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.

proposal out of my hands

Ping finally handed in the proposal on Friday. Was it good? bad? Not sure but part of Ping feels good because Ping knows so much more writing the proposal that it almost feel like a price Ping had won, that Ping had the capability to write up a proposal good enough to hand it to professors to read. On the other hand, Ping feels nervous because that means it's exactly two weeks away from the big day (now it's only 12 days left) and there's still so much more Ping has to learn and Ping also has to figure out a way to relay the message to Ping's committee members in a way that makes Ping's research unique.

But as dad always reminds Ping, there's no trying. It's do or do not...so all Ping can do is try her best, which she will. Spent all weekend reading and building up the presentation. It is actually kinda fun because it feels like Ping is back in college again..it's like the finals is coming up in two weeks and Ping have to study for all the different subjects at the same time. It's actually better because instead of studying for four different subjects, some of which could be subjects that Ping have no interest in (like Physics!), Ping is studying all the topics that Ping is interested in. It reminds Ping of the stuff that makes Ping enjoyed schooling..writing notes! (Ouch..this paragraph brings out the nerd in Ping right?)

Since Ping haven't been taking lots of pictures lately and thinking of stuff to post is too distracting...Ping will just leave with this pic. It was a bucket of dry ice that came with the C14-labeled glycerol Ping ordered.
Before Ping forgets...Happy Belated Raya and Deepavali to everyone who celebrates it. Don't really when are they but it's probably over not too long ago. :P No signs of celebration here at all so it's kinda hard to remember unless mom tells Ping but Ping haven't called home that often recently either. :P

Taco night

Ping about to fall asleep....reading about soil moisture...so break time!!

Decided to be "pun tua" and procastinate writing last night so Ping went over to Jen's place for dinner (by invitation lah of course). It was just Jen, Kristi and Ping. Jen made us taco...yup, it's homemade taco!!! Ping have not been cooking for a while now...I know, I know..Ping could have if she really wanted to but it's just so easy to eat out or eat junk food (grins). Three more weeks..just three more and Ping can think of something else other than her comprehensive exam.

Anyway, here's the awesome taco! It was warm and fresh from the stove!

First we scoop the meat onto the warm taco shell, then sprinkle some cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, wrap them up and eat 'em! Jen also had some black beans, which she didn't smush them so it taste really good together with the meat.

Ping rarely gets taco when going out for dinner because they always come with tons and tons of cheese and sour cream (that's the two things that Ping still don't understand why they take so much of it here in the States - there's cheese in almost everything!!! sometimes too much of it makes Ping jelak). Ping did made her own taco one time...not really the Western style since it was made with left-overs - stir-fry black pepper chicken and egg! Ping had some taco shell left-over from making the Spiced Chicken with Crispy Tortillas dish and some black pepper chicken that wasn't really enough to make one full meal so Ping add them all together with some shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes. It wasn't really good since it was dry without any sauce but Ping made good use of her left-overs!! bleh!

Green beans

Not only are the fruit choices limited here in Michigan, but the vegetable choices are pretty boring too. Part of the reason is also because Ping is kinda picky and does not like the western vegetables like rhubarb, artichoke, olive, squash, and purple cabbage.

That limits Ping's vegetable choices to ----

broccoli - Ping's favorite! It's pretty easy to just stir-fry with anything too.
carrots - Ping don't know a whole lot of recipe for so usually Ping just steam it and snack on it, frozen mixed vegetables (combination of carrots, peas and corn) - usually when Ping eats instant noodles
corn - pretty cheap over the summer and is pretty good with a brush of butter
tomatoes - they taste a whole lot better here and Ping loves cherry tomatoes. Would even be better if they have 'sui boey' hoon here (remember how the ones at Carrefour are sold with a small pack of the sui boey hoon? Love em!)
brussel sprouts - don't know any recipe for it so Ping just add it to instant noodles too. Surprisingly, when mummy used to cook them on Sundays, Ping hated it!..hehe..
taugeh - once in a while, Ping would get them from Oriental Market but sometimes Ping is too lazy to peel off the tails so it's not very often that Ping gets them although Ping loves 'taugeh char kiam hu'...plus, there's no good kiam hu here either.
lettuce - Ping use them when making sandwich
ka tan lin liak - also known as okra or lady's fingers. The name in Hokkien probably came from kacang bendi but the pronunciation changed over time..probably?? It's not very popular here either but there are frozen imported ones that are very small. Unfortunately, ah mah decided not to plant them at home anymore..ish!
cauliflower - it's pretty common here too but Ping prefers broccoli to cauliflower so Ping rarely gets them. In fact, the last time Ping had cauliflower was when tiptup cooked dinner for us after our NYC trip!

