Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Every trip back to Malaysia, I mainly spend most of the break in Penang. Kuala Lumpur is not one of my favorite place as there is not much to do there. However, I still try to make a short trip there as most of the college and high school friends are there. This trip, dad brought up the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park located at Taman Tasik Perdana. I completely forgot about this place. When we were kids, we spent almost every Sunday there.

Taman Tasik Perdana, also known as the Lake Gardens, is a huge park with lots of attractions. We used to spend most of our time at the main lake feeding fishes with leftover bread or bread skins. There is also a huge playground and exercise equipments. The Lake Gardens also houses the KL Bird Park, Butterfly Park, Deer Park, National Monument, National Mosque, Planetarium, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden, and the Herb and Conservatory Garden. All these are only a short walking distance from Kota Raya and Central Market, which is where most buses stop. 

This trip, we went to the Bird Park. For some reason, it is one of the park that I don't remember much. It was quite impressive as a lot of the birds are free flying and the park is very huge, giving the birds lots of places to fly around. As soon as we enter, we came across the parakeets and my first mosquito bite! Argh! 

The most common bird is the one in the picture below. They are very entertaining because they have different mohawk style hair cut. They also come closer to us than the other birds. 

Another one that I thought was very cute is the blue birds with a crown head and red eyes. 

Within the bird park, there is also a small lake with lots of flamingoes. 

By one of the river area, we saw this red flamingo. It definitely stands out! After a lot of mosquito bites, I finally got a nice photo of it! 

Of all the sections, my favorite is the World of Parrots, where you can buy a cup of honeyed milk to feed them. They are very human friendly as we saw one landed on mummy's head! 

There is also a huge lake with a waterfall at the Waterfall Aviary. 

It was here that we saw a peacock and her babies! 

Unfortunately, most of the peacocks have loss a lot of their tail feathers. We saw one opened its tail just as we were about to walk out of the bird park. 

It was definitely a fun morning!! 

Nasi Ulam

This past trip back to Malaysia, gee kim was not around much and we didn't cook at home either. So the only home cook meal I get to eat this trip is Nasi Ulam or can be known as Herbed Rice or Rice Salad. 

Nasi Ulam is a true Nyonya style home cook dish as it is not easily found in restaurants or any hawker stall (in fact I have never seen it sold outside). It is a dish that requires fine chopping abilities and patience. It is also a very time consuming dish as every ingredient requires chopping and roasting. However, if the ingredients are prepared in large amount, they can be kept for a few days and the dish itself can be easily put together. 

The ingredients for Nasi Ulam varies with the cook. The main ingredient is steamed rice and a variety of leaves finely chopped. The leaves that are commonly used are daun kaduk (betel leaf), daun limau purut (kaffir lime leaf), daun kesom (polyganum leaf), daun pudina (mint leaf), daun cekur (galangal leaf) and daun selasih (basal leaf). While they can be mix and match according to the likings of the cook, gee kim uses only daun kaduk. Daun kaduk is a wild plant in Malaysia. It can be found almost in anyone's garden and also in various tropical grassland. In ahmah's house, daun kaduk is just right next to the kitchen area. Besides for Nasi Ulam, it is also commonly used for Perut Ikan (fish stomach) and various other Nyonya dish. The leaves simply washed and mixed in with the rice raw. These leaves have various medicinal values and hence, it is more beneficial to eat them uncooked. 

In addition to the leaves and rice, other sides are added to give the dish more taste and to overcome some of the bitterness from the leaves. Gee kim's sides are kerisik (toasted grated coconut), belacan powder (roasted fermented shrimp paste), ground dried shrimp, roasted salted fish, finely sliced kunyit (turmeric), finely sliced serai (lemongrass), finely sliced shallots and white pepper powder. As shown in the picture, all ingredients are finely sliced and some of them needs to be roasted. This is why the preparation time can take almost the entire day! Some of these ingredients are meant to give only a subtle taste to the final dish but I love to have mine with lots and lots of daun kaduk, kerisik and ground dried shrimp. I would avoid the shallots though. :P 

Once all the ingredients are prepared, they are then mixed in a large bowl and is ready to be consumed. 

