Snow Capped Mountain

I painted this last night. This is not mount Fuji but an impression of the lake district in northern part of Japan - Hokkaido. I read that some mountains will have the snow capped view throughout the year, even in the summer. I am really curious how Hokkaido looks like in the summer. I am looking forward and counting down on my one month adventurous trip in the land of the rising sun. We are going to stay at national parks surrounded by beautiful lakes and mountains. I am looking forward to soak myself in the onsen (hot spring) at the open air and enjoying the beautiful nature.
I hope to see the reflection of the mountain on the lake and doing really nothing but absorb in the beauty that the Lord has created and sampling the Japanese delicacy and fresh local seafood.

TWO are BETTER than ONE

Today I am having dinner by myself. I just realized how much I have taken for granted when Johannes is preparing the dinner for us or when we both prepare our meals together. Ecclesiastes 4: 9 says "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up." I thanked God for reminding me of this truth today and I will cherish more of our time together in the kitchen and over the meal....

Waiting...

On a fine day, after the morning rush hour, but I stood still in the traffic for almost two hours this morning. It was like a forever WAITING....

Photo taken using my mobile phone, view of A4 highway from my car.

Home Made

The Living Word - Psalm 91

This morning when I woke up, my spirit urged me to read Psalm 91. This is the passage that Pastor Victor preached about on Sunday. Usually I don't have enough time for quiet time in the morning, but somehow I woke up 30 min earlier than usual and thus have enough time to read this passage twice. Later in the afternoon, I received not so good news (not bad news) about the outcome of a medical examination.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit has prepared me, I didn’t take the news negatively even the doctor stressed a few times that there is nothing to worry about, as a result of the not so good outcome I have to on medication for the next 3 months starting tomorrow and then re-check again.

3 Surely He shall deliver me from the snare of the fowler, and from the perilous pestilence
4 He shall cover me with His feathers and under His wing I shall take refuge
10 No evil shall befall me, nor shall any plague come near my dwelling
11 For He shall give his angles charge over me


Psalm 118:17 says I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done. Yes, not only I will live but I will live to the FULLEST of His promises for me and testify the work of the LORD.

Have a Good night and sleep tight!

Trying New Recipe

Tonight beside the food my mum-in-law prepared for us, Johannes tried another new Japanese soup recipe.

Seaweed (Nori) Soup
This soup is made of the stock of konbu (kelp) shimmered on low fire, with some Japanese ingredients and toasted Japanese seaweed. The soup is very light and clear but still full of the aroma of konbu and dashi.

Konbu (kelp) side dish

In order not to waste the konbu, I decided to cut them into pieces and marinated with ponzu soy sauce and tossed with black sesame (we ran out of white sesame)

And besides that, we had our mum-in-law Cantonese food such as

Top left: chicken leg

Top right: stuffed tofu and stuff pepper

Bottom Left: soy sauce chicken

Bottom Right: White Asparagus

What did you eat for dinner tonight?

Super Sesame Chicken Donburi

How was your weekend? I haven't feel like rested at all and another new week is coming. Tonight we try out new recipe again. We made 'donburi'. Donburi is a general term for "bowl". However, it also popularly refers to a bowl of cooked rice with some other food served on top of it....

This is a side dish - Daikon iceberg salad with sesame seeds. The acidic taste of the daikon complement the donburi to perfection

Super Sesame Chicken Donburi, made of chicken tight meat with various Japanese ingredient and a lightly sauteed red pepper

Super Sesame Chicken Donburi - closed up view

The don is delicious but shortly after the dinner I started to feel that sore throat is coming my way, perhaps is due to this pan fried chicken and the Malaysian food pluss BBQ yesterday. I hope my throat will be fine...

Have a good week ahead!!

Sizzling BBQ

After the Malaysia Food Fair, I head northbound to Zwolle to my supervisor's place for a BBQ. This is actually a colleagues gathering but outside of work context. Almost three quarters of our team turned up.

We were really late, the BBQ starts at 3pm but the four of us only arrived at around 5:30pm but that in a way actually ease the host for grilling for everybody at the same time. The guys just finished the first round when we sat comfortably on the bunk chair....

The only four female in our team, ME, Tat, Mais and L with different nationalities of Malaysian, Russian, Dutch Chinese, Filipino

This is also the occasion we bid goodbye to L...We were sorry that she has to go but we were confident that there is something better out there for her.... Take care L!!!

The sizzling food on the grill waiting to be pick up, again is rather typically Dutch BBQ, most food are pre-packed and so the taste is not so homely...

Little Tobias with curly hair, boy of my colleague, he is a very cute and sociable boy...

