4 Days In Sarawak

Last week I was in Sarawak for a music workshop together with my pastor and 3 other church members.

Flew to Kuching on AirAsia flight.
View of Sungei Rajang from the plane

In our rented car driving to Sri Aman,
about 2.5 hours away. There's no highway,
only one road connects one town to another.

Sri Aman, an agricultural town with
oil palm plantations, fruit orchards and pepper trees

See the little peppercorns? This is the famous
Sarawak black pepper.

View from our inn at Sri Aman.
Visited a nearby church
which is built beside a longhouse.

Sayur mani is usually fried with egg over here.
Yummy.

Flew to Miri the next day. The pastor of the Miri church drove us over the border to visit Brunei.

The queue of cars entering Miri on a weekend.
It stretches over a few kilometres!

Visited the Empire Hotel, owned by the
Sultan of Brunei, where the room rates
are around RM1000 a night.

The swimming pool is so huge it seems
more like a lake!

The church in Miri where we held the
music workshop for the youths.

There's a cafe above the church which is
open only on Sundays after church service

The best kolok mee in Sarawak
(something like our dry wantan mee)
 is found here at the cafe.

Ular (snake) is found on a drinks menu
at a food court in Miri!
Found out that it's actually a herbal drink.

One thing I notice about Sarawak as we drove around is that there is so much land and space, something that we lack in KL city. The people are so warm and friendly, and keep stuffing us with delicious food that I've gained a kg or two over the 4 days! Hope to visit again...this time with my family.

21 Years, And Counting

"Marriage: Love is the reason. Lifelong friendship is the gift. Kindness is the cause. Til' death do us part is the length." 
~ Fawn Weaver

Hubby and I just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary a few days ago. That's a lot of years together and I am so very blessed to have married someone whom I can call my BFF (Best Friend Forever).

Hubby took a day off from work and I made arrangements with my son, CoolTeen, to fetch his sister from school and to tuition class so that hubby and I could spend the day together without being tied down to the daily routine. Rewarded CoolTeen with his favourite Hawaiian Chicken pizza from Pizza Hut.

We went to Low Yat Plaza to get the external hard disk for my XBox fixed because there was a problem with the games hanging in the middle of play. Had lunch at U-Village, a restaurant specializing in Hong Kong cuisine, situated in Sungei Wang facing Low Yat Plaza. This place is very popular with those who work nearby and was quickly filled up soon after 12noon.

The char siew is good here.

Trying out some nice angles for the photo,
putting into practice what I learnt in
photography class last week :)

Did some window shopping to walk off the lunch and then proceeded to Arthur's Hokkaido Mille Crepe Cake on the 3rd floor of Sungei Wang Plaza for their famed crepe cake, which is essentially layers and layers of cream and paper-thin crepe which just melts in your mouth.

Hubby chose the chocolate banana version.
Nice!

I chose the original flavour, which was
a little too rich for me.

Then we decided to look for a waffle maker to add to my ever-growing collection of kitchen appliances. Found out that this is not an easy task - sandwich makers are aplenty but waffle makers could hardly be seen anywhere. The Takada brand in Parkson has a mini waffle maker (emphasis on mini ) and we didn't think that it would be very useful.  So off we went to Mid Valley Megamall where there would be more stores selling appliances. 

Saw a Kenwood one at Harvey Norman's but it came with 3 inter-changeable metal plates - one for making sandwiches, one for grilling and one for making waffles. Finally we found the one that we liked at Aeon (formerly known as Jusco), and it was affordably priced at just RM49.

When I got home and took everything out of the box,
this is what I found - an instruction manual that says
'Waffle Maker' on the cover but inside are instructions
on how to make toasted sandwiches - go figure!

Had a short rest at home, then came the highlight of the evening...dinner at the French restaurant Cafe Cafe, which is described as the most beautiful restaurant in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. 

It's fine dining in a cosy, romantic dimmed-lights sort of setting. The last time we went to such a fancy restaurant was years ago but this place was highly recommended by a friend and we thought we would give it a try. I was so glad I decided to dress up a bit instead of wearing my usual T-shirt and jeans because everyone who walked in was dressed formally, including the waiters!

Antique furniture, chandeliers from the ceiling,
large windows with soft drapes
and soothing music transform this place into
a cosy dining experience.

Each table lit up with a tiny
tea-light.

This is me trying very hard to read the menu
with my poor-night-vision pair of eyes
until the waiter graciously lent me
a pen torchlight.

I can't remember the names of what we ate since I could hardly read the menu in the dim lighting, but I know we had some buns for starters, French onion soup, hubby had duck and chocolate cake while I had grilled prawns and lemon tart. The plates were huge but the portions, though delicious, were rather small even for a small-eater like me. For the price of the meal we could have stuffed our tummies to the max at a fancy hotel buffet dinner, so this is a place that we would not be visiting again anytime soon.

All in all, a very relaxing day spent with my dearest. Looking forward to many many more anniversary celebrations to come :)

Stonewash...?

Recently I bought a pair of jeans which was on offer for a ridiculous price of RM15 because there were only odd sizes left. These are the kind that the customers couldn't try in the fitting room, so I just measured the waist band around my neck (someone taught me that if it fits around the neck then it should be the correct size) and bought it without thinking twice...after all, it's only 15 Ringgit!

I'm sure most of us who wear jeans would be familiar with the term stonewash, where jeans are washed with large stones to soften them and produce a worn-out appearance.

When I reached home, the jeans went into the washing machine for a wash, and after it was dry I put it on and noticed something in the right front pocket....

A tiny stone...
which I don't think will ever be able
to produce the stonewash effect?!
(face palm)