C.O.L.D

it's extremely cold this week. brrrr. the temperature will drop further towards the end of the week. thanked god for the flexibility of working from home. you have been wrapping yourself in thick and warm woolly, keeping yourself warm and comfortable.
one of the beauty of working from home is able to take a nice tea break. today, after a call with your manager, you decided to have a proper tea break. 

 so you set the tray, pick your favorite matcha powder. there is no namagashi to go with the tea as the way it is served in japanese tea ceremony. but you just substitute namagashi with the cny cookies.

you whisked up a cup of japanese green tea. the real high quality matcha that has a very refined bitter taste.

 and then take a moment to sip and bite on the pineapple tarts, kuih bangkit and peanut cookies...  they are all yummy especially interchange the sweetness of the cookies with the bitterness of the matcha...

love the moment, even though it is cold and freezing outside, you count it a blessing to be able to stay indoor and work from home.

but tomorrow will be another day, another story, you have to make a day trip to germany. you are not looking forward in such weather condition, but you will not complain because there's time and season for every activities under the sun. there's time when you work from home, there's time you have to travel. there's a period for really mild winter, and there's time for a week of extreme cold.

::sovereignty::

 just a scripture that touch my heart today.

this is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy one of Israel:

“i am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.

 isaiah 48:17-18

btw, winter is finally here. it's freezing cold with patches of white. let's hope it will be over soon.

cny.cookie.monster

different country has different way of celebrating the spring festival. in your homeland, variety of one bite size cookies are being baked weeks leading to the start of the celebration. when people go chinese new year visiting, they can at the very least expecting to be served by these cookies during the open house along with soft drinks or tea.

you made the top two trays, in reality only three sorts of cookies as part of your very first attempt ever in making festive cookies.

bingka ubi kayu （木薯糕）, tapioca cake made by the host.

assorted cookies all home made by the host. she baked 20 types of cookies in 20 days... another julia child.

and she also made some of these snacks to pamper all the invited guests...

cui kuih （水糕）- literally translate to water cake, steam version, made of flour and top with salted and pickled radish...

pork jerky (猪肉干）, again home made with love...

love letters, not written but crispy waffles with a very strong eggy fragrance.

mini spicy dried shrimp roll, made by another guest.  this is another goodies commonly found during the festive season.

another try of assorted cookies again made by the host.

you so love this savory crispy waffles with a very strong cumin seed taste. you can eat continuously **dangerous**

home made hong kong style egg tarts again by the host.

you feel so blessed by all the yummy delicious chinese new year goodies, not only you got to eat there but also got to bring some home ...

lou.yee.sang.捞.鱼.生

you went to your friend's place at frisland for a chinese new year celebration today.

it's your first time preparing the yee shang （鱼生), even then this is a store bought yee shang kit that you carried all the way back from malaysia during your december home trip.

it has a mixed of sweeten and pickled shredded vegetables, some flour crisps and some spices. all you did was adding a fresh pack of shredded carrot and thinly sliced raw salmon to it. the final touch is pouring the plum sauce to the plate and it is ready to be tossed

 a group photo of all the ladies in the house before the mess toss begin.  these are the bunch of malaysian chinese that didn't get to go home (malaysia) to celebrate the spring festival and so the consolation is to celebrate it here with a group of friends.

 tossing begins, although none of you were really good with shouting auspicious phrases

 but it's the toss that count, the higher the better...

and this is your portion of yee shang, it's sweet, it's tangy, it's crunchy but not your favorite, but it is a festive fun ^^.

more photos will come later...

musical.toilet

last year this day, i arrived at tokyo starting my few months of short term overseas assignment. it's been an exciting and tiring first few days with new things such as musical toilet.  something that drove me nuts whenever i go to the ladies. I hear this flushing sound music a lot in the ladies.  everyone is making 'music' except me.

 
i finally ask my japanese colleague why people playing the noise music when they are making business at the toilet.  the answer doesn't make any sense to me and is totally hilarious.  what a laugh of the day.  for me it is even more embarrass to play the music than let the natural sound takes it place....

craving.ju.hu.char

do you believe the influence of internet or facebook? i was browsing many postings on facebook and most of them are on the yummy delicious food served during chinese new year.  then suddenly i chanced into this dish...

 ju hu char - the entire pronunciation is in hokkien dialect which literally translates to "fried cuttlefish". a baba and  nyonya dish that i suddenly have a craving that i cannot stop. so i drove to the chinese groceries store nearby, found some fresh jicama, dried cuttlefish and the rest of the ingredients i have it at home.

 so i went ahead and cook myself a pot of ju hu char. this is not a dish that i grew up with but i fall in love with this dish during the course of my life in kuala lumpur.  i somehow just love the combination of the taste the fishiness from the dried cuttlefish and the crunchiness from the jicama seem to be a perfect combination.

and i just eat it happily wrapping the ju hu char with lettuce leaf.

as a result, a happy and satisfied me.

restoring.kacangma

today you finally got your laptop back, blank with everything wiped off and a new windows :(. then you spent the entire day in the office to re-install all the software. checking and testing all the connectivity, making sure everything you needed are restored and in good order again.  what a pain! you just been through exactly the same thing when you first reported to work last july, it's been only 6 months and you are going through these boring mundane chores again. anyhow, at least you are in the state of back to production again.

this is one of your hometown dish. kacangma must be cooked  with chicken and sesame oil, with lots of pound fresh ginger and the homegrown herbs that native to sarawak. and the dish has a lot of rice wine added to it. it is a little bitter and a taste to acquire, but it is very good for post menstruation and restoration of womb. and it goes perfectly well with a bowl of rice.  you like to dip it in soy sauce with red chilies, it edifies the taste of kacangma herb further.

as you re-installing software, you notice the latest photo application has now new features of turning photo in to lomo look and among others... you are hooked ^^


there's lots of catch up that you need to do for your work, so keeping this short.