While it is sort of a salad dish, it is much healthier than Western salads that uses cream dressing. This does not come with any dressings. The variety of spices and leaves in the dish also adds antioxidant and other medicinal values to the dish. Until I can have my own house with a herb garden (even then, if I stay in US, might not be able to find the root for those leaves to plant it), I can only eat this once in a few years when I go home to David Chen Garden. For now, gee kim's supply of sambal hae bee (chilli roasted dried shrimp) will satisfy the often encountered craving for delicious Malaysian food. 

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies

In the past six months, I have been to 4 butterfly gardens/exhibitions! I guess it was having the macro lens that prompt our first visit to a butterfly garden - Butterfly World, Florida. The other gardens that we have visited to see some butterflies are the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix, AZ, Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park at Grand Rapids, Michigan and the most recent trip, Penang Butterfly Farm, Malaysia.

Butterfly World is by far the largest butterfly farm. In addition to butterflies, they also have an aviary and various flower gardens, making it the most enjoyable park out of all 4 gardens that we have been to. We went there first thing in the morning, arriving shortly before it opened (kiasu mah!) and stayed until almost 5pm! Since the main attraction is the butterfly farm, we spent most of our time there and some time at the aviary. As the flowers were not blooming yet, we were only at the flower garden briefly. The nice thing about this garden is that there is a lakeside cafe where we could take a rest, look through some of our photos and get some snacks. There was also a macaw section that we spent quite sometime at as they have very interesting interactions. We also went into the lorikeet section but only stayed for a while because the lorikeets were feisty! They kept nibbling on John's camera bag and seem to have no manners when flying around! :P One butterfly that we saw a lot here and haven't seen it elsewhere is the one that has a huge black dot that makes it look like a bird's eye. It is known as the owl butterfly (Caligo eurilochus).

More photos from this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In early March, when I made a trip to Arizona, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix. It is mainly a garden of various plants from the desert ecosystem. It also has a section representing the lifestyle and various natural resources used by the people of the Sonoran Desert (the desert of northern Mexico, California and Arizona) in the olden days. When I was there, they had the Spring Butterfly Exhibit so we got to see more butterflies! However, the exhibit area is very small, only about the size of our Penang garden. As we went on a Friday morning, there were a lot of kids on school trip so it was a lot more crowded. There are also fewer varieties of butterflies compared to the ones we saw at Butterfly World. Even though there were fewer varieties, I did saw a few that I haven't seen before - the malachite (Siproeta stelenes), a light green moth and one with green and brown wings (this one might be a moth).

I also saw one yellow butterfly hidden under a flower.

We spent a few hours in the exhibit area and then head out to walk around the garden. Besides butterfly photos, there were not as much to capture as cactus are less colorful. We did end up spending most of the day there too because the park is huge and has various trails with different characteristics of desert ecosystem. Photos of this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In mid April, John came back to Michigan for a visit and we took a day trip to the Frederick Meijer Gardens at Grand Rapids. Similar to the garden in Arizona, they had an exhibition of tropical butterflies, which they called "Butterflies are Blooming". The Meijer Gardens have a similar layout as the Desert Botanical Gardens where it is divided into different sections, one of which is a farm garden showing an example of a typical Michigan farm. They also have a children's garden with interesting flower arrangements, an indoor arid ecosystem and a mini waterpark for the kids. There is also a section with sculptures. The butterfly exhibit was held at the Lena Meijer Conservatory, a tropical conservatory. It has the humidity of M'sia weather but much much cooler. We went there on a Saturday morning and as expected, it was very crowded too. The conservatory is much bigger than the exhibit area at the Desert Botanical Gardens but it has a very high rooftop allowing a lot of the butterflies fly up high, which made them hard to be photographed with a macro lens. It is also more challenging to capture close-up photos of the butterflies because the the high density of leaves in the controlled tropical environment decrease the amount of light available. After spending a few hours in the conservatory, we went out to take a walk around the other gardens but it was very windy that day. We decided to go back into the conservatory to get a few more photos. If it wasn't for the wind, I think we could have gotten a lot of flower photos too because the tulips and a few other flowers were blooming. I didn't get as many nice butterfly photos because of the lighting but did get to see a few more different butterfly, like this blue one.