Whenever Ping craves for 'or kui tau', also known as French beans, Ping would get green beans instead. They are pretty cheap here too; between 99cents to USD1.29 a lb. They don't taste quite like or kui tau but close enough to make Ping happy for a while. Hehe.. Ping's favorite way to cook them...stir-fry with shrimp! Sometimes when Ping is more adventurous, Ping would make green curry with it..like the ones they sell at nasi kandar stalls in Penang or the nasi lemak stall at one of the kopi tiam at Sunway Mentari.
Here's the homecook meal Ping had at tt and dk's place. Hehe..Ping just had to sit down and wait for dinner. Tt and dk did all the cooking and they were great! Especially since Ping just had 7 weeks of all American food, the homecook food was definitely a great meal!

The one on the top is beef stir-fry with button mushroom and baby corn. Don't know with what sauce but it was good! The bottom one is stir-fry cauliflower and carrots.

Spinach is another one of Ping's favorite here but with the recent E. coli outbreak where the source is spinach, it was all cleared from the shelves. It was distributed again early this week now that they have found the source but Ping hasn't gone back to the grocery stores since then. It is almost like kangkung. Ping likes to use it to stir-fry with belacan or hae bee or even just eat them raw with soy beans and vinagrette. Other than spinach, there's not much leafy vegetables here like 'huan chu ti' or 'chai sim' or 'tau miu' and many others.

vege Char Kuew Teow

Ping is low on groceries right now. Haven't found the time or effort to go all the way to Meijer (both Meijer are out of the way) to get groceries. But Ping was in the mood to cook and wanted to something from home. So with the limited groceries, Ping made a vegetarian version of Char Kuew Teow.
Sliced up some baby carrots, soaked the 'hiow kor' (mushroom), peeled the tails of beansprouts and mix them all together. When the kuew teow is partially soft, stir-fried it in a little oil and 'tau eu'. Finally, add all the vege and stir-fry until cooked. The last thing to add is the egg while the pan is hot. Finally, 'kui chui chiak' lah!

fungus from nowhere

Was walking towards lab one morning and a fungus caught my attention. Somehow, Ping have managed to walk past this tree without realizing there's a fungus hanging on to it so Ping didn't know when exactly did it appear.















Isn't it a unique relationship between a plant and a fungi? No idea what fungus it is but it is definitely huge and seems to grow well from the tree hole. If you look carefully, there's even a cobweb built from the fungi to the bark of the tree. Amazing isn't it? Anyway, the environmental people must have seen it and thought it might be parasitic or pathogenic to the tree because they cut it off. Sad...but as long as the tree still lives, Ping thinks it's okay.

soup and bread

Ping skipped salsa dancing tonight to finish writing Ping's second hypothesis...so decided to take a break and blog.

While it's great to be in a Big Ten school, it's not very fun to deal with all the game days and traffic. Ping loves cheering for our basketball team, ice-hockey team, watching the soccer games but when it comes to football...it's pretty frustrating. First of all, the football stadium is smack right in the middle of the campus. That means no matter where on campus you are, you have to deal with the traffic and tailgaters. The basketball court is at Breslin, which is on the East side of the campus so Ping never did realize when the basketball game is if Ping doesn't check the schedule because the West side of the campus is not affected.

Second, tailgating starts 5 hours before the game!! That one also tak cukup, parking lots are closed from 7am onwards!!! Last weekend, Spartan played against Notre Dame at 8pm. Ping thought that if she makes it to campus before 10am, she'll be fine with getting a parking spot. But guess what...they won't let Ping park!!! So Ping had to whine about having to work and need to get the experiment done that day and they let Ping in, promising them that Ping had to leave by 1pm, which is when the official tailgating time. Can you imagine just sitting out there lepaking for 10 hours???? In the end, Spartans lost to Notre Dame...there goes the entire day. Not that Ping don't want to support them but Ping just thought it's a little too much that the entire campus just freeze for the game. Even the buses don't run when the game ends!!!!

