I’m a big greenie, thanks to being influenced positively by Don and Mylene.
I love conservation and yes, I am a member of MNS (that’s Malaysian Nature Society) whereby I am privy to interesting emails about conservation and ecology, particularly on the Yahoo Group that I am on. For a minimum of RM60 per year, I get updates from MNS about the state of our country in the form of gorgeous journals. (What is RM60 to you? It’s probably a night out in the city and probably not even enough to buy a pair of stilettoes but imagine, your RM60 for MNS can help protect those who cannot protect themselves.)
Sometime ago, MNS members started giving ideas about how to organise a green wedding successfully.
Did you know that weddings often leave huge carbon footprints? With everyone flying in from almost everywhere for the big day, and all the gifts and wedding decor, I should think it’s a mammoth print.
With permission from the thread originator, Ee Lynn, below are some tips to go green and have an eco-friendly wedding (hey, even birds are considered!).
Ee Lynn has these ideas:
1. Limit the size of your guest list. Instead of obligating the attendance of family members and friends from out of town, create a wedding website they can visit and leave comments in.
2. If you have many members of the family in a particular state, say, Penang, instead of having 12 of them drive down to KL for your wedding, host a delayed family-only wedding dinner there the next time you go to Penang.
3. Don’t have organic flowers or chocolates airflown from some distant country just so you could have a pesticide-free wedding. Always choose local.
4. Help plan your guests’ transport arrangements. Have them carpool by designating meeting areas and pick-up points.
Non-travel related tips:
1. Have lots of vegan dishes, not just for the vegetarians. Go for spring rolls, sauteed vegetables and salads. It’s sad that most of us celebrate a happy occasion by taking the lives of small animals :o( We should try to limit the number of animal lives taken.
2. Practice the 3Rs: Rent, don’t buy, your outfits, the chocolate fountain, and anything that you probably will not be using again.
3. Inform the caterers/restaurateurs that you don’t want a polystyrene arch or backdrop!
4. Get your guests involved. Ask if they could bring their own homegrown flowers to contribute to the arrangements. If you have a colour theme already, do let them know. Best to encourage potted plants e.g. orchids, otherwise they’d just go out to the nearest florist, buy a big bouquet and defeat the whole purpose.
5. Or have a blank scrapbook ready with stacks of photos. Each guest brings enough scrapbooking material to decorate a page, pen a personal note and choose a photo to go with his or her dedication. Let guests know in advance via text message, e-mail or direct communication, so they can compose their poems and congratulatory notes ahead of the wedding. Each contributor can be given a token of appreciation later.
6. Instead of throwing rice and confetti, use birdseed to make a big heart-shaped pattern on the ground in front of the church or wherever the daytime ceremony is to be held. Apparently rice can swell in birds’ stomachs and kill them, but birdseed can’t.
7. You could either choose to do without wedding favours, or go for things like potted 4-leaf clovers, magic message bean plants, organic spa soap and natural potpurri in cotton muslin pouches.
8. Communicate your message: Let others know what you believe in. There’s nothing worse than taking the noble step of opting for a green wedding and then having duhhh-case friends accuse you of being mean or stingy. Remind them of the theme throughout the wedding by playing songs with a green message (“Big Yellow Taxi”, anyone?), leaving environmental literature on the reception table for their perusal or displaying No Sharks Fin Soup campaign cards on the table.
What do you think? Many of my friends have already gotten married but it’s not only for weddings. Consider these tips too whenever you organise a party or a family celebration or birthday dinner.
Reduce your carbon footprint, whatever you do. Live wisely!
Musings
The Accidental Entrepreneur
Hello. I am back.
Yes. I have been missing. But for good reason. Sometimes we all need a break, even from our favourite rant machines a.k.a our blogs. Sometimes there’s just too much to say and sometimes there’s no reason to say anything. I’d rather have something important to share than gab on mindlessly.
Anyway, you must be intrigued by today’s post title.
I got around to thinking about this when Alexandra, a friend who writes for The Star’s Weekender, emailed me. We were in USM together about a decade ago and although we weren’t in the same course, we met up while taking elective classes. In her email, she said that I didn’t really look like the type to go into business. She figured I’d be a lecturer or something like that. The bookish sort, really.
I am what you would call an Accidental Entrepreneur.
I got around to pickling her question in my head. It is an interesting observation from a friend. You know how sometimes we go around having this Image in our heads of ourselves and suddenly someone comes along and tells you the Image of You that they have in their heads?
Yup. It makes for a great dissection. (Also another friend, Rona asked a very provocative question – should she still be an Employee or start a new chapter as an Entrepreneur?)
I started thinking. Now what if I weren’t running this business with Nic? What would I really be doing? Did I even imagine running a business? Hell no. I never even minored in Management while in university when all my coursemates did and here I am, running a business.
