The Red Kebaya

Went to watch Red Kebaya with parents yesterday at Gurney Plaza.

Definitely not a movie that Ping would pay to watch in the cinema. However, Ping wanted to watch something M'sian or Chinese, which is why we ended going for that movie. Another reason was because the movie has scenes in Penang but disappointingly, there were not many scenes. Most of the show were situated in a house that we don't know if it exist and Cheong Fatt Tze mansion, which Ping has been in before.

Anyone gone up to the 1st station of Penang Hill? Ping wonders if the house in the movie is real. Is there really a house there? Passing the 1st station countless times, it didn't seem like a place that is easily accessible. Now Ping is curious and wants to go there but parents are not keen into exploring places like that. Chai chai lah, Penang u chin chia che ko su...especially areas like that.

homecook food

Homecook food! There's no food better than homecook food. The best cook is Gee Kim but mum's food is way better than any food Ping have eaten for a long long time. The vege is "or kui tau" , which literally means "black ghost bean" but it is actually French bean. Mum stir-fry it with "hae bee" (dried prawns) and a bit of sambal. The soup is lotus root soup with chicken bones - leng ngau t'ng. In the States, chicken bones are only available at the Oriental market or if you were to buy whole chicken. Here, we commonly use chicken bone to make the soup tasty as we don't like to eat the chicken meat after using it to boil the soup. Lotus root are not always available at Oriental Market. In fact, Ping has only made this soup once in the States.

The black dish on the left is "or bak" - blackened pork. That's one of Ping's favorite. It is lean pork meat marinated with dark soya sauce and stir fry with pepper and light soya sauce. Mum used to make them when Ping was in high school. She would freeze them and when Ping comes back from school, heat them up with a microwave and have that with rice. Yum yum! The shelled dish on the bottom right is "la la". That's another popular seafood but it seems to be rare these days - extinction??? When Ping was a little Ping, we could just go to the beach with a little basket, sit down at the area where the water comes up to the sand and sieve out the water. We used to be able to collect enough for the entire family of 15. That was a long long time ago...

What could be a better meal than this?
Oh yeah...mum even made us snack! This snack is a Beijing local delicacy. Dad introduced it to us while he was in Beijing. The preparation takes forever as the potato has to be sliced to very thin strips. Can't remember what exactly it is called..something "tu dou xi" (potato strips). The potato strips are dipped into hot oil along with dried chillis until the color turns golden brown. Unlike the long preparation time, eating it is really simple. *grins*.

marketing

Wet market - that's one of the many things that Ping have yet to see at the many places Ping have visited in the States (excluding Chinatowns). The closest one to us is the Tanjung Bungah market. There's another small one just at the end of the road from our house but those are smaller stalls and have lesser choices. So parents usually go to the Tanjung Bungah market unless they just want to buy one or two things.

To get fresh stuff, one would have to be at the market really early, best before 9am. On Ping's second day back home, mum woke Ping up at 7.30am (7.30am!!!! Ping is on holiday!!!...hehe..but Ping was excited so it was pretty easy to wake up). At the market, there is also a section of hawker stalls where we had our breakfast before going over to the market. One of the best food there is their "kari mee" (curry noodles, which are available at Ria in Lansing but it sure is nothing close to this one).

Ping is not a big fan of mee so Ping usually get a combination of bihun (thin rice noodle) and mee (yellow noodle). The soup for kari mee is made of chilli, coconut milk, and ground up spices. The stuff that comes with it are usually tau pok (beancurd), tiny prawns, and po ho (mint). The one that we have here also comes with sotong boi (cuttlefish's tail). Yum yum! Most spicy soup dishes also comes with a spoonful of chilli (no idea why) but Ping usually give it to ahmah.

Wet market is actually pretty gross if one has already been to the Western countries. Ping is sure most of Ping's friends at the States would feel gross seeing this pictures too as the Western countries have cleanliness as a very important aspect of their culture. However, growing up with even worse environment (ie. the Bayan Baru market), this is a pretty organized and clean market. Growing up eating food bought from wet market rather than supermarket, we know that no problem is encountered unless a virus had infected the farm where the food come from. But if Ping was brought up in a Western country, Ping would probably not step into the market.

The picture on the left is the seafood section. There's where we get the catch of the day - ranging from fish to cuttlefish, prawns, and sometimes, if we're lucky, lala (a type of soft-shelled mussel)! The one on the right is the fruits section. Look at the variety of fruits!!! Ping bought xie liu (na shi hwa yi, fu qian hua jiao shen me ne?), which is very expensive in the States as they are important from Korea or China.