Ping was kinda pissed off after that whole drama at 8am in the morning, Ping went to Panera Bread to cheer herself up. Ping got their soup in sourdough bread bowl. They have quite a few choices of soup too - Ping got the Tuscan Vegetable and Ditalini soup. Love it although Ping never finishes the bread. The first time Ping tried soup in bread bowl was at a Delifrance in Beijing...hmm..talking about Delifrance, wonder if there's still Delifrance in Penang. There used to be one at One Stop, Pulau Tikus but can't remember seeing it the last time Ping was back. They have really got seafood sandwich! Ah Kong loves their pastries too..we would usually go there for afternoon break whenever dad is around to drive us.
Today we played against Illinois, which we lost!! Ping can't believe it!!! How could we have lost to Illinois which sucks big time???? Anyway, it was an afternoon game so Ping took the bus instead of driving there. Thankfully, when Ping got there at 8.30am, it was already packed with people who 'siow eng bo ming kia cho' want to stand out in the cold.

fruits

While Ping was visiting New York City late summer, tiptup and diddykong brought Ping to the Chinatown. Ping got the impression that NYC Chinatown is the best in US but Ping kinda prefers the Chinatown at San Francisco. There was more stuff to see and more like 'teng nang keh'. NYC Chinatown is more similar to Chicago Chinatown, just larger and busier. It is also blended in with the Little Italy.

The one thing that Ping was really excited about while at NYC Chinatown is the fruit stalls!! Definitely something that you won't get in Michigan or even Illinois. It's like those fruit stalls at Petaling Street or Campbell Street. The best is, they were selling lychee, rambutans and jambu!!! Tropical fruits!!! DK bought us some lychee and cherries. The cherries was requested by Ping since it's the cherry season and it's very expensive here in MI, which for some reason, is not a big producer of cherries - still considered imported fruit.
Back to Michigan, it's all apples. :( Definitely not Ping's favorite fruit. But when Ping first got back here, there was still quite a bit of cherries around. Kinda expensive...but but but..nice leh and we don't get it in M'sia.
And the next best thing...strawberries!! Haven't tried those from Fraser Hills or Cameron Highlands but the ones they sell here are really sweet and juicy. They can be pretty cheap on certain days too, depending on the seasons.
During the winter, Ping's fruit source is oranges! There's not much choice during winter unless wanna buy imported fruits like Korean pears. There is definitely more choices in tropical countries since there are different fruit seasons all year long. Some of the fruits like 'ampela', 'ia' (coconut), 'ong lai' (pineapple) and 'bok kua' (papaya) can grow all year long too.

clock

This is what happens when you leave the lab for 8 weeks. Your crazy labmates decided to leave you a 'lovely' present...
How did that happen? Just before Ping left for Woods Hole this past summer, Ping dropped the clock and broke the hook that allowed us to hang the clock up on the wall. Ping and Steph tried to glue it back but it didn't work. So we got another clock and Ping left this on her desk, not really knowing what to do with it since it is still functional. But sometime during the summer, Steph and Big K decided to decorate it up and found a place for it by Ping's lab bench. Definitely a conversation starter whenever Ping gets a visitor by her lab bench. *grins* And ohhh..the bulbs are all the bulbs Ping had to replace for the spectrophotometer within the past 1 year. Yeah..that's how much growth curve Ping have been doing...and more to come.

On the side, Ping acquired another Snow Patrol cd!!! - Final Straw but Ping prefers the new one - Eyes Open.

Qian Qu Nar Li?

Ever wonder where did all your money go to by the end of the month? It's not exactly the end of the month yet..well, close..but Ping was looking through how much she spent the past couple weeks and realized that it was more than what she usually spent. So where did all the qian went to? Haven't been shopping for clothes since early summer and nor did Ping got any new props for her scrapbook.

Then the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol started playing on Ping's iTunes. Ah-ha! Ping has recently 'acquired' several cds. Not too long ago, Steph brought Ping to Flat, Black and Circular. It is a music store that sells both new and used cds for a pretty reasonable price. The older ones can be as low as USD 3, which was what Ping paid for the older Jewel and Matchbox 20 cds that Ping never did get a chance to burn from BK before we went our own separate way. Recently Ping got some Green Day cds for USD 9. The newer ones are cheaper from iTunes but sometimes it's nice to have the real cd and the cover even though we can print album artwork from iTunes now.
And the other source of where Ping's money been going to is Malecon! Weekly salsa dancing at Malecon can be pretty expensive by the end of the month. But Ping won't be going anymore, at least for a few weeks until the paper is finalized. It's lots of fun but Ping is starting to feel guilty for spending so many hours dancing instead of staying home reading or writing. It's getting closer...

Thai dessert

Being brought up in SouthEast Asia, we have a taste buds that are adapted to various different types of food. One of Ping's favorite is Thai dessert. Most of their desserts are made up of sticky rice, coconut milk or mango and these three ingredients do taste pretty good together. In fact, Ping prefers them to our Penang desserts like ice-kacang (although people from all over the world comes to Penang to try them), cendol and leng chee kang.