My male colleagues in the team

They are all Dutchmen...

And the kids around us....

A teapot reflection... of us

It was a nice evening. perfect weather for BBQ and catching up... Nonetheless, with this economy crisis ahead of us, we are not sure what lies ahead of us and how long can we stay as a team ...

Malaysian Food Fair

Today is a busy foodie day for me. I went to Malaysia Food Fair at noon time. This is a annual Malaysia Food fair hosts at the compound of Malaysia Embassy in Den Haag. The weather is fine and since the event started only from 12 noon, it was not very busy when I arrived.

Malaysia flag flying high...

Me at the Malaysian Food Fair at Malaysia Embassy, Den Haag

Various stalls...

The different food stalls, from amateur to professional and therefore the quality of the food varies... I had both delicious and some definitely not the taste of Malaysia food ones...

This is what I had for lunch.....

Top left: Roti Jala with chicken curry + chicken rendang and ketumpat

Top right: Nasi brani with chicken (the taste is completely wrong)

Bottom left: satay ayam is the most delicious one, the peanut sauce is definitely the Malaysian style Yummy...

Bottom right: a portion of yam cake, taste alright but a bit flat

My verdict is 2 Ups and 2 Downs

and my desserts....

Then I also ordered some finger food and nyonya kuih

Top left: cucuk udang is quite good, it goes well with sweet chili sauce

Top right: Seri muka has the right taste except it appears to be a bit hard exposing in the air

Bottom left: can't remember what this is called, it has shredded coconut with gula melaka inside and the surface is covered by shredded coconut

Bottom right: also cannot remember the name, is a light and fluffy pandan pancake wrapped with again shredded coconut with gula melaka.

Once in awhile it is good to get acquanted with my fellow Malaysians, although this time people that I spoke with are mainly Indonesians, Dutch and even Japanese. Look's like Malaysian food gone international.....

Friday Evening at Benkei

Tonight we eat out at a Japanese restaurant called Benkei in Den Haag.

The main entrance of Benkei

I actually walk passed here quite often during the day (when the restaurant is closed) and I never thought of it as a restaurant but I thought it is a Japanese art gallery. Only tonight it comes to my realization that this is the restaurant that Johannes mentioned quite regularly.

The interior of Benkei

Almost all the table has a tepanyaki, that basically means the Dutch's idea of Japanese food is still largely associated with tepanyaki. It was not very busy, we were probably the 3rd couple when we walked in. The restaurant is nicely decorated, not too overwhelmed with the Japanese decoration and they played classical piano music instead of Japanese music, which to me is a great relief...

My O-Cha and the appertizer on the house

Marinated egg plant

The marinated egg plant is very tasty, taste of spring/summer, light and refreshing, both of us were thinking hard what sort of ingredients were used in the sauce...

Johannes ordered a la carte from the menu

The tofu cold dish with soup (served lukewarm) is really excellent. He also ordered 2 tuna sushi, some sort of tempura (which is rather dissappointing) and chicken yakitori. The yakitori is not grilled by pan fried, the meat is great especially the crispy chicken skin, but still not as good as what Jahannes could already made at home :)

Clear fish soup

As for me, I ordered a unagi (eel) bento set, it comes with a choice of soup (miso or clear fish soup). I opt for the clear fish soup as we already have miso soup quite regularly at home. The soup is nothing special, a bit salty but the presentation is nice.

My Unagi bento box

Much to my surprise the eel is quite a big portion. I had some green salad, 2 slice of rolled egg and some marinated seaweed as side dishes.

Unagi/eel zoom in

The eel is very tasty as well, but I have tasted a better version else where...

The owner of the restaurant, he was busy cleaning up the tepanyak surface.

Benkei is celebrating the 12 years anniversary on 25th Jun and the tepanyaki menu will be 50% off the price that day. Also in line with the celebration during the one month follows the anniversary, some of the dishes will be on offer for 12 euro only... go there and have true taste of Japanese food...

My Garden Overflows....

Today is a reasonably dry and sunny day, it has been since a while I do some work in the garden, my red roses overflow, so over blossom that one of the branch bending down and needs emergency rescue. It took me awhile to fix it straight up again.

Roses are RED

And over blooming ...



The whole rose tree

Then our white roses also join in the competition

white roses closed-up view

The red orange climb roses also shouting out for attention....

Even the wild daisy flowers and

the ferns are waving their leaves....

Inside the house, the elegant May peony in the vase also come to full bloom. Welcome flowers! My house and garden overflow with flowers.....

It's Friday again, I have a rather mixed week with ups and downs, but thanked God is Friday and looking forward for an action pack Saturday and the weather is promising too...