Sunday 12 November 2017

All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) Excursion

Have not been to outdoor activities for pretty long while. Riding on ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) is very interesting to us.  Look simple to drive but I prefer to be a passenger and let my 14 years old daughter to take the wheel.  As a passenger at the back, it allows me to take photos and videos for this exciting trip.

Saturday 9 September 2017

台湾古早蛋糕 Taiwan Original Cake

I told my better half that there is a super soft Taiwanese cake selling like hot cake in Damai, really is hot cake this time. I told him that my colleague has to queue for about 30 minutes to buy the cakes, and the lady who queued after her lost her tamper because my colleague bought 10 pieces of the cake and left none for her, she has to wait for another 20 minutes to get this famous Taiwanese original cake, she burst and scolded the shop helpers. With curiosity, he went the next day afternoon and bought a piece for us to try.

Everyone who tasted it has to agree that this cake is super soft even after keeping in the fridge for 2 days.

Honestly, there is nothing extra ordinary about this cake, what makes this cake so special is the consistency of maintaining its super soft and moist texture.  I have been dreaming to be able to bake this kind of cake myself, looks like the easiest way is to buy from the shop. 


The original flavour is sold at RM14.00 per piece in a box, much more expensive than West Malaysia.

Friday 8 September 2017

Beading Project - Wooden Beads Bangle

I like to do some beading work once in a while (when my mood is on beading). This is one of the wood beads bangle that I did. I simply used a larger size wire bangle, some colourful wooden beads and a jump ring.  The tools that I used are a pair of round nose pliers and bent nose pliers to connect the jump ring and bent to close up the bangle.   


Pizza Hut Locked Pocket Pizza meal set

We decided to dine out tonite but what to eat and where?  These are the usual questions that we have each time we decide to eat out.  Since many years ago, our girls' opinions of what they would like to eat have become our basis of considerations.

They finally decided to go to Pizza Hut for the pasta, we haven't been there for quiet a while.  

There is a new pizza and pie on the menu, thus we ordered 1 each to try.  
 The locked pocket pizza set
 with minced chicken fillings
 The side of the dough are sliced and folded to hold the minced chicken resembling a pocket, similar sort of toppings.

 the appetizer came with the pizza set is chicken vegetable roll (simply frozen food)

 A bowl of pie, very excited to dig in but very disappointed that what we found covered under the mashed potatoes and cheese slice are sausages and slices of button mushrooms and tomato puree.  Frozen food again.  


Pasta is what my girls are coming to Pizza Hut for.  They ordered a plate of each of this spaghetti, the serving portion is satisfying.

Monday 4 September 2017

Varieties of Sabah Tea Flavours

Little did I know that our local produce Sabah Tea has added some many types of flavours to its original tea.  I came across this when my colleague ordered all the flavours to be sold at the resort's lobby shop.  I am fascinated to see the colourful metal containers to differentiate the 9 varieties of flavours including the original one. 

It is a good item for the tourists to bring back this tea when they visit Sabah as gift and the metal container can be kept as souvenir.  I have not come across this packaging in the supermarkets nor any of the hypermarkets so far.  I guess these are meant for the tourists markets.

These are the 8 added flavours and the 1 has to be the original Sabah Tea with no added flavour.

Misai Kucing

Ginger

Agarwood

Tongkat Ali

Pandan

Lemon Grass

This must be the original Sabah Tea with no added flavour

Geranium

Cinnamon

Besides the original tea, I have not tried any of the added flavours.  Hope to find them in the supermarkets so that we have got the chance to taste all of them.

Monday 12 June 2017

Baking fever

The one thing I hated most about baking is to measure the ingredients, I always avoid attempting any baking project with too many ingredients.  

After gotten sick baking few batches of Chinese New Year's cookies many years ago.  I put away all my baking tools and utensils into the store.  I have forgotten where I have kept some of the baking stuff.