Few weekends back, Ping learned this from Nok - Khanom Nang Led. But the one we made have a slightly different recipe. Instead of using watermelon juice, we used lime juice, which would suit Ping better anyway since Ping does not favor watermelon. As for the dippy, it is made of coconut milk, minced pork, cilantro and of course, chilli! It became more of an appetizer dish than dessert since it's not very sweet and there's pork. It is probably not very healthy since it's deep fried. But it's delicious! It's a little too time consuming to make lots of it too.

breakfast

McD might be offering breakfast all day!!! Yeehah!! Ever had their Egg McMuffin? It's delicious! It reminds me of McEgg back in M'sia. Unlike in M'sia, Egg McMuffin is only served during breakfast, which is over at 10am. Ping just couldn't eat that much for breakfast unless it's a lazy day or Ping skipped dinner the night before. Plus, it is kinda out of the way to drive all the way to McD just for breakfast when Ping can have Cheerios and Silk chocolate soy milk for breakfast.

BUT, if McD will be offering breakfast all day, that means Ping gets to eat Egg McMuffin for lunch!! Steph and Ping was checking out the nutrition facts for Egg McMuffin and managed to convince ourselves that it is a pretty healthy meal. There's only 12g of fat and most of it are from the egg, which is still considered healthy fat since we don't really eat meat. Of course, while we're looking through it, we were tempted to go to McDs for lunch. And nope, we were good today as we both brought our healthy lunch. *grins*

Talking about McD, Ping kinda miss Fillet-O-Fish but haven't really taken to liking the ones served here. You would think they taste the same right? But for some reason, the fish here has a soapy taste. Wanted to go to McD for their Ceaser wrap, which is one of Ping's fave at McD here in the States but already had dinner prepared...Boca Vege burger sandwich with Swiss cheese on multigrain bread and carrots on the side. It was pretty tasty too! hehe..

hmmmm...

Was walking down the stairs a few weeks back and saw this grasshopper attached to the glass window. It's a crappy image 'coz Ping took it with her Sony Ericson T610's lau iah camera. But Ping just though that it's kinda interesting because it looks like the grasshopper had enlarged itself, trying to conquer the world. We're all in some 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' moment. *grins*

it's still warm and sunny!!

Wheeeee...Ping is still wearing tank topsm shorts and slippers..in mid-September!! Isn't this awesome?!?!?! Makes Ping wanna be outside doing stuff instead of in here reading and writing. *bleh*

No worries, Ping had a chance to go up (down?) to KBS to meet with Dr. L and also to do some sampling with UL. The meeting with Dr. L was at 10am but this is the first time Ping driving down there by herself, Ping left at 8am just to be sure there's enough time to figure out the roads if Ping gets lost. Ping printed out the directions from Yahoo! instead of from the KBS website...mistake! The directions from Yahoo! took Ping almost 2 hours to get there!! The roads are not very easy to find either because there's all these tiny farm roads. Ping was soooooo glad she left at 8am instead of 8.30am. It was totally a different route from the one Steph took when she drove us there last summer. Grrrr...but never mind. By the time Ping got there, the moody weather went away, replaced by a sunny and windy day!

After meeting with Dr. L, Ping wanted to go to Frona's for lunch but Ping lost her way again!! Arghgghg!! Next time Ping should go get a compass and bring along whenever Ping has to go to rural areas like that. All Ping saw was lakes after lakes (and Ping thought there was only Gull Lake there!!..another mistake - didn't look at the map before leaving) and farms after farms. So Ping ended up at some little cafe selling sub, which was pretty good because Ping was soooooooo hungry. Then as Ping drove around according to her instinct, Ping saw interstate M-43!!!

Drove back to the LTER plots and met up with UL. Spent the entire afternoon sampling with UL. This year, the crops are soybeans, which is a lot harder to walk around than when it was corns last year. But since Ping and UL went separate ways, Ping was kinda glad to be around soybeans than corns. Ping would definitely feel claustrophobic with corns that are taller than Ping! It is also harder to see any deers with corns - yeah, definitely don't want to bump into any of them. It was just lovely out there. It's like you just left everything behind, only you and the fields that lies in front of you acres after acres. Just Ping and nature - the greens, the warmth of the sun, the clear skies, the chirping of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the squirrels...simply wonderful.
Ping got home around 6pm and decided to skip the work-out session since Ping kinda did her work-out out in the fields (errr....kinda *grins*) and driving always makes Ping tired. So Ping stayed home and did some cleaning and guess what! Ping's chilli seeds has germinated!! When Ping was at tiptup's home at Boston, Ping saw her chilli plant and was surprised that it grew pretty well (Ping thought they could only grow in hot and humid Malaysian weather). When Ping came back, Ping just burried some of the chilli seeds into some rich soil...that was about a month ago. As the weather has been pretty fluctuative, Ping wasn't sure if the seeds were going to germinate, especially when some nights the temperature drops to 50F and sometimes the sun is covered by the clouds all day. But it did!! Ping got a new baby to take care now!! Will bring it to the lab (which Ping usually keeps around 25C) once it gets colder outside. The orchid seemed to grow fine so maybe the chilli will too. It seems like a suitable place too according to this article.