It was very hard to get a photo of this butterfly. Whenever it lands, it will close its wings. Most of the butterflies in this garden is the smaller ones with black wings. However, I get to see a butterfly popped out from its cocoon! When they first hatched, their wings are all crumpled and take a few hours for them to pump liquid for the wings to completely open.

Photos in Flickr and Multiply.

The most recent butterfly encounter is at the Penang Butterfly Garden, back in Malaysia. All these visits to the butterfly gardens made me look for one in Penang and guess what, there is one in Teluk Bahang! Knowing the lack of sustainability in any of Malaysia's public amenities, I had low expectation for this garden. Surprisingly, I find it to be the second most enjoyable garden, after the Butterfly World in Florida. Thankful for the tropical environment in Malaysia, the garden is an outdoor park. Unlike the other gardens in the States, it is solely aimed for butterfly farming. However, it is much bigger than the butterfly exhibits at Grand Rapids or Arizona. They also have small areas with other types of animals such as ducks, snakes, lizards, scorpions, turtles and a pond of fishes. It was fun to see other bugs like the moving leaf and the stick bug.

While we were looking at the moving leaf bug, one of the people working there came out to release some butterflies that just hatched. We get to see lots of different butterfly and a huge moth!

We only spent a few hours there because it was getting really hot and there was no place to sit down for a rest. If they have a snack bar or at least a vending machine selling drinks or ice-cream and a shaded rest area, I think we could have spent a longer time there. There are a lot of different butterflies and other bugs that will be fun to photograph. It is definitely worth going back. Next time, will go first thing in the morning when the butterflies are not as active and on a weekday.

More photos in Flickr and Multiply!

Benihana

Yippee, I finished my last class!! The crazy busy semester is done! Now I can start looking forward to going home and spending time with my family - in exactly two weeks, I'll be at home with mum, dad and ahmah!! For now, got another experiment to work on. Soil sampling on the only sunny day this week - Tuesday. Spring is really here! The rain is getting more frequent, flowers are blooming, the greens are coming back!

Got a bunch of photos from AZ and John's last trip here to MI that I haven't shared. Since it is raining outside and I can't go out to get more photos, I'll share the photos and videos I already have.

The last night I was in Arizona, we went to a Japanese cuisine restaurant, Benihana. It is a chain restaurant but I have had different good experience both times that I went. The first time I went to Benihana was in Florida, when we celebrated John's birthday.

It is a teppanyaki style Japanese cuisine, where we sit around a huge hot plate and they cook the food right there in front of us. I remember going to one of this back in primary school, after Sunday Dhamma class. It was somewhere on the top floor of Sungei Wang Plaza. We got a very entertaining cook this time. He did a lot of cool moves and I got to take a video of a bunch of them!

The meal started with miso soup and salad. While we're eating, the cook started with fried rice. Here is a video of him bouncing an egg yolk around.

After he fried the rice, he arranged it together into few different designs. Here is an angel.

Here is a Mickey Mouse. We happened to be sitting with a family who is celebrating a little boy's birthday. The cook made Mickey Mouse fried rice 'sing' Happy Birthday to the little boy.

For sides, we got roasted vegetables - onions, mushrooms, avocado and zucchini - and shrimp. I got soooo much mushroom this time because there was a lady who didn't want mushroom and I got all of John's mushroom too! Below is a video of him moving the onions around like a train. They also have their signature sauces - mustard and some garlic sauce. The garlic sauce blends really well with the mushroom!

As for main dish, John got lobster and I got tuna steak. The tuna is one of the best tuna I have ever had!

Lastly, we were really full but I still wanted to try the green tea ice-cream. So we just took one and shared.