As M'sia is a Muslim country, we have to respect the Muslim's choice to not eat pork. So pork are usually sold in a separate section. It is away from all other food so that they don't have to pass by the stalls.

The best thing is, the prices at wet market are bargainable...to some extent. Ping is not good at bargaining so mum and dad does most of it. Ping only stood back and carry them. Hehe..

Pan Mee

Just before we catch the bus at Puduraya to come back to Penang, Ping had "Pan Mee" at Petaling Street - Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur.

Pan Mee is one of the dish that is specific to KL. There are a few stalls in Penang but they are not as good as the ones in KL. It is a type of rice noodle soup dish. The soup is a type of chicken stock soup or ikan bilis stock soup. It is also served with vegetables, usually "mani chai" but the one Ping had has a different type of vege. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

Dinner with Tua Ee and Tua Tiau

Ping was at KL a couple of days back. Went down just to apply for Ping's US Visa. Yeap, it's been 5 years since Ping first step onto the land of opportunity. It's also been 5 years since Ping walked the street of KL, knowing where to find stuff and where's the best place to eat.

This trip is Ping's first trip back to KL since a long long time. The last time Ping was at KL, it was late night and Ping only went to Zouk with Edmund. Didn't get a chance to look around. This time Ping, mum and dad was out since 7am in the morning to beat the long queue at the US Embassy. Even then, Ping had to be in line for about 10 minutes. Thankfully, the application process took less than an hour.

Once the application was done, we roam around KL, going from Lot 10 to Bukit Bintang Plaza, walking to Low Yat Plaza, crossing the street to Berjaya Times Square. Most of the places still looks the same except that the 'hip' stuff are much different, which doesn't seem to suit Ping. Therefore, instead of shop till Ping is broke, Ping end up window shopping as Ping did not see anything that caught her attention. This is Ping's first time to Berjaya too - there's a Borders there!
Later that night, Ping get to meet Tua Ee, Tua Tiau and ML for dinner at a Chinese restaurant at SS15. SS15 is pretty much the same as before, cars everywhere, but the road to SS15 is totally different. Definitely not somewhere Ping can drive around.

We had kangkung belachan, tippan taufu, ang hu char chai por, thai chicken, and claypot hu piou. The kangkung belachan is really 'phang'. Ping tried to cook the same thing using spinach but belachan and spinach just doesn't seem to match very well. The ang hu is very fresh and it is also unique since people don't usually use chai por to char hu. Best of all, where can we get such fresh ang hu in Michigan??? Definitely gotta eat lots of fish while Ping is back. Even if they do have this fish in Michigan, by the time it is sold to us consumers, all Ping can get is the fillet. The tail and head would be gone.

first meal in Penang

Ping arrived Penang International Airport at 9.30am this morning. Was really excited to be back and it felt good just being back although the weather is really hot and humid!! Mum and dad came to pick Ping up and we went for breakfast. It was a small kopitiam close to the airport. Ping had roti bakar with half boiled egg! A simply dish - a typical Penang style breakfast for some, but Ping had not made it for a long time. A reminder that sometimes the simplest thing can be more satisfying than anything more complicated.

Time for bed....it's still early but Ping is kinda tired from lugging around the luggage and barely slept this morning.

the flight home

Ping is currently at Changi Airport, Singapore. Guess what...this is Ping's FIRST time in Singapore or Singapore airport. Yeap..it's just right below M'sia and yet Ping have yet to step foot in until today. As of today, Changi Airport is Ping's favorite airport. There's tons of stuff to do and lots of comfortable chair AND free internet connection! They even have kiosk with webcams!!! Wow wee!! Isn't that awesome??? There's also lots of food places that are still open and there's so much choices that Ping probably would have a hard time making a decision if she was going to get something to eat.

The 11 hours long flight from LA to Tokyo was great. Ping had three chairs all to herself so she could lie down straight. The movie choices were awesome too! Ping watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The Cars (which is soooooooo cute!!), The Break Up. Besides that, all Ping did was sleep and eat. The first meal they served was some steamed fish that came with spiced yellow rice. Ping liked the fish but not the yellow rice, which was okay because they gave us a cup of Haagen-Dazs chocolate ice-cream for dessert (yum yum!).

They also served snacks in between but Ping wasn't up to eating so much food while sitting down for 11 hours so Ping packed some and skipped some. Dinner was chicken pasta which was really good! It also came with blackforest cake but there was too much icing on it so Ping just ate half of it.






After the 11 hours flight, the plane stopped at Tokyo for 1 hour, which Ping greatfully took as an opportunity to stretch and walk around instead of more sitting.