Edy's Ice Cream

Ice-cream..mmmm....who can resist them? Well, unless I'm full to my neck or ODed from milk. Was watching Serendipity on tv (yeah yeah..it's an old movie but Ping is yet to be bored of that movie), and saw an ad on Edy's new ice-cream - Dibs. It's bite-sized ice-cream! No sticky stuff running down your fingers or ice-cream that are too hard to dig in. Haha...it was definitely a good ad since Ping totally succumb into getting it the next day. Unfortunately, it's not something Ping can get very often because it's EXPENSIVE!! One of that small box costs USD3.80! For that, we can get 1.5 box of the regular Edy's ice-cream already. But it's good though..*grins*
Whheeeeeee...life is awesome these days!!! What more can Ping ask for? But gotta slow down though..before Ping gets too much on her hands. Need to prioritize!! blogging definitely hasn't been very high on the list...maybe Ping will start doing it again. hehe..

Akeelah and the Bee

Wheeeee...Ping's car just reached the mileage of 99999. Went out to rent a dvd and get a snack. Realized that the mileage was at 99997 so by the time Ping got back on campus, it just hit 99999. And Ping got her camera with her!!!
Drove to Hollywood Video to rent Akeelah and the Bee. It is a really good movie. Definitely highly recommended as a motivational movie. If only Ping had such a good coach when she was taking her GRE. Ping could hardly remember any of the word Ping studied for GRE right after the exam ended. Just like Akeelah's coach said, it would be easier to understand if learn how the word is used. But Ping only had a little more than a month to elucubrate and that wasn't full time GRE either since Ping was still trying to finish up her senior thesis. Anyway, Ping still got thru to grad school...so maybe the words wasn't all that important. Kekeke...

Snake

Three guys and a snake...



What a laugh!

Labor Day

It's Labor Day = public holiday. Ping just woke up at 8.30am. Maybe Ping should just stay home and be lazy. Or maybe Ping should go run. Or maybe just go to the gardens and lepak. Hmmm...but Ping has a culture waiting that has to go through a growth curve at 30 degrees C!!! That's gonna be A LOT slower than at 37 C. Grrrrrr...

But maybe it's not so bad 'coz Ping gets to wear shorts to work since Ping will be in the 30 C room most of the time. But but but...Ping wanna be lazy. Alright alright..the weekend is over, have to gear up for Monday. But Monday is a holiday. Hmmmm..... it is a lovely weather outside. The gardens are so tempting right right?
Haha...who am I kidding? I'll end up at work.

Potbelly Sandwich

This weekend passes by pretty fast, which is good in a way. Spent most of yesterday afternoon washing and polishing the car. Cleaning the windows and vacuuming the seats and floor. Ping's treasured Honda is then shining and clean.
But the front is now kinda dusty. The windscreen is decorated with dead bugs that got hit when Ping was driving along the freeway. Went to the temple earlier this afternoon with TT. There was more people than usual as the Sri Lankan Student Organization from Wayne State had some blessing sessions there. So TT and Ping tumpang receive blessings too. Ping always feel better after the Puja session and Metta Sutta meditation. If only the temple is closer, Ping would definitely go every week.

After going to the temple, we went to try out the new place on Grand River Ave - Potbelly Sandwich Works. It opened about two weeks ago but everytime Ping pass by, there are no seats available. JG doesn't wanna get take out. So Ping decided to wait till the initial crowd dies off to try it. Today, Ping wanted to try the other new place on MAC but it was closed when TT and Ping dropped by. We walked over to Potbelly and we saw a few empty spots. So we decided to try it. Ping had their Tuna Salad and TT had their Italian sandwich. We both liked the sandwiches. Ping tapau half of her sandwich but it doesn't look as good as when it was still warm. Ping also got their chocolate shake and it's chocolicious!!! It is likely to be one of Ping's favorite place now...as long as there's places to sit. They also put little biscuits with their straw but Ping didn't eat the biscuit for fear that it was left out for sometime over the night or that it was touched with fingers that were also messing with the cash register.
Ping had wanted to have dinner with TT today 'coz TT is leaving for Beijing tomorrow and headed back to M'sia after the conference at Beijing. Ping is soooooo jealous of TT. Ping wanna go home too. But not just yet..wanna enjoy the lovely weather in Michigan now and get through the nightmare-ish comprehensive exam first.