::unexpected::

i am still without a work laptop and as of this morning the tech guy confirmed that he couldn't recover the hard disk so it will be a re-install of windows. we both had an important appointment to attend today at 11am, so it really doesn't matter anymore after all i am already without a work laptop since last thursday.  

our appointment supposed to last for two hours but after 30 min, the assessor who interviewed us decided to call it a day because of some of his answers that stirred up some doubts and she came to conclusion that we are not yet ready for such interview.

with an unexpected early end of the interview and an errand to run, we chanced across this lovely cafe in an unexpected area of rotterdam and decided to take our time to lunch there and reflect on what went wrong with the interview....

it's a lovely cafe with a view of rotter(dam) river... the cafe is light and airy with nice decoration, sitting at the window table is a bliss.

it was quite full when we were there, but it doesn't spoil the ambiance, especially the the atmospheric that come from the hanging chandeliers...

even though the wall is painted in gray color, the chandeliers and the flowers somehow blend in harmoniously giving a very comfy and homely feeling that one would like to linger for more than just a meal or drink...

i had this goat cheese salad which is nicely done with just the right seasoning and fresh greens... somehow the combination of goat cheese, honey and walnut work out the magical taste as usual....

 he had a smoked salmon bagel which is equally fresh and good...

this sort of lunch don't come by easy especially on the week days, but thanks to the computer breakdown that i can take time to enjoy my lunch without guilt and don't have to rush  back to sit behind my laptop. i appreciate such rare moments....

i think all the food and cakes here are home made, even the biscuit that comes with tea and coffee i can tell it's home made because they are not perfect in unison size.

i will definitely come back again, may be for a lovely girlie afternoon high tea with some girlfriends, or just the two of us to enjoy an elaborated breakfast, brunch or weekend lunch.

p/s: today is the 3rd death anniversary of my dearest dad.  he passed away a few days before chinese new year 3 years ago... just a thought to remember him today, time flies...

reunion.dinner.团.圆.饭

this is the first time you had a re-union dinner (团圆饭) for chinese new year's eve.  this dinner probably won't take place last night if it didn't fall on weekend.  it's been awhile since the whole family gather together, so it's a nice idea to eat out to celebrate the occasion with family and some friends from church.

 you started with a portion of suckling pork, very crispy and crackling...

 and a big plate of friend wanton (pangsit) for the kids and adults alike....

 kiddos indulging themselves with the fried wanton.

this is the round table dinner with everybody except your nephew who is taking this photo...

you put on a "chinese-sy" top, a modern reinterpretation of cheongsam/qi pao top by vivienne tam.  actually you have this top for years and since you lost some weights during your sickness, you manage to put this on again. so there is a curse and a blessing in every situation....

not all dishes are chinese new year dish, but the idea is family get together, eating a meal to end the year of rabbit.

you are no longer superstitious neither do you believe in the chinese zodiac, nor the year of dragon. you only cherish the cultural and family values behind the traditions and everything else that tag along with the sub beliefs and superstitious you just ignore them because the scripture says that even you are living in this world but you are not conforming to the standard of this world. you know that point is clear for you because you have chosen to believe in Him and it's Him that's all matter for you.

lunar.new.year.eve.除.夕.夜

chinese spring festival (春節) today is the eve of chinese new year. a festival that you grew up with and celebrated every year until about ten years ago when you moved to the lowland.
this year you baked some chinese new year cookies for the first time. you are a bit nostalgic but not homesick since lowland is your home. making and baking these cookies brought back a lot of childhood memories both sweet and bittersweet ones.

wishing all a very blessed Chinese new year!

hong.kong.skyline

you just realize you hardly write about hong kong. perhaps it's not your favorite holiday destination. hong kong is renowned for its skyscraper skyline. this was taken during your second stopover in hong kong in june. you stayed with your FIL in the new territory and hardly stepped into hong kong island.  that day, you came alone to meet with your old church mate at the IFC and so you finally stepped in to sheungwan area.

===
i lost access to my work laptop since thursday shortly after a software updates. now i am totally lame at work, no laptop, it has sent to the local IT to fix but the problem seems to be greater than simple error message of user unknown. i lost all the credential to login. the message in between the line is i might lost the access to the entire hard disk. great! what a way to end my week and lost everything that i have done in january so far @_@. but for now, let's just celebrate the chinese new year.
===

from.common.to.uncommon.非.常.藝.術.家

 this is an old post that never get posted. you didn't seem to write much about hong kong even though you were there for quite some time in jun.  this is about an exhibition at the hong kong arts museum in tsim sha tsui.  the from common to uncommon has a lot to show case but photography is not allowed inside the museum.  alternatively, you found some of the quotes quite simple but profound.

"objects of art can be of different material. the current artistic trends are very broad and accommodating as long ad it is quality work. it can be of any material and of any means."

"to uncover the more lively side of yourself, just make your life truly your own and be open to the resourcefulness in you."

"dare to experience, be bold to create, be sensitive in observation and always work hard to improve oneself."

by now you probably know the quotes and the photo has no relation. you took those photos because they are the typical hong kong street scenes but recreated inside the museum...