Mickey Mouse Breakfast

One of the days that I was in Arizona, we just slept in and had a 'take-it-easy' day. We had a fruit platter with grapes, bananas and pineapples for breakfast while watching Seinfeld. Hehe, there was a lot more pineapple but we used some for the pizza and as I was cutting the pineapple, chi tae jip chui, chi tae hae lok ark. Hehe. John also made us tea to go with the fruit platter. He has a teapot with a built-in strainer (haha, I am sure there is a better way to describe it) so he can make tea from loose leaves and flowers!! I couldn't remember what tea we had for breakfast but I got to try a variety of teas that he had while I was there and my favorite is the acai berry with green tea.

I couldn't help noticing that our breakfast setup resembles Mickey Mouse so I had to take a picture of it!

Pizza pizza!

The only bread meal I really like! (as oppose to bo pan huat, in America, loti teh eh pang ghi)

We took an unplanned trip to Oregano's Pizza Bistro. We were driving home from a fun morning at a Japanese garden in Phoenix when we passed by this pizza place. John mentioned that it is a highly recommended pizza place in town. Since it was lunch time, we decided to walk over there (it is only a few blocks away from John's. In fact, we had passed that place multiple times when we walked around campus) for a slice of pizza but they didn't have pizza by the slice (oh yeah, this is a nice thing here in the States, where you can get a slice of pizza if you are by yourself or with friends who do not share the same cravings at the same time.). But since we were already there, why not try it, we can always take it home for dinner later. As it was lunch time, the place was packed and we had to wait. They have nice benches by their patio section and it was a sunny day!

It was only a short 10-15 minutes wait for us to be seated. While we were waiting, we took a look at their menu so we get to order right when they served us our drinks. We both got passion fruit black tea, which was very refreshing! On the menu, they state that their pizza takes about 40 minutes as they bake it fresh. Not a problem since we were not super hungry. But guess what, it took almost 1.5 hours for our pizza to be served! Although it took forever, our server was really nice and attentive because he noticed that we were waiting for way too long. Eventually, the owner/manager of the pizza place personally served us our pizza and nicely apologize for the delay. He even bought us the pizza!! Hehe, so we got a free pizza! This would never happen in M'sia! Instead of building on the customer's disappointment in the delay, they were very responsible and it was very nice that the owner/manager came out to see to the matter himself.

By the time the pizza came, we were both sooooo hungry we ate all of it! Hehe, I basically ate the first piece in 3 bites! We ordered a thin crust (my favorite! since that is even less loti and more garing!) with pepperoni and pepperoncinis, which is the yellow slices of chili you see on the top.
We also ordered a side of marinara sauce and John likes his pizza with lots and lots of sauce...
I would definitely go back to that place again! I wonder if their pasta or lasagna are as good as their pizza. Oh, they also have super huge meatballs!!! It is like a size of a golf ball! :P We were sooo full from eating the entire pizza, it was a good thing that we had planned to go check out the Arizona Aloha Festival at the Tempe Beach Park. It was so packed that there are some parts where we have to squeeze our way to get around people! (Found some photos online from someone's blog). We took a quick walk around and then can't help trying out some strawberry lemonade as we saw lots and lots of people carrying their cup around. It was sooooooooooo good! Hehe, the walk probably didn't do much as we got a huge cup, walk around the river and went back to get a refill. The first taste, you wondered why is it strawberry (which is common since lemonade typically over power most flavors unless they use a syrup based flavoring) but wait, the strawberry flavor is an aftertaste. Great combination! You get to taste the lemonade then the strawberry.

Pizza Part 2 - We had pizza again the next day! This time, 好特別喔! 有人煮給我吃的喔! I just had to chop up stuff. John made a pizza with the most topping I have ever had on a pizza! The toppings are sliced carrots (first time I had carrots on pizza!), diced chicken, yellow peppers and pineapple with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro. Of course, not forgetting the yummy pizza sauce and lots and lots of cheese!
Ahhhh...the wonders of good food and a sweet bf who don't mind being in the kitchen!