Mochi ice-cream and pastries

Lately, whenever Ping goes to the Bubble Tea shop on Grand River Ave, Ping craved for the Mochi ice-cream. But Ping refrained herself from getting because they sell 3 of the Mochi balls for USD 3.50. Can you imagine that??? So last weekend, Ping went to Oriental Mart to get one box of the chocolate Mochi. It costs Ping USD 4.25, which is still very expensive for 6 balls of ice-cream but it's way cheaper than buying them from Bubble Tea. Ping can also take her own sweet time savoring the 6 balls instead of having to eat them all at once.
There are various different flavors but Ping's favorite is the chocolate and coffee flavor. The ice-cream is actually nothing special. The fun part is the chewy texture of the glutinous rice flour coating the ice-cream. It is actually the flour that is known as 'mochi' in Japanese.
It is the same ingredient used for most Japanese desserts. When Ping visited NYC with TT and DK, TT brought Ping to Minamoto Kichoan on Fifth Ave. Ping quietly took a picture of the Jonamagashi. Ping couldn't resists because they look so lovely and cute! Don't think it should be eaten lah. TT bought Ping a rice cake type Wagashi - a red-bean paste filled mochi pastry. Yum yum. No wonder Doraemon likes to eat it so much. *bleh* But don't think Ping could take too much of it because it is kinda sweet and sweet things always make Ping jelak.
TT also bought us a box of green tea Kasutera. Ping thought the Kasutera was pretty good but tt had higher expectations as tt thinks it's not very fresh. But Ping don't know a whole lot since that's only the third time Ping had Kasutera. As long as it's not made by Ping (who is disastrous at complicated baking recipes), it will be tasty. Kekeke...
Aiks..all these Japanese desserts blogging is making Ping think about Konnyaku Jelly. It first became popular in M'sia when Ping was in college. There are stalls in Sunway Pyramid, Prangin Mall and 1 Utama selling these jelly that costs 50cents for 2 jelly!! Ping bought it once from Pyramid after whining daddy about how special the jelly is. Later, tua ee started making them and Ping got the ingredients and recipe from tua ee. Ping brought it here to the States that first time too. Ping would make them with lychee or peaches. But ever since then, Ping hasn't brought back more. Definitely have to place that in Ping's list for the next trip home (which is soon!!! and hopefully before ee ee goes to Vietnam? Cambodia?...errr...somewhere).

an eventful day

Just a little after 8.30am, SE arrived and she realized Ping is kinda glum (apparently Ping gets quiet when Ping is unhappy...hmmm..). So we kinda joke around a little and Ping felt better. But as lunch time approach, Ping's spirit soared higher as KH is coming for lunch with us! This will be her last lunch with us but at that time, the sadness has yet to set in because Ping and SE were just excited to see KH again.

We went to Thai Kitchen since KH's favorite food is Thai food. DoubleD, Brain, UL and JG also came along. It was definitely a fun time with all of us back as a team, talking about all the old jokes that only we could understand. It no longer matter that in few months, it'll just be Ping and UL and everyone will be on their own new journey. It was a moment to be treasured. After lunch, we drove to Starbucks for our regular coffee/chai/cookies. Since the boss won't be back later in the afternoon, we decided to be lazy and hung out outside of Starbucks.

After work, the girls went to JG's place and hang out in front of the TV. We were switching between Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meal (which was pizza today and Ping wasn't totally interest in it as it looks messy to prepare and eat) and Stargate. Just a little past 6.30pm, we drove to Celebration! and watched Little Miss Sunshine. I am totally recommending everyone to watch it when they are upset and need a little...a lot...of laugh. It's been sooooooooooo long since Ping laughed so hard that Ping's throat actually felt dry after the movie. Initially Ping thought that it would be a family comedy but I wouldn't recommend kids watching it though...it's kinda creepy if a little kid decided to replica the dance move. *shudders* Hopefully not. But it's a very funny movie and definitely did cheer us up. Even while we're on our way home in the car, we were still chuckling and laughing over the funny plots.

Ping is gonna miss the three girls but Ping is definitely happy for them. Therefore, Ping will treasure what little time Ping has with them before they take off for their post-doctoral journey. For now, Ping gets to sleep in tomorrow morning!! The first football game is tomorrow so almost the entire campus will be tailgating starting at 8am through 5pm. That's good enough of a reason to not plan experiment for Saturday..kekeke.

