Happy Friday!

There are times when you go to bed, with your alarm clock set. But you wake up fresh before the alarm clock rings....your first thought, let's get the day started! That is when you know you had a GOOD NIGHT's SLEEP.

That was how Ping's morning started today. Woke up, washed up and started reading some review paper for class later that day. By the time Ping finished the paper, it was only 6.30am...so decided to make some breakfast - roti canai and kurma chicken!
Roti canai...that's one of the most popular breakfast dish in Malaysia. It is a piece of dough cooked on a flat pan and eaten with various types of curry. Ping's favorite roti canai is roti planta - roti canai with some margarine (but Planta is much nicer than margarine. Actually Planta is a brand name of a margarine that is often used in M'sia but Ping thinks that it taste a little different from most margarine)...yeah, not a very healthy one but 'ho chiak' enough already lah. Hehehe... Occasionally, Ping would order roti telur (add egg) but it usually makes the roti much more filling so it is the choice only if Ping is super hungry.

While Ping is on the roti canai topic, some memories of eating at a roti canai stall right next to a main road back in Sri Subang. This particular stall has one of the best roti canai Ping ever had. It started out as a small stall on the pavement right next to someone's house, next to the main road of Sri Subang. There was only one long table where we have to share it with random strangers. Later, they moved into a food court closer to our house. It was not any posh restaurant and stray cats frequently roam around the table...nope, not a pretty sight, but that's what Ping grew up with...one of the great memories. Wonder if the stall is still there at the food court....

Back to today, continued working on stuff for ESP after breakfast. It was definitely a very productive morning for Ping. The feeling is awesome!!! Class was great too! Ping was a little lost every now and then because Ping didn't know the background of the author of the report, which sounds like a pretty scandalous background. But, Ping still loves the class!

After work, we (Steph, Kristi and Ping) went over to Jen's place for dinner and hang out. It was nice just to sit around and talk about what's going on about us...just life in general, talk about our childhood ( we actually talked about 尿尿 and 夢游). It has been quite a while since we had the chance to do that. Ping have been planning the big gorilla experiment on Fridays so always end up skipping our Friday girls night out because by the time Ping is done with the experiment and the cleaning up, it is pretty late.

Jen and Kristi prepared dinner for us while Ping and Steph met up with them later due to some unavoidable incident. Salad with mushroom and Wheat Thins. The multigrain Wheat Thins are really good!
After salad, we hang around Jen's place for a while before heading towards Krispy Kreme. That's the best doughnut in town! Way better than the Dunkin Donuts here but Ping still likes the doughnuts back home.
There's the football season donuts...none of us got it but it sure looks cute!

This one on the right is Ping's favorite! Chocolate coated...custard filling...yummy!!

We also get to watch them make doughnuts...and we happens to be there when the machine was not 100% efficient because we saw lots of cacated doughnuts.
After the snack, we took a short trip to Chang-Wee residence for a lantern walk to celebrate Lantern Festival/Mooncake Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival.

好快樂的星期五!

Watermelon Frost

Remember the watermelon frost? It is applied on canker sores. Nope, we don't use any Ibuprofen or modern medicine. Instead, we would dab a little of the powder on the canker sore and go to sleep. It is usually much better the next morning. Ping gets canker sores quite often, especially on the bottom left of the inner cheek...for some reason, Ping's cheek is a little too fat there and Ping always bites on it..ouch! So Ping brought some of the watermelon frost here. Don't apply it during the day though because Ping would look like a vampire who just had a lovely meal. Kekekeke...

Anyway, just finished reading an article on Mercury in power plant emission and Ping thought of an old news where mercury was found in watermelon frost...remember that? It happened probably about 10 years ago? Agak-agak lah. So Ping decides to slack and start surfing for mercury and watermelon powder/frost.

The first thing that came up was today's news from the Taiwan government.