P. F. Chang's China Bistro and Cookiez

I made another trip to Phoenix this spring break (my first spring break vacation!!) to visit John. It is funny to feel that a trip to Phoenix comes so naturally when after my last trip, I wondered if I would go back there again.

So what did we do at Phoenix this trip? Lots!!! We also ate a lot!! As I had expected, we made another trip to P. F. Chang's. They have really yummy food there that we both tried new stuff and was very satisfied with it. We took a nice walk to P. F. Chang's, which was only about 15 minutes walk from John's. The weather in Phoenix was a lot warmer than Michigan's weather a week ago (it was about 15 C all week this week here in Michigan!) and I get to wear a skirt!! It was warm enough that we got a table outside. In fact, both times that I have been there, we get to sit outside! This is allowable in Michigan only for like 2 months. Hehe.

Alright, what did we get this time? We started out with the 'must-try' of P. F. Chang's - Chicken Lettuce Wrap appetizer. For our main course, I got a white fish that is lightly breaded, just enough to make it crispy on the outside, and stir-fried with carrots and snow peas. It is a spicy dish as they stir-fried it with Szechuan sauce and it is simply called "Hot Fish". For my level of spiciness, it was not spicy at all but I like it just the way it is because it is very refreshing. Really spicy fish should be left to the works of an authentic Szechuan cuisine. In addition to the Szechuan sauce, there is also a hint of fermented black beans that is commonly used in Chinese cuisine. I am not too fond of fermented black beans by itself but the addition into this dish makes it unique. Fish also goes really well with brown rice that P. F. Chang's offer for no extra charges.
John got another fish dish - Mahi-mahi. Nope, mahi-mahi is not a dolphin, which it is commonly mistaken for. It is known as the 'dolphin fish' but it is not a member of the Delphinidae family, which is the family of the dolphins. Hehe, unlike its cute name, it actually has a fierce look! The mahi-mahi was grilled with lemongrass garlic sauce. The mild grilling definitely does justice to the freshness of the mahi-mahi because the fish is still juicy. The intensity of the garlic was also just right, not over-powering the lemongrass and the sweetness of the mahi-mahi. The fish was served with cilantro rice, another good rice combination with fish. I often make it myself when I get the canned roasted eel from the local Asian market - Oriental Mart.
Me love fish dishes! It is lighter on the digestion system and does not makes me sooo full that I just want to curl up and go to bed. Hehe. Even that, their dishes are pretty huge that I only finish half of my hot fish. But, we did go out for dessert after dinner. I still would like to try P. F. Chang's Flourless Chocolate Dome one day. To get that, we would have to just order one dish and share it so that we can still indulge in the chocolate dome without feeling too full.

For dessert, we walked a few blocks down on Mill Avenue, which is the main street of Downtown Tempe, to a small, locally owned ice-cream store called Cookiez on Mill. It is a very tiny shop with only one small table. Its specially is ice-cream sandwiches (and Italian Ice according to the review), where we can make our own combination from a list of cookies and ice-cream flavors. We shared an oatmeal cookie with Rocky road ice-cream sandwich. After getting our dessert, we walked down a few more blocks to my favorite spot in Downtown Tempe to enjoy our ice-cream sandwich - Tempe Beach Park, which is at the beginning of south Mill Avenue. I got to take another shot of the bridge for the Phoenix Metro Light Rail, this time with my macro lens! I also caught a shot of the train rushing through the bridge!
The picture of the ice-cream sandwich above is from the second time we got it. This time we got the white chocolate almond cookie with chocolate mint ice-cream. It is a superb combination!! The mint blends so well with the cookie. We love it so much we got it again just before I had to leave on Tuesday. Hehe. Yup, it is really good!

很開心John也很喜歡嚐試各種飲食. 真好玩! 我們可以一起聊些美食的話題, 我也不用擔心他念我吃太多, 或者吃到胖. Gives me a chance to learn how to take photos of food too!