Penang...but not really

One of the unique characteristics of Malaysia is the food. There's not only a huge variety but they range from a broad diversity of origin. It is still the one thing that we can't get anywhere. Here in the States, you can get the 'American food' almost anywhere in the world since McDs is found basically anywhere.

The most popular M'sian food restaurant in the States is 'Penang'. Can't remember how it started but if Ping is not mistaken, it was opened by a couple from Penang who sells Hokkien mee. Now there are several chains of this restaurant. The closest to Ping is in Chicago. Ping had heard about this place from M'sians when Ping was at Western. Passed the place multiple times but had never gone in there. Everytime Ping goes to Chicago Chinatown, Ping end up going for chinese food rather than M'sian food. The first time Ping went was with friends who already gone there before and didn't like it very much. After that, Ping's desire for dim sum was more than for M'sian food. Furthermore, with Hup Loong's products, it is pretty easy to cook M'sian food.

The one thing that such M'sian restaurants still do not serve are the typical Nyonya or authentic Penang food like 'jeu hoo char', 'tau eu bak', 'lor bak', 'kiam chai ark', 'lam mee', 'chui bak', 'popiah chee', 'khong assam' and many more. These are stuff that in Ping's opinion, need to be really experienced to prepare dishes that taste really good. Until today, Ping still haven't tried any lam mee in KL that taste better than the ones in Penang. As usual, gee kim and tua ee are the best cooks to consult when it comes to authentic Penang food.

However, after the 8 weeks at Woods Hole eating dorm food twice a day, 6 times a week, Ping was craving for any M'sian food. So on Ping's first night at Boston, tiptup and dk brought Ping to the Penang restaurant located at Boston's Chinatown. We ordered achat, kangkung belachan and dried curry chicken. The achat is the best! The last time Ping had achat was a loooong time ago when tua kim bought it for us from some market she went to. Ping could have eaten just the achat with rice. The curry chicken was kinda like the ones that are served with yellow rice when celebrating baby's 'mua guik'...which was really good too. Yum yum...

an escape

Oh no!! The undergrads are coming back. We term them as the 'locust'. When they come back, they just take over the entire campus, the town and the city. Everywhere you go, there's tons of people. The roads are packed with cars and people who don't stop for you to cross the road. The restaurants are packed with people lining up all the way towards the entrance. The check-out lines are so long that it's no longer worth it to buy a box of paper clips. The bars are so pack that it starts to reek with beer and smoke.

This weekend is the welcoming weekend and there's lots of activity going on around the campus. Even as Ping is typing this, Ping can hear the fireworks from the campus...and that's 5 miles away. Ping and Fan decided to take Friday night off and go check out the new eateries at the Union. But little did we know there was going to be so many 'games', it was packed that Ping started to feel claustrophobic. Even the free Fuze, Jones and O didn't seem appealing anymore. However, Ping did manage to snag a free bottle of mandarin orange flavored O. It was just so-so. Prefer Fruit-2-O. They were also giving out free Sobe energy drinks but Ping never did acquire the funny taste of energy drinks so opt out on that. There were also lots of free stuff if you wanna hang around and fill up some forms but Ping wasn't really into all that at that time. Furthermore, Ping was eager to get out of that packed-like-sardin building. After getting past all the people, we went down to the Dairy Store to get 75cents ice-cream.

It was still pretty early after that and Ping didn't feel like going home and facing the lonely apartment. Ping also didn't wanna go anywhere with tons of people. Then Ping felt like playing pool so we went to Pinball Pete. Ping likes that place 'coz no alcohol is allowed, which also makes it popular. The only thing that's not too fun with the place is that sometimes there are shady people loitering in there smoking stuff. But it was fine last night. There was only 4 other people besides us. Played 2 games before Ping reluctantly brought Fan home and came back.

Think Ping made that ball?

down moments...

Jealous of the girl who caught your eye
When you looked at her where was I?

Jealous of the one who’s arms are around you
If she’s keeping you satisfied
Jealous of the one who finally found you
Made your sun and your stars collide

Jealous of the one who won your heart
It seems like a perfect match
She’s gonna get to be where you are
And I don’t get better than that

Whisper words I wish were mine
And they might have been
If I had been there

You know I’d fight the good fight
If I thought I’d change your mind
But if she makes you happy
I would leave the dream behind

Man, she better treat you right
And give you everything
Cause at the moment she doesn’t
I’ll be waiting at the wings.