Lawmaker seeks stricter rules on Chinese-made medicines

So this is actually prohibited in Taiwan eh...but all brands or just some of em? Hmmm....wonder what is the mercury source in the watermelon frost? Is it while the watermelon is sitting in the Earthern bowl that the mercury is being absorbed into the watermelon? But only HgCl and CH3Hg are the reactive form...and it seems like it is more likely for the watermelon frost to accumulate elemental Hg right? But when you google around more, you'll find companies 三金 saying that their products are safe to be consumed. Unfortunately, Ping brought the watermelon powder in a 'eok uan' container rather than in its proper container since Ping only took a little of ahmah's stock...so Ping could not look to see what company was it produced from and what is the ingredient. On the other hand, the entire generation or two before us (mum/dad and ahmah/ahkong's) were using it all their childhood life...so does that mean that we should be tested for mercury to see if it is at a toxic level? Haha...where got so kua cheong hor...

But of course still have to be careful lah...don't want to end up like this case here.

Mercury intoxication presenting with tics

Wanna look at the article but Ping is currently at home (yah lor, slacking lor....haha..I wish ar!) so could not get access to the article. Maybe will check it out later...

Ping definitely still prefer the traditional medicine...hate pills! In fact, whenever Ping falls sick at home, Ping would get the appropriate 'eok uan' from ahmah rather than going to the doctor. Here, no choice lah...when cannot tahan have to go to the doctor..but even then, Ping usually gets the injection rather than eating pills. Yup, still do the injection. Ok ok, it is a psychological 'I can't do it' but why must Ping try when injection is so much less painful, faster effect and less hassle? *grins widely*

中秋節快樂!!

Happy Mooncake Festival and Happy Lantern Festival!!! That's Ping's favorite...lotus paste with egg yolk!!

It is getting much easier to celebrate mooncake festival here now that you can get mooncakes here for a pretty reasonable price. Ping bought 3 for USD 5 today...because it is actually the day after Mooncake Festival since according to the Chinese Lunar calendar, it was yesterday. But get to eat enough edi mah...in addition to that, we'll be having a lantern walk this weekend too.

Ping's first baby

When Ping came back from Woods Hole last year, Ping planted her first baby....plant in the States - chilli! Now it is huge and giving Ping lots and lots of 'luak luak' chilli. In addition to that, Ping also got a chilli plant from tiptup early August and it is also making lots and lots of chilli edi! By the way, blogger thinks that 'chilli' is a wrong spelling! Is Ping really spelling the word wrong or is blogger just dumb? Hmmm...the word is confusing in the States anyway. When you say chilli (which is probably spelt chili), people will think of this stew that is super yummy! But when we (M'sians) say chilli, we usually mean 'hot peppers' (as known by the Americans) aka 'huan chio' (hokkien) aka la4 jiao1 (辣椒).

The growth of Ping's chilli....
This is just about 1 month old. It was still warm outside so it was sitting out at Ping's balcony (or as the Americans call it, patio). As it grew bigger, Ping stopped taking pictures because Ping's prelim was getting near. Eventually, Ping had to bring it back to the lab. It sat right next to a radio that was by the window near Ping's bench and desk. However, it didn't get much TLC (tender loving care...as learned from Steph) because Ping was mostly at home reading and writing.

Then, the big day came, the break down came (but Ping handled it pretty okay...I think?), and then it ended and *phew*, can finally 'chuan tua kui'. But just a few days after Ping passed the scary exam, Ping took off and went back home, leaving the baby chilli in Steph's hands. She did a great job keeping them alive! As we can see on the right, it grew and grew and grew and became really tall that Ping had to tip-toe to water the top leaves! It became so big that it blocking Ping's awesome view of the campus.


Then the weather warms up and Ping brought it home...and so it went to the balcony again. Ping had to change pot for it too because the roots where starting to become visible from the top.

As time goes by, Ping started to see flowers....







then the chilli buds...








Next thing you know....jeng jeng jeng....the whole tree is full of chilli!!!
However, it has already been about a month since some of them came out and they don't seem to turn red so maybe they are 'cheh huan chio'.

On the other hand, the one from tiptup is 'ang huan chio' as it has recently started to turn red. This was taken last week and now, half of them is red already.

