here, most choose Negombo as an overnight stopover especially if their flights depart early in the morning or arrive late at night. The beach is not impressive (not sure if it's because of the rain earlier) and has a steep shore, not exactly the ultimate beach paradise but does makes a good enough day trip of soaking in sea breeze and sun.

Father's Day BBQ

I think I'm earning a little reputation on being a blogger who's 1) too busy (not lazy ok!) to update her blog and 2) a blogger who has quite a bit of backlogs to clear. So, that explains why I'm only posting on Father's Day when it was errr... 2 months back??



Mom bought a new cooking gadget from her last trip to Dubai- an Open BBQ Grill, very convenient as it's small and portable but runs on electricity, so no it cannot replace the good ol' charcoal pits!

We had pork chops...





Grilled prawns...





... and grilled squid.



*Tadah!* A wholesome homemade BBQ dinner. The grill is easy to use and best bit is you can see the oil dripping away... and it's fun to act like a hotel grill chef sometimes!

Headin' to Malacca tomorrow! And on a mission to NOT eat the usual Malaccan food (ie. chicken rice balls), gonna hunt for new food :-)

Will be back with pictures, cheers!

The Land Below The Wind

If there is anything to describe Kota Kinabalu, it is the beautiful skies in the evening.


Somewhere out there is the famous Mt. Kinabalu...

When I first arrived in KK, which was also my maiden trip to the East Coast, I was surprised at how early the sun rises and how early the sun sets as well. If the normal timing for the sun to rise in the West is (about) 7.30am, in the East, 6am looks exactly like 7.30am. And in the evenings, 6pm looks like it's 8pm. I remember very well that I got a timing shock and thought either the sky was acting funnily or my watch has gone bonkers.



Shots of these beautiful skies were captured one fine evening when I was working in the airport and I didn't really notice that the sun was already setting when Angie called me over and said I should take some pictures as it was very beautiful.



I couldn't quite believe my eyes when I saw the skies from the waiting lounge. The above pictures are in its original colors with a little bit adjustment on the exposure. I have never quite seen a sky in that color! And the plane, the hangar and the runway makes the whole picture oh so apt.



If there's anything I miss about Kota Kinabalu, it would certainly be the clouds and the skies. And perhaps the airport. There is just something that charms me to loving the airports. Perhaps the rush, the mixed emotions of people in the airport, the smiles on people's faces at the arrival hall and the sad farewells at the departure lounge, the dutyfree shopping, people pulling their luggages and trolleys, the uniformed immigration officers, the aeroplanes, flight attendants strutting down the walkway, pilots and their first officers swaggering down the hall, excited tourists... the list is endless.

There is just too much to observe in the airport.





I can be sitting in the holding lounge for hours just looking at aeroplanes landing in and flying out.



While I can't tell when I'll be back to this land of beautiful skies, but one thing's for sure...

I will definitely miss it.

Eat, ate, eaten in Ipoh!

[Continuation post of CNY in Ipoh...]

Ipoh, they say is a factory that manufactures leng luis which I cannot deny (*ahem, shamelessly points self) but more distinctively is a land of good food. I shall not harp on the obvious as it is already a very well known and accepted fact :)

Even Wikipedia says so.



We brought HB to our favourite Kai See Hor Fun (Shredded Chicken Hor Fun) stall which is run and managed by E's music teacher at Lok Wee Kui coffeeshop, just opposite the famous Salted Chicken. I've blogged about this here. Seriously, this is one bowl of kai see hor fun that I will not be sick of. It's just so darn good, I love the added shrimp oil for the extra flavour and colour! It was so good I had a regular bowl on Chor 2 and a big serving on Chor 3 before embarking home...



One of the must have in Ipoh would be the big fat juicy beansprouts, known only to be grown and available in Ipoh due to the natural limestone water. HB isn't a big fan of beansprouts but he gave his 2 thumbs up!



At the same coffeeshop, HB and Z had the Chee Cheong Fun in just sesame oil and a little soy sauce with some fried shallots and preserved green chillis. We have always grown up to love this version of the CCF as it is 1) simple 2) delicious 3) delicious 4) delicious 5) erm, delicious???

The only place where I found this style of CCF served is in Petaling Street, blogged previously here.





At the same coffeeshop again, we ordered some fried wantan, fu pei, meatballs, fishballs and fishcakes. It was nothing worth boasting, maybe because when we eat at Lok Wee Kui, we only go for the kai see hor fun and nothing else. For these 'liu', we'd prefer the ones at Dai Shu Geok. I miss the fried 'liu' so much!



Another famous item on the list is Ipoh White Coffee. We went to the place where Ipoh White Coffee was born, somewhere along Jalan Bukit Timah where all the famous coffeeshops are located- Sin Yuan Loong, Nam Heong and Kong Heng. We went to Nam Heong as Sin Yuan Loong was closed. There were 4 of us but only 3 white coffees and a herbal drink. Guess who didn't have the white coffee despite telling us that Wikipedia said Ipoh White Coffee is famous? ;)



Ipoh Char Kuey Teow to satisfy our CKT cravings!