You may be sitting right there in the same room as her but I know your mind is still on me. When you called me back, I knew you were thinking of me. I knew you wish you could be here telling me everything will be alright. She may be treating you good but I know I was there when you were down. I would be there whenever you call. You might be the light of her life but why isn’t she denying the others? I would have given you my all, but you would never know that would you? She’s there wherever you are. But if I had been there…it would have been me. You let her know…she could be there, she could be a sweetie but I know you’re thinking of me. I was your first and I know she could never take my place. The longer time she takes to make up her mind, the longer time I have. She can take all the time she wants and I’ll be on the watch.

But will you tell me when she makes you happy? Will you tell me when I’m annoying? Will you be honest with me?

And who am I to say all that? Ping is in her imaginary world…sad and lost.

chicken

Grrrr…something went wrong in Ping’s laptop. The wireless network connection is going through an ‘attitude problem’ moment (as we say in Hokkien, ‘pi siang’ / ‘tau hong’). Ping only bring laptop back home on weekends since the network connection at work is faster and more stable. At home, sometimes the wireless doesn’t work very well (but we’ll be changing to DSL soon!!) and sometimes room-mate uses it (yeah..only one of us can use it at one time). Last weekend was the last time Ping brought it back and the wireless connection worked really well.

Yesterday, after Ping came home from JG’s place (she had Sci-Fi channel and it was Stargate’s 200^th episode!), Ping wanted to check email before going off to bed..but it wasn’t connecting. So Pingwent straight to bed thinking that the connection is down (as it happens pretty often). Woke up this morning and it’s still not working! Had Nok check it and it worked fine with her laptop. Went to the lab building and the connection is usually stronger but Ping still couldn’t get connection. It seems like the laptop is getting connected since the status says it’s connected and the signal is excellent. But it’s the browser and email client that doesn’t seem to be detecting the connectivity. They worked fine when Ping connects to the LAN. Once in a while an error message will pop up saying that there is an IP address conflict in the network server..or something like that. Ping Googled for the error and most of the comments Ping found mentioned that it is due to an imposter and only the network company can prevent the imposter from getting connected. Hmm….complicated lah! So Ping will wait till Monday to bug the IT center. This time Ping has no pirated softwares so Ping can bring it to the IT center…kekeke.

But all these made Ping too frustrated to read anything…so Ping dig for stuff to cook. Made Spiced Chicken with Crispy Tortillas. This is an appetizer meal. The bottom is lined with tomatoes and onions. Ping is not a big fan of raw onions so Ping sautéed it in olive oil and place it on the tomatoes. The chicken was seasoned with oregano, cumin, garlic, and cayenne pepper. The dressing is avocado blended with lime juice.
For the main dish, Ping made Roast Chicken with Rosemary Potatoes..and of course not to forget the daily serving of vegetables, green beans! The main dish is a lot faster to prepare than the appetizer. Ping just had to rub the chicken with rosemary leaves and leman grind with black pepper. Then toss the potatoes in the remaining seasoning and throw all into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, which Ping took to prepare the appetizer.
That was yesterday and today, Ping made Sauteed Chicken with Bacon and Corn Sauce. Amazingly, Ping followed the recipe and added onions too! But Ping made sure the onions were totally cooked so that she don’t have to bite into a raw onion and start making funny faces. Yeah..onion is not one of Ping’s favorite. That’s one the eating habit Ping took up from mum..hehe..Ping and mum is not a big fan of onions and scallions.
All the recipes are from Family Circle. Mum used to buy the old copies from MPH warehouse sale for RM 1 each but these recipes are actually from the Family Circle recipe books that mum bought for Ping a few years back. Once in a while, when Ping feels like being more adventurous with cooking, Ping would look for one that Ping has all the ingredients. Haven’t seen this magazine here in the States..if not mistaken, it’s from Australia or New Zealand.

Now Ping has meals for the entire week prepared in the refrigerator. Just gotta heat it up and it’s ready to be eaten. One thing bad about liking to cook is Ping has to eat it all by herself. Next time Ping has to stay with someone who likes to eat but don’t like to cook. Then don’t have to worry about finishing up the food….*Grins*

new battery

This is the second time Ping received an email about Dell replacing some of their laptop batteries due to excessive heat. The first time Ping didn't have to get a replacement. Initially, Ping is too lazy to check this second time but then Ping saw on the website that we don't have to turn off the laptop to remove the battery if it is plugged in..so Ping decided to check. Guess what..Ping has to send it back this time!!!

Ping do realize that the battery gets hot when Ping uses it too long..especially when placing the laptop on my lap. But Ping though it was normal because camera battery warms up too when it is left on for too long. But from stories like that, Ping is definitely gonna get the replacement.

Wheee..time to go home!