The flight from Tokyo to S'pore was about 7 hours. It was a fully plane so Ping didn't get to stretch out as much but it was fine. Unfortunately, the guy sitting next to Ping ordered cups after cups of wine which kinda make Ping uncomfortable initially - was feeling queasy from the odor of the wine. Ping started chewing gum and felt better once he stopped and went to sleep. Ping barely sleep on this flight which was bad because it's suppose to be at night in M'sia. Ping ended up watching The Lake House and The Devil Wears Prada. As we were approaching S'pore, Ping also caught part of House until the air-stewardess came to collect the headphones away.

Alright, Ping should go catch some sleep as it's currently 2.48 am here. Definitely don't wanna be jet lagging later today.

leaving Michigan

Due to the last minute decision, Ping could not get tickets at reasonable price that leaves from Lansing. So Ping flew out from Detroit instead. Since Detroit is an hour plus away, Ping had to rent a car and drive to Detroit. Ping didn't feel comfortable leaving her car in the airport for 3 weeks. Steph dropped Ping off at Capitol City airport where Ping rented a car from Hertz – Hyundai Elantra. It is a really nice car as the stearing is small and the seat can be heightened but it doesn’t feel as stable as Ping’s Honda on the freeway. It was raining as Ping approaches Detroit, which made Ping more nervous as Ping felt like the car was swaying. But Ping arrived Detroit airport safely and in time to catch Ping’s flight to Phoenix. The flight from Detroit to Phoenix was bad for Ping. It wasn’t due to the weather but Ping could not sleep and was uncomfortable all the way. Furthermore, there were two girls who were chattering about their horoscope and were laughing so loud that everytime Ping dove off, their laughter woke Ping up. But eventually they were hushed by some other passengers nearby. They also showed “You, Me and Dupree“ but Ping did not buy the headphones so could not listen to it. Guessing from the actions and reading their lips, it seems like a nice movie. Ping thinks that Matt Dillon mumbles when he talks because Ping could not guess a single thing that comes out from his mouth. It always looks like he mumbles rather talk.

The wait at Phoenix is only an hour. The first thing Ping saw when arriving at Phoenix airport is California Pizza Kitchen. Ping was tempted to get it but Ping wanted to look for the boarding gate first. When Ping found the gate, the pizza place was too far and Ping was too tired to walk back. Ping typed this up while Ping was in LAX. They had online connection but you have to pay for it so this is a delayed post. The layover at LAX is definitely not comfortable because of the metal chairs. The comfortable chairs are only found after you pass the security check-point but they wouldn't allow Ping to enter 4 hours before the boarding time. Ping can already foresee her whole body aching tomorrow morning. This is the third time Ping transits at LAX and the lights of the city as we approach the airport still amaze Ping. It’s like the entire city is still awake at this wee hours in the morning, which Ping suspect is true although Ping have never stayed around at night in this city.

Besides the uncomfortable seat, it was freezing cold. These two combinations meant that Ping barely sleep all night. Could only doze off every 30 minutes. Closer to dawn, Ping got a cup of hot chocolate from Euro Coffee and it definitely did a good job at heating Ping up.

heading home....

Yeeehah! Ping will be leaving Michigan for Penang this evening. Till then...Ping will not be posting until Ping is safely home in Batu Ferringhi.

See you all home!!

kuaci

Remember the pumpkin that Ping and friends had carved for Halloween? That wasn't the end of the story to the guts. We removed the pumpkin seeds from the goeey stuff. Then spread it out on a pan that was sprayed with cooking oil, sprinkled some salt on it and bake them. That was the first time Ping learned how to prepare "kuaci". All this while, Ping thought that kuaci is directly removed from the fruit without having to be cooked.

Interestingly, Ping's friends don't remove the 'khak' when eating the kuaci. They eat the entire thing! So why don't we do that? That's easier than having to pek khak and then later have to deal with all the khak falling all over the place right? Or maybe the kuaci that we eat during Chinese New Year is the raw kuaci which is why we can't eat the khak? Hmmm...

This white one is one of Ping's favorite type of kuaci. The other type is the thin and softer shelled one - from sunflower. It's easier to pek but the 'ci' is very small compared to the less one. Chiak liow bo poi.

During CNY, some people like to serve the red and black ones. Until today, Ping never learned to pek those types of kuaci. It's very hard and for some reason, they just don't crack at the right place. Ping usually end up frustrated rather than enjoy eating it. Since Ping haven't been back for CNY the past 5 years, Ping didn't have any photos of kuaci that are commonly served during CNY but here's a site with a picture of the red kuaci.

Ping passed!!!