My baking fever back again a little after seeing my friend and his wife whom were a home baking many years back have now become very successful bakers in town, my friend told me that he is very happy and enjoys in what he is doing.  I am convinced that when you love to do something, you will do it passionately and produce that best.  I think that's their success formula.

One the other hand, to satisfy my baking urge, I bought a packet of Nona's muffin premix to bake some muffins at home.  Besides filling the muffin cups too full, everything went well.

presenting my chocolate muffins cupcakes


 the process of baking the chocolate muffins

Wednesday 17 May 2017

The most fruitful figs harvesting

We are so delighted to have a fruitful harvest of figs a couple of weeks ago.  To us harvested 5 fig fruits in a day meant a lot as compared to other fig planters.  The total weight of the 5 figs is only 133g.  I bought this weighing scale from Lazada just to weigh my fig fruits..This is the most fruitful harvest so far.
The varieties of these figs are a combination of white (actually yellow) and black figs.  The white ones are Panache (the one in front with its unique stripes of green and yellow) and Louisiana University Gold (at the background).  The black varieties are IBG (Ipoh Blue Giant) and Barnisotte.  
the inside of the Louisiana University Gold
The black variety

 
The inside of a Panache


A plate of nutritious figs.  After tasted all these varieties, we gave Louisiana University Gold (LUG) many thumbs up and followed by Panache.

Wednesday 12 April 2017

The verdict on my Fig fruit variety - Barnisotte

Probably we have got a high expectation on a variety that many have given good comments about.  So far, fig variety Barnisotte has been a disappointment to us, for its fruit is dull and near tasteless for the one that we have tasted last night.
It was probably due to the first fruiting for this tree, many had said that the quality of the first batch of fruits tend to be less satisfying.  I really hope so.  There are some more Barnisotte fig on the tree waiting to be ripen.  This time we will have to patiently wait till the figs are fully ripen hope they will not be over ripen and turn bad.   

Wednesday 5 April 2017

A morning tour of my fig plants

Woke up slightly early this morning, able to steal sometime to check on our fig plants before going to work. In fact, I am pretty excited to see so many fruits on the trees. Honestly, not all the fruits turn out to be good, we had thrown away some of the fruits because they turned bad prematurely on the tree due to many factors, too much rain, white flies, and other pesticides are all detrimental to growing fig trees. We hope to harvest 2 of the fruits from Louisiana University Gold variety hopefully by this evening, you will see in my video below that they are looking good on the tree but have yet to taste them to give an honest recommendation on this variety.


Tuesday 28 March 2017

Stunning Purple Orchid

One of our neighbours is an orchid seller.  His house has becomes an orchid nursery with lots of orchid plants, he has got several dogs to guard his plants too.

With a gesture of thanks for giving him some of our unwanted woods, he gave us a pot of this Purple Orchid.  Though it is only an ordinary orchid species, we feel very thankful.  

One thing I like about orchid is its long lasting flowers.  Here is the stunning purple orchid at its full blooms.   








There are a lot to learn about caring the orchids, but for now, let it blooms and we will learn as it grows.



Friday 24 March 2017

Online shopping spree

I have had an online shopping spree last month. After a long wait for the parcels to arrive to my office, only realised that most of the parcel are actually delivered to my office post box as all of them are from different sellers and the size of the items as small. they can be easily slotted into post box.  Glad that my purchases arrived safely.  Since we can not personally touch the items before buying, there is no surprise that some are of low quality but still usable and the prices are relatively cheap, so can not complain much. 

glass crystal ball chandelier, arrived with no scratches, very satisfy with them.
surprisingly this silver bracelet is quite heavy and the quality is better than I expected
due to long distance handling process, I can expect some kind of damage, luckily this can be fixed easily. Below is the front of the hair clip.

very light weight bangles
jewelry set, a bit light weight

I am very satisfied with this peacock hair clip, I tried it on immediately

 below are a heavy weight dragon key chain (good quality), dragon image pendent, clove necklace and a pair of heart shape earrings

I like this set of Jewelries, the quality is better than the earlier set above.
a closeup view of the dragon image pendent