How things turn out…
I always believed (OK laugh if you want) that I’d be some head of the corporate communications department in some glitzy multinational corporation. Oh, perhaps jetting about every few weeks or so. Ordering subordinates about to write press releases, plan the next press conference etc. I’d be president or at least VP some day (you know I watch too many TV dramas about climbing the corporate ladder – actually I wanted to be a hotshot lawyer but that is totally another story for another post).
The thing is, I NEVER majored in PR either during my years in university.
Completely odd.
I did Journalism and minored in English. Then I had itchy fingers and went back to uni to get my Masters (in English!) just for fun. It was that time that I jumped from being gainfully employed (makan gaji) to being the mistress of my own universe (running a business with my husband).
The things people often told me not to do, I did anyway. Just to experience life on the wild side, so to say. I quit a well-paid job to go into the unknown. I had no experience except that kind that I racked up as an employee. I had no idea what I was going to do except use my skills in writing for the business. My Dad was secretly worried I’d be eating Maggi mee for the rest of my sad life. The other no-no is never run a business with family (that includes spouse) because it complicates relationships. Personal is personal and business is business right?
But the weirdest part is, I’m still around and I am truly enjoying this chapter of my life. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly enterprising in that gung-ho, in-your-face way.
There’s no need to be ruthless or unethical or even plain money-minded. Those myths about people in business belong to the last century! (That said, I can be quite persistent when it comes to money matters.)
It starts with me and myself.
Running a business is always crazy – you are responsible for what you do, or don’t do. I’ve had to pick up and read a whole lorry-load of marketing and business books (and I still read ’em).
I’ve had to learn psychology because when you deal with people, you need to understand what makes us all behave the way we do. I’ve had to change my mindset (don’t go after clients, attract them to you).
I’ve had to change the way I viewed life (my most precious resource now is Time and don’t let others waste your time unnecessarily).
I’ve had to re-learn what I know (customers aren’t always right and you must get rid of those who suck the lifeblood off you) and yes, remove those awful habits that were in the way of success (if you want to get ahead in business, you must factor time for play – really it’s all about working smart).
Much of the growing comes from the inside.
For the past few years, Nic and I find ourselves challenged in so many ways. And each time we hit a wall, we only only re-strategize and come out better, we’ve also created some of our own ways and systems to deal with future issues.
It’s your game, play it your way.
Whenever we face an issue, I always tell Nic, “Look, it’s our business. We can run it however we want. We can make our own rules if we don’t like the old ones.” You see, in business, we can run the business any way we want. There’s no hard and fast rule. If you know Nic, you know he has never been one to toe the line. All his university friends know this. If there’s a rule to be broken, my mad husband will be the one to break it.
I can tell you what I love about running our own business. We can take a vacation any time we want and however long we want (that is why the system set-up is so important). Our last holiday was a 10-day stretch with minimal email. We can go off at a moment’s notice (we once had a durian lunch on a Wednesday and took the rest of the day off). We can have the freedom to do the things we like, as long as the team knows how to do their tasks right. But it wasn’t overnight. We struggled through a lot in the early years, fighting a lot of inner demons, adapting, modifying and figuring out how we were to run this business. Oh and lots of arguments too. Nic and I have differing opinions on most things and we often have to argue things out first.
The secret sauce to a more intriguing marriage.
Having a business also brings a special dimension to our marriage. While most spouses grouse about not having anything in common to discuss, we have a bit too many! Our business discussions sometimes go way overboard, during meal times, during holidays, during family events. We talk about marketing ideas, we talk about clients’ issues, we talk about our next big thing to do, we buy and read the same marketing books and get excited over business stuff most people find tedious.
Oh and we see each other all the time. I see him 24/7. (God, give me a break sometimes! That is why I go off on my own at times – maybe that’s really why I started a businesswomen’s networking group.)
The thing is, running a business can be the most exciting thing for some people once they “fall” accidentally into it (like me).
Funnily though, I was also quite happy being an employee. Sure there were office politics and petty annoyances. But I loved every bit of it. I loved reporting to my CEO and telling him what I had planned for the Corp Comms department. I loved the office parties and gossip. I enjoyed the offsite retreats.
So are you cut out to be a business owner?
I guess what I’m trying to say is this – you may not think of yourself as particularly enterprising or business-like but running a (small) business has a lot of advantages – personally and financially. If you’re the type who likes being independent and making decisions or solving problems and can retain a sense of humour about it all, it’s gratifying to be in business for yourself.
The not-so-nice part is, the early years can be tough on you and your family. If you are willing to rough it out and live on less, you can probably make it. We rented an apartment for 9 years because whatever we made, we re-invested in the