All the fear of having to use the unforbidden "I don't know", the waking up in the middle of the night thinking Ping is late for her prelim, the frequent wondering of how can Ping convey her understanding and knowledge to her committee members...it's over! Ping finally did her prelim on Friday, Nov. 10th, definitely an auspicious day now *grins*.

The best feeling was the relief that comes with the announcement "Congratulations, you passed". It was a simple sentence, nothing official but it's the best news for the past few months! All the while, during the writing period, the hardest for Ping was not to just go to the bench and do an experiment when Ping thought of something...there's always another experiment that needs to be done. Now Ping can concentrate on bench work again!!

Just after Ping got out from the closed-questioning session, the lab had bought Ping champagne and Ping had her name go into the history of Schmidt lab!!
It is a lab tradition that whenever someone passed their prelim or graduate, we would pop open a bottle of champagne and let the cork hit the ceiling tile. And Ping's name is now on the ceiling too!!

Halloween Day

This is almost a week old news now. But Ping just feel guilty whenever Ping try to blog or even think about stuff not related to research. With that said, Ping actually celebrated Halloween Day this year! It would have been a lot better if Ping didn't have her prelim coming up in a week but it was still a great Halloween Day. In fact, it's the 2nd time Ping actually do something fun on Halloween. The first time was at Western. It was held at Ellsworth Hall. Ping tried to look for pictures, which Ping thought we did take some but Ping couldn't find any. Maybe it was taken with someone elses camera.

This year, Ping was invited to celebrate Halloween with Steph, Jen and Kristi at Steph's place. It was definitely a unique Halloween because Ping get to carve pumpkins!! Last year, Nok, Ben and Ping went shopping for pumpkin at a pumpkin patch somewhere in Williamston on our way back from temple. But this year, Jen brought us to a shop not too far from Trappers to get the pumpkin. They have a pumpkin patch too but the pumpkins were already picked from the patch. We just have to choose the pumpkins we want - it has to be hard, especially at the bottom of the pumpkin. We drove back to Trappers with the pumpkin in the trunk, which was scary because you can hear the pumpkin bump around. But we arrived back at Steph's place with intact pumpkins!
Before anything is to be done with the pumpkin, we have to rinse it off to get rid of all the dirt. It is definitely the largest fruit (it's fruit right?) Ping had ever seen..definitely bigger than durian. Eh..wait..maybe nangka or chempedak is even larger? Hmm...can't exactly picture how big is chempedak now since Ping rarely gets to see the fruit. Just eat the chempedak goreng.

Once it is clean on the outside, the guts have to be removed. Initially, Ping thought we would be doing all this on the kitchen floor because it would be very messy but the way we did it, it wasn't too bad at all. Ping also thought that we would be saving the guts for pumpkin pie or whatever people do with pumpkin but apparently this type of pumpkin is not used for cooking. Are there any Hokkien recipes with pumpkin? Don't know any at all..and there's no pumpkin in M'sia either right? In the first place, is there a hokkien word for pumpkin? *bleh* The one pumpkin dish that Ping loves is "nangua chao yadan/xiandan" (pumpkin with salted egg). Dad introduced it to Ping when Ping went to Beijing. Ever since that first dish, everytime we get local Beijing food, that's one of the dish Ping would order. Here's a pic from Xi Hai Yu Sheng restaurant at Hou Hai, Beijing. Am sure you know which one is the pumpkin dish.
As you can see below, the pumpkin is not like most 'gua', it doesn't have a lot of flesh. So we just dig in with our fingers and pluck out all the guts. Using the spoon, we scrape until all the juicy and soft stuff are removed.
Once the guts are removed, we cleaned it up again so that it is not sticky on the outside. Then it's time to carve!! That's the fun part! Try guessing which one is Ping's... :P
While Kristi and Ping was removing the pumpkin guts, Steph and Jen made us pizza and garlic bread! The pizza was great! They didn't add the loads of cheese that you usually get from most pizza shops here. While the States are really big on pizza, they don't have those really good Pizza Hut pizza that we have in M'sia. We used to get the Hawaiian Chicken whenever mum is busy or boy wants to eat pizza. Here, the pizza are sold by number of toppings and there's ALWAYS loads of cheese! But Ping has learned a lot of good topping combination from Steph and Big K these past couple years. The toppings that Jen made for us was tomatoes and mozarella cheese.
Steph also bought us the Witches Brew wine (right next to the garlic bread). It is a spiced wine made right here in Michigan and is suggested to be served warm. Totally clueless about wine, Ping thought that wine are usually served chilled. There's definitely lots of spice in the wine and Ping is not used to it at all. Thankfully, Jen and Kristi also didn't seem to like the wine. Otherwise, Ping had to drink it all down.