Winter Wonderland

Snow, snow, snow!!! It has been snowing almost all day the past week. Sure make being outside in the cold much more fun!!!
This is the path near my apartment building. The management plow the sidewalks in the morning and not long after, the path is covered with snow again.
At the area where the snow is not plowed, we got snow as deep as 1 feet!! Even the hydrant's body was covered with snow!!On the first few days, the snow was only lightly covering the path and on campus, they did a good job at removing it before everyone get to campus. The picture below is at the sidewalk near the building where my lab is. I thought the footsteps below is pretty interesting. Clearly, it was two people walking towards different direction. I wondered if they were walking along this path at the same time, if they did, did they know each other? If they don't, did they still look up and acknowledge each other? If they didn't, were they rushing to finish that assignment that is due in 2 hours? Hehe, it can be pretty fun to let our imagination run wild sometimes! I would say that these two person did not cross path but were quietly enjoying the peace on campus while walking to their first job schedule in the morning, just before the student rush to morning class starts.
The river on campus is mostly frozen too except for a small area near the admin building, one of my favorite area on campus. That is where the ducks hang out too, even now that it is freezing cold.
But now that it is so cold out, not many people goes to the river to hang out and feed the ducks. They must be really hungry because anyone who goes near the river, they will come close, hoping that they will be fed. When John and I went by the river just before Christmas, we sat by the stairs and it felt like they were going to eat me up!
All the trees on campus are covered with snow. Somehow the snow gives them a character because now they look like animated trees walking all around campus. :P
Besides human footsteps, there are tons of different types of footsteps on the snow. It is always fun to try to guess who made them. This one must be a rabbit one.
Let it snow, let it snow!!

甜甜的

今年的情人節我收到好特別的禮物...那東西並不特別, 但那心意讓我非常的感動. 因為是他自己弄的喔! 那禮物就是...

當全部的零食摻起來, 那就叫'snack mix'. 平常'snack mix' 都會有些'pretzels', 各種炒貨, 巧克力, 和乾果. 我收到的有杏仁, 藍莓, 小紅莓, 櫻桃, 葡萄乾和最好吃的黑巧克力依macadamia! 通通都好吃, 參起來更好吃! 好甜蜜, 好幸福的感覺喔!!

甜甜的

我輕輕的嚐一口, 你說的愛我,
還在會味你給過的溫柔,
我輕輕的嚐一口,這香濃的誘惑,
我喜歡的樣子你都有.

Ethiopian Lunch

It reminds me of chapati. It also reminds me of back home because their tradition is to eat with your hands instead of utensils.

Me and ahdik went out for lunch today to celebrate ahdik getting a new job - a supplementary instructor (yep, surprise, surprise!). We went to an Ethiopian restaurant called Altu's. I went there once with the TT, Pei and Jo a few years back and liked it but haven't been back since.

Ethiopian food (at least from what I had in the restaurant) reminds of chapati. Every dish comes with a spongy bread that taste exactly like chapati except it is much more spongy. Their dishes are a variety of vegetable or meat stew. Their vegetarian dishes are mostly beans or peas. Since I have been making lots of beans and peas stew recently (actually, ever since I find out how easy it is to make them with the slow cooker!), both of us got their chicken stew. The chicken stew dish also comes with cabbage that reminds me of the nasi lemak stall at the corner restaurant at Mentari Business Park. We used to ta pau that for lunch after school as it is one of the fastest thing to get. Plus, the auntie also have mummy and my favorite ikan pari!
Besides the unique type of food, the restaurant setup is also different. They have regular booth seating at the edge and in the middle of the restaurant, they have this 'kalo' looking thing. When they serve the food, they will take the top off and turn it around so it becomes like a table.

Huat arrrr!!!

Keong Hee Huat Chai!! (Happy New Year!) Hor ni huat tua cai! (Have a prosperous tiger year!)

Without the M'sians this year, I didn't have a party at my place. But it was still a fun weekend with friends from a different lab. After the crazy weeks of presentations, posters, sampling in the freezing weather and long overnight experiments, it feels great to take a weekend off.

