Monday 26 January 2009

The Eve of the Year of OX

On the eve of every Chinese New Year, it's a tradition for most of the Chinese family to shower with the water of Pomelo leaves before dinner to wash away the misfortune to start a brand new year. We did the same every year without failed.

We also placed some food on the dinning table to welcome an abundance of food into our home in the coming years.

We had a simple family dinner with my parents and my eldest brother's family this new year's eve. Me and mum did the cooking together. Mum boiled chicken soup in advance and it smelled so nice when I arrived.

Fish is a most for us

Chinese potatos with Chinese sausage (lap zhong)


Sea cucumber, chinese mushrooms, abalone, "hou see" and beans

plain boiled chicken

Friday 9 January 2009

Gong Xi Gong Xi Chinese New Year is near

Many of us still having the hang of Christmas and New Year holiday moods that we celebrated a couple of weeks ago, and quickly we have to gear ourselves up for the Chinese New Year which falls on the 26th and 27th of January 2009. To prepare ourselves for the occasion, we have taken the Christmas decorations off and put up the Chinese New Year decorations to make our home an auspicious place to welcome a prosperous new year. This year we have Crystal to help us out a bit.

Taking the decorations off the Christmas Tree

A dried branches for the plum blossom (梅花)

Bright red loose Plum Blossom ready to be decorated

Crystal enjoyed putting up the flowers on the branchesand our decoration is done. I am very pleased with it.

Borneo fruit - Tarap

The Tarap, is a type of fruit belongs to Moraceae plant family and the cousin of Jackfruit. It can easily be found here, in the Borneo Island during its fruiting season. We have been enjoying this unique fruit since we were kids . The fruit looks a bit weird to many but the taste of the fresh is so yummy; it is generally very sweet and soft creamy in texture. Every single piece of its fresh comes with a seed, I remember my parents used to boil the seeds and we eat them too.

It is not easy to get my girls to eat fruits, they could be either fussy or not adventurous on trying new food. Crystal rejected the Tarap altogether by looking at the fruit when we first introduced it to her last season, after much persuasions, she tried a piece of the fresh and she loves it eversince.

We had one last night which Cletus bought on the way back from Keningau. Crystal and I finished most of it, Pearl tried one or two pieces too. It's generally sold at RM2.00 - RM5.00 a fruit depending on the sizes.

The skin of the Tarap

The delicious Tarap fresh

Enjoying the fruit

It gone. But I did not boil the seeds like what my parents did.

Wednesday 7 January 2009

8th Anniversary

It was our 8th year wedding anniversary yesterday, 6th January. With this simple reason I decided not to cook at home but to eat out to celebrate just a family of four of us. Our girls still do not understand what anniversary is all about, they merely know there is something to celebrate and Crystal is particularly happy about the idea of eating out. We had a good meal but did not take any photos. After having a half cup of coffee with my meal I was unable to sleep last night. That coffee must be very thick. Gosh..

Friday 2 January 2009

Christmas update continued..

On our way back from Mt Kinabalu trip, we visited our friend, Cecilia and Alfredo at their family home in Tuaran, without knowing it's Cecilia's birthday on Christmas Day.


A Christmas and Birthday cake baked by Cecilia's sister.
Our friend, Cecilia, she is a real good cook
Our girls were playing at the compound after having their lunch
When we arrived home, Christmas presents have been placed under the Christmas Tree like a little hill.
The kids can't wait to receive their presents
These are the Christmas presents that Crystal and Pearl received. Crystal was ready to start opening them up.
These are their presents

School bags with wheels from Daddy
Playing with their dolls after waited for 3 weeks till Christmas to open them up. Have really tested their patience. We bought these dolls long before Christmas (see here)

Christmas update

We spent our Christmas eve at Perkasa Hotel, Kundasang this year, with the Wong's family, it was the first outing for Crystal and Pearl to experience the cool weather at the foothill of Mount Kinabalu. Crystal was excited to be able to touch the cloud (fog) at night.
We arrived at the hotel at around 2.00pm much later than Cletus originally planned, due to diversions supermarket to get certain stuff that we forgot to pack into our luggage, to the workshop to check on the car, and stopped by Tamparuli town to have our lunch, the famous Tamparuli Mee, and to Bundu Tuhan to check on the time for the Mass.
The Hotel Lobby, now then I realised it had changed its name to Mount Kinabalu Heritage Resort & Spa, previously was Perkasa Hotel, Kundasang, luckily I took this photo, I did not realised it while I was there though. The hotel is a much better place to stay after it had been renovated.
Had our Christmas Buffet Dinner at the hotel. The pricing were very reasonable considering at Christmas Eve. There were no turkey or roasted lamb in the menu of course, but we filled up our tummies without complains.

Ring, ring, ring, Santa came around to distribute goodies to the girls.


After dinner, before leaving for church, we took a walk at the surrounding area of the hotel, there is a hanging bridge leading to the chalets, at first we thought our girls wouldn't dare to cross the bridge but we were wrong.
We attended a brief mass at the St Pius X Bundu Tuhan church, this picture was taken upon arrival at Bundu Tuhan. The last time I went there was more than 15 years ago, can not remember exactly when actually.

The view of the majestic Mt Kinabalu that we captured the next morning.