My home :)

Ever since I moved to Penang in 2006, I only went home during CNY. The last time I went home was in 2009 CNY, and after that I never go home ever since I'm pregnant with Eunice, until recently. My brother got married in Aug and of course I have to go home. :)... and we took Eunice for her first flight at her 18th month.

There are some special things in my home. :)... Besides my family, the home cooked food, the famous Sarawak kampua mee and their laksa, there are some other special things in my home that I cannot find else where.

My dad plants vegetables. And no, he doesn't do that for a living. He worked in a bank before he retires, and now he's helping a relative doing some office work. My grandfather was a farmer. Hence that's where my dad and two of my aunties got the skill from. He uses natural fertilizer (he used to ask my brothers to pee in the potty :P) and no pestiside for his vegetables. The reason he does that is very straight forward - to save money. Now that I'm paying to do the marketing every weekend, I do know that it doesn't only save money, but it also saves the time spent to go and buy in the market - not forgetting that you can always get the freshest vegetable just at your home. :)

That's me in my dad's straw hat cutting some vege for Eunice's porridge

My dad's little farm

Kangkung, spring onions, and some other vege that I don't know what their names are :P

Close shot of some new baby vegetables

We even have dragon fruit trees in my house! :D... And it's the one with the red flesh. During our home trip there weren't any fruit but when my mum visited me few times in Penang, she used to bring some over for me and wow, they are sooooooo sweet! In Penang, sometimes I pay nearly RM3.50 for 1 red flesh dragon fruit, no guarantee that it's sweet. :). And we also have papaya trees. We had papaya trees since I was young. My dad always says papaya are the cheapest fruits to feed a family of 6! :)

The dragon fruit trees


Papaya trees

When we had our wedding in Miri, EG was having some kind of "cultural shock" to see how we, foochow (or hock chew), celebrate a festive day.

First, we won't run away from our famous Sarawak mee suah. This mee suah is different from those that we buy in the market from Peninsula. EG said it's nice and he has never tasted them elsewhere. It's salty, and very thin and soft. I recently got some mee suah from Setiawan from a friend. I'll see if it's the same as ours in Sarawak.

The mee sua

I told EG, I had eggs for breakfast since I'm primary 1 to form 5, almost everyday, except weekends. We'll either have hard boiled eggs, soft boiled eggs, or fried eggs with baked beans. Funny thing is, we never complaint. Maybe because all of us love eggs. And probably that explains why all of us get good results in our exams - eggs are full of natural DHA mar... :P. Anyway, hard boiled eggs are also another must have to eat together with mee sua during a celebration in my hometown.

Hard boiled eggs

Tang Yuen, made of glutinous rice flour, will also be served - but this one is mainly during wedding. I remember my aunty made me and EG to feed each other the tang yuen to signify that we'll be in love forever. :). One thing special for this is that in Miri, or at least in my home, we only have the dry ones - which is coated with crushed peanuts or beans. This round, my auntie made it with pumpkin to add more flavor to it. Actually, I only eaten tang yuen in syrup when my best friend brought some for me during uni time. :P

The yummy tang yuen

The Foo chow red wine chicken soup is definitely a no miss when we go back to Miri. We'll eat this with mee sua together. We'll be served this the day we reach home, and the day we leave home before going to airport. We'll also eat this during birthday, baby fullmoon, or any celebration. It has been the tradition all the while since I was young. This is a very simple dish cooked with chicken, ginger mushroom, and the Foo Chow home made red wine, but for me, I taste really good. I tried to cook it here using the same recipe but it doesn't turn out as nice as my mum's. I checked it through this round and finally concluded that it's the type of chicken that we use. I have to find the special chicken "species" in a bigger market. :)

The boiling chicken soup

And this, is how the mee sua be served to all the guests. A piece of meat with a mushroom, and mee sua. :)

The famous Foo Chow Mee Sua

Sometimes I feel sad that I can't speak Foo Chow anymore since I have not been speaking it after I left home. Even at home, I was speaking the very basic ones with my grandma before she passed away. So, I don't think Eunice will ever learn Foo Chow. But I do hope that I'll continue to let her eat all these traditional Foo Chow food since she's half a Foo Chow now. And I hope she'll appreciate the culture like how I do. :)

Logo's Hope Floating Bookfair

EG's parents came Penang during 1 Malaysia holiday. So, we went to the floating bookfair - Logos Hope that docks in Penang since 25th Aug till 18th Sep.

The ship

Logos Hope

Logo's Hope is the biggest floating bookfair in the world that travels around the world. I have been wanting to visit so we took the opportunity to bring my in laws there together on the holiday.

It was a public holiday but I was hoping the crowd will not be too many. I heard my friend actually queued for 40 minutes to get up to the ship. Thank God when we went, the queue wasn't long - actually there were no queuel. :). The entrance fee is only RM1 per adult, and free for children less than 12 yrs old.

Going into Logos Hope


Though there's no queue, still there're quite a lot of people

Once we went into the ship, there'll be a 2 minutes video to give a short introduction of Logos Hope.

The little girl was also attracted to the video

The mission of Logos Hope

There are quite a lot of books in the bookfair priced from RM8 to RM80. They have a very unique pricing - the books are priced in Units. Every 100 units = RM8. Hence, you'll see books tagged at 100 units, or 300 units. The reason is very obvious - they are travelling around the world, so they just need to change the conversion to the local currency of the countries that they stop. Brilliant idea, I thought. :)

Though there were no queue at the ticket counter, but there are many people browsing the books. That explains why I don't have pictures in the ship. I had to carry Eunice with one hand(worrying that ppl will bang into her), and look for my books with the other hand, while EG looking around for his parents. There's no signal in the ship so we couldn't call. I let Eunice walk at the less crowded place sometimes but still I need to watch over her.

We did not stay long in the ship as the crowd got more and more and we started to feel warm, plus Eunice is showing sleepy sign (yawning). So we decided to pay and get off.

Pose again while on the way back

While doing my payment, I asked the cashier if there are so many ppl everyday. She told me that they haven't had so many visitors for long until today - must be because of the public holiday.

I like the children books on the ship. There are many Christian books and I feel that they are very reasonably priced. I got 2 books for Eunice that is 100 units each (RM8), and EG got a story Bible for Eunice @ 200 units (RM16). I thought they were really not expensive.

For myself, I got a recipe book (to cook for Eunice) and a small baking book at 300 units each. My mum in law got some books too.

Our books from Logos Hope

For EG and my father in law who read a lot, they thinks the books in the bookfair are just so-so, they actually didn't get anything. But I thought it was a very good experience to visit a book fair in the ship, and I won't mind going again. :)

Wei's Wedding

We were away to my hometown for my brother's wedding. I remember during my wedding, we had some trouble looking for photographers in Miri. We got my brother's friend to help us but they came out so-so.

But recently, many photographers bloomed in Miri. I am very impressed by the SDE (Same Day Edit) done by my brother's photographers - who are also my sister's friends. The song is not exactly to my liking but my brother and sis-in-law like it.

But for the videographer, hmm, LOTS of room for improvement still. :)

Lung Wei + Siew Siew SDE from Ruidi Photography on Vimeo.