The weekend started with my first sledding and cross-country skiing (nope, I didn't cross-country, it is just called cross-country). Sledding is definitely much more fun than skiing. I can barely move my skiis and when I finally did, I kept falling down! Lucky thing there was inches and inches of snow! Going downhill is fun but I can't go up hill at all! It took me forever to go uphill because I kept slipping downhill. Sledding was scary initially but after a few trips down the hill, it was lots of fun! I'm the one in the yellow round tube. Another scary thing is there are lots of kids who do not get out of the way fast enough and I have no idea how to stop the tube or how to avoid them! I almost bumped into the little boy down there but lucky thing he stepped back fast enough.
The next day, which is the first day of CNY itself, Fan and I went for dim sum with some friends at a chinese restaurant called Golden Wok. It is the only restaurant in town that serves dim sum on a cart like it should be. Due to the large crowd (Duh! It is Cheh It!), they kept running out of stuff...like my favorite Wu Kok and the Tao Phui filled with pork. They did have 'kae kah' but we were there with a bunch of American friends so I didn't order that. Nothing beats the original dim sum in Hong Kong and of course, the one in Tai Tong, Penang (daddy, we have to go there for breakfast one morning!). Steph, it sounds like you have a much tastier dim sum stuff than I did!!!

Halfway through our dim sum brunch, they presented a lion dance!!! What a surprise! I never thought I would see one here at Michigan!!! It was a little weird since the lion was dancing around in the restaurant. The last lion dance I saw was during CNY in 2008 at Uncle Thean Yong's family CNY gathering.
The lion dance at Golden Wok...

After the dim sum brunch, we went over to a friend's house to make and of course, eat, dumplings! When we had enough dumplings, we played a fun card game which involves a lot of drinking. Hehe, good thing Datuk Loo does not know this game...otherwise, I would be drunk everytime we have a gathering. I kept losing! Without Datuk Loo, I just drank water. Hehe, yes, and yet I am the one who kept losing. It still amaze me how much beer people can drink, as we then proceed to play 'Flippy Cup'. It is another drinking game where one have to drink the beer and then flip the cup over on the table. The group that finishes the fastest win.

That about sums up my CNY. Not traditional but it was fun!

Ping vs. Virus 'Annoy-za'

I knew it was coming this weekend when the cough came back and sore throat started. Yesterday's freezing cold weather did not help either, especially since I had to take the 15 minutes walk to Goodrich to get soymilk for breakfast (although I really could have made do with that remaining bit since I only used a little of the new one this morning).

Round 1!
Ping need to process the biomass from yesterday's experiment vs. 'Annoy-za'

It started getting worst when I was going in and out of the walk-in cold room (4C). Seriously, someone need to take the responsibility to clean up that place. I did it last year, not doing again. Since I made it all the way to 3pm and finished up today's lab report, Round 1, 'Annoy-za' down!

Round 2! ('Annoy-za' is standing back up!)
Ping need to finish reading the paper on Marx's theory as the foundation for environmental sociology but clearly, I am not doing that right now. Am not getting anything into the brain cells anymore. I have been reading the sentence "This emphasis on historical changes in soil fertility in the direction of agricultural improvement was to be a continuing theme in Marx's thought, though it eventually came to be coupled with an understanding of how capitalist agriculture could undermine the conditions of soil fertility, resulting in soil degradation rather than improvement." for I have no idea how many times and I can't seem to move further. Errr...the most common feedback I get from my writings is 'you need to shorten your sentence'. This sentence is from a paper published in American Journal of Sociology and I think it tops any of my long sentence! It must be a sociology thing because most of the sentences in this paper is super long. Well, since I am really getting side-track, I guess 'Annoy-za' wins Round 2.