Yippee...just in time to watch House!! House is back! The crazy doctor!

Resident Evil

Just got back from Steph's. Had a Resident Evil movie spree - watched the first and second one in a row. The third one is out and Ping have yet to see the first two so Steph and Jen was nice enough to spend our Friday evening activity watching the first two so that Ping can catch up to watch the one that is coming out today.

Played the PS game a long long time ago when ahdik had his first PS console. Love the movie! The effects during the action scene was awesome! They gave it a very nice storyline too. Ping like the last part of the second one when the bad guy had expected Nemesis to attack her but in the end, Nemesis remember her and attacked the bad guy instead. Chun!

Ping accidentally deleted the old layout. Found a really nice sunset template but too lazy to edit the frames to fit Ping's liking. Most of the new frames for the Beta seems to be very narrow. It makes some of the pictures way too small. The bigger ones are mostly html templates. Ping wanna get the xml one so can add the widgets at the sidebar. Ping prefers the xml one 'coz it is way more intuitive. The html one is a bit more mahuan to edit. Or can Ping edit the html one using the same codes as the xml? Don't think so right? Since the xml codes are much easier than the html ones. Oh well....will make do with this layout for now, until Ping has time to edit the sunset ones, or find something nicer.

Canada - Niagara Falls at night

Ping's second Wonders of the World - Niagara Falls. Okay maybe it is not on the new list of wonders of the world but who cares..to Ping, it is a wonder's of the world. Ping's first one was Great Wall of China in 2004.

Never thought Ping would get a chance to make a trip there so soon. It was actually a pretty spontaneous trip for Ping. Ever since coming to Lansing, a lot of Ping's 'I want to go' places is usually back home, places where Ping's friends and relatives are. Niagara Falls was definitely not one of the "aih..if only I get to visit there". But Ping's Canadian visa was expiring and for the price Ping paid, of course want to get the best out of it lah. So off we go to Canada, with Niagara Falls as one of the must go destination.

After the Lion Safari, we checked in at Niagara Parkway Court. We got an awesome deal there. It was also pretty close - less than 10 minutes drive to the falls. After a short rest, we drove towards the town area - Clifton Hill. It is like a mini Hollywood, San Francisco bay area, a more upscale Bintang Walk...crazy fun!! In the afternoon, people are busy shopping for souvenirs, enjoying the various museums and adventure attractions. When we first drove into the street, it was totally exciting...like 'lembu lepas kandang'...like 'sua pa kau' only...so jakun. The same feeling Ping had when she went to San Frans two Christmas ago. But it got quite a little overwhelming when you're actually walking along the street itself...the city just eats you up. Thanks to the small souvenir shops, Ping managed to get a Niagara Falls sweatshirt, which Ping didn't bring and it was getting a little too chilly for Ping.

After walking around, taking in the city atmosphere, we went to Mamma Mia's for Italian dinner. The bread sucks but lucky thing, the pasta was pretty good. It was a little too pricey for comfort though...but almost any non-Chinese food is expensive in Canada due to their super high taxes. Then must give tips somemore...'kao giak' man.

Just as the sky turns dark, we head over to the falls for the fireworks show. We were lucky enough to be there during one of the nights when they have the fireworks show.

As you approach the falls, you start to feel the mist from the falls, the air cools, the rumble of the falls stronger, the atmosphere is totally different. It feels like a dream. Can you imagine standing so close to something so amazing? There's just no way Ping could describe the feeling. Definitely not something Ping had ever imagined. To make it pretty, whoever who manage it decides to color the falls. It does look pretty but nature is beautiful by itself. Even when the lights are off, the falls can still takes your breath away.

It is simple mesmerizing. Indescribable.
No picture could capture the feeling of standing right there in front of it, feeling the breeze, listening to the falls, letting the cool mist embrace you...definitely one nature's creation that has to be self-experienced.

Papaya Sisters - 881 (Ba-ba-yao)

Papaya Sisters!!! The modern revolution of 'kor tai' (歌台). Brought to Asia by S'pore's Royston Tan.