And a bowl of assorted Yong Tou Foo to have a try on alittle bit of this and alittle bit of that ;) Oooh, note that the fishballs are not in conventional 'ball' size but flattened! Looks abit like those black white pieces in Go (a board game). The YTF taste pretty good, with the fish paste fresh and springy.



Quite miserly, right? An eggtart into 4 quarters. Nah, we were too full to have one ourselves. Tastewise, it's decent but my favourite would still be the ones from Hong Kee @ Cockman Street which is rumoured to have 40+ layers of pastry. Unbeatable. Yum yumm.

Just when we thought it was impossible to get anyone to snap a picture for us (there was an absolutely crazy crowd, packed like sardines, busy waiters... HB assured us that someone will be able to take a picture for us, he can ALWAYS get one.



So, yeah a kind hearted soul snapped a picture of us thanks to the persuasive power of a famous blogger :)

Read HB's take on Nam Heong Coffeeshop, from a Sibu boy point-of-view.

Chinese New Year '09

Red packets lining up

Meant to write on the first 3 days of CNY sooner but laziness got the better of me, as usual :D


Test shot using the tripod

CNY this year was no different from the previous years, the CNY Day 1 tradition prevails:
1) Serving tea,
2) Say some auspicious wishes,
3) Get ang pao, and
4) Mission accomplished!


Here's wishing you...

I wished my Dad in Mandarin this year, putting to use what I've learnt in Mandarin class afew days back. My wish to him was (translated to English because obviously I can't type in Mandarin), "Gong Xi Fa Chai, may you have plenty this year, big prawns and big fish to eat. May the stock market rise up and goes down as you please, everyday you'll have big prawns to eat."

If you translate in to Mandarin, it actually rhymes (though not a very good rhyme but whaddaheck, my Dad doesn't understand anyway! haha).

To my Mom, it was, "May you be healthy, wealthy and lucky!" I love rhymes :D


Obligatory Family Picture

After the neccessary procedures to get our ang pao, we had the obligatory family picture. This time around, it was much easier than engaging a neighbour to snap a photo for us as we have a tripod! And a dSLR! Big smiles :DDD


Dad and I

Later on, we headed back to Ipoh. Our special guest for this year (not that we have one every year) was Huai Bin, better known as sixthseal.com! He was family-less for CNY this year due to some last minute compulsory leave announcement and crazy airfares (even AirAsia couldn't help him), so Eiling invited him to have The Ultimate CNY with The Lim Family.


Q+A+2+A+7 = 21!!

... where he got coaxed to be the banker and had some tough times getting his returns on his investments ;) Nevertheless, I think he had a great time being the God of Prosperity, did you HB?


HB with EZY + Cousins


EZY + HB

But of course, being the gracious hosts that we are, we even brought HB to Mom's old classmates gathering (Read: Get more ang pao) but we were only treated to instant noodles, KFC, free flow of packet drinks and lucky for HB, free flow of Martell. The Martells were opened after what seemed like 30 years, according to the owner.

We left soon after filling our tummies knowing that there won't be any harvest that night :(

It should be made a Universal Rule that married adults hand out ang paos as soon as they detect unmarried children (sorry over 30 years old cannot). Now, who's with me?


sixthseal.com in action!

Well you know what they say, "If you have not try Ipoh food, then you have not been to Ipoh!" We brought this Sibu boy around town to savour the best of Ipoh food- Char Kuey Teow, Beansprouts, Kai See Hor Fun, White Coffee, Chee Cheong Fun... and even Chinese Restaurant Food! Another post on that later ;)


Best girlfriend, Yi Fang & I

On the 2nd day, the whole entourage tagged along to Yi Fang's place which is well known to be THE Place to hang out or have friends gathering/reunion because of the lush and spacious compound for a bunch of twenty-somethings to fool around. Cliche I know, everyone has grown up. The number of people turning up for such reunions decrease every year (according to statistics) due to the many of them being abroad and such.


Happy birthday to me... again!

To compensate for my sad birthday last year, Yi Fang made it all up for me by buying quite a few boxes (note the red boxes in a plastic bag behind us) of cakes and had me blow the candles like I turned 21 on that day. *sniff sniff* Thanks woman!


Ipoh friends, sisters, and a famous blogger

Before we bade farewell and what seem like forever before we see each other again, we had to take a group picture!! Well it's not always an everyday affair you get the best of 3 worlds together in a picture, eh?

We had initially planned to stay for a night in Ipoh but ended up extending our stay to 2 nights as some relatives had come down from JB. To end the trip on a sweet note for HB, we brought him to the famous Funny Mountain for some super good Tau Foo Fah.



Click here for HB's side of the story:
CNY in Ipoh
Ang pow collection for CNY