Round 3! (Of course Ping is not down yet!)
Instead, I just had two oranges, a kiwi, and a cup of echinacea tea. That should knock this annoying 'Annoy-za' down. But I am going to go take a nap (nope, not the result of Round 3, just the consequence of Round 2). Round 3 results yet to be posted...(maybe MSU's win against the Badgers tonight might do it..hehe).
Zzzzzzzz

Butterfly World, Florida

How often do you get to see a butterfly stay around long enough for you to capture a good photo of it? I haven't got one...until this trip to the Butterfly World. It is really magical to be surrounded by soooo many butterflies!! They are everywhere and there was even one or two who landed on me a few times!! We got there first thing in the morning right when they opened and we didn't leave until almost 5pm! It was lots of fun that I have the D5000 too because I get to take lots of macro photos. I get to play around with the video function too. The videos are a little blur since it was my first day playing with them and still learning how to focus. I also do not have a video editing software so I can't lighten some of them that is too bright. Hmm...Yong, any recommendation?

Here is one with a 'halu' butterfly that eventually got the other butterfly to fly too...Mei, reminds me of you lah. :P



Besides butterflies, they also have a birds garden. Most of the birds there are pretty small as they are finches and hummingbirds. They are also very active so it was a lot more challenging to capture them. We did spend a lot of time with the Macaws. They have an interesting interaction.


There was also a rose garden and a passion vine but they were not flowering yet. If it was flowering, we would probably be there for a longer time! Having the camera adds on to the fun but it was still amazing to just be there with all the butterflies and birds, to explore their bug museum that has all kinds of creepy looking bugs which you never want to encounter in real life and to just walk around the park.

Pompano Beach, Florida

I spent this past winter break at Pompano Beach, Florida. It is a city just north of Fort Lauderdale and about an hour north of Miami. The place we stayed is right by the North Atlantic Ocean! We just have to walk out of the condo and we are on the beach!! Just like staying at Rasa Sayang.

View of the beach from the balcony...

The beach...

Unexpectedly, it wasn't as warm as I hoped so we didn't get to swim in the ocean or hang out at the beach much (although I should have remembered that when we went to Disney World in Orlando, it was actually quite cold). On the other hand, the clear blue sky and sunny weather makes being in Florida much more enjoyable than in Michigan. John and I still go out everyday to walk along the beach and do other fun stuff. I love the beach there! It is very clean, just like Taman Negara Pulau Pinang. Ooo, I also got my first pedicure!!

On the first day that we arrived, we went out to a park - Hillsboro Inlet Park - near one of the popular landmark of Pompano Beach - Hillsboro Lighthouse. It was very windy but I totally didn't realize initially because there was a pelican type bird that came by and I was super excited to be playing with my new camera!

With the unobstructed view, we were also able to watch the Sun rises every morning! It is definitely my first time lying on the beach and watching the Sun rise. From the multiple mornings that we were there, we figured out that it is only interesting when the Sun is initially rising, which started at like 6.30am or so and last for about 10-15 minutes. It was freezing on one of the days that we were out! Then the Sun disappears behind a thick layer of clouds at the horizon. At 7.30am, it gets interesting again as the clouds rise and disperse, you see the light rays cutting through the clouds. On the coldest day that we were out watching the sun rises on the east, we also get to see the moon shining bright on the other side. Definitely one of my favorite sunrise experience!

Even though it was cold, we would still go to a nearby ice-cream store - Razzleberry's Ice-cream. We went there 3 times! It is only about 20 minutes walk (on the beach) from the condo. We would also stop to take photos of the birds that hangs out at the beach. This one below must have its leg broken or sprained or something because it was limping and didn't seem to be able to have it spread out.

A 'sand pit' that we came across on the beach...

There is also lots and lots of coconut tree, just like you see in the movies!

At night, we also get to see the moon's reflection in the ocean and various patterns of the clouds covering the moon. It is just great to be out there! It feels so pristine and peaceful.

John took more cool panorama photos of the beach.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to mummy and daddy!

This photo was taken from the balcony just after the Sun had completely rised from the horizon. Every time I see the Sun rises, it makes me think of home...no matter how far away I am from home, at least I know that when you see the Sun sets in M'sia, I see the same Sun rises here in the States.

Kam siah for all the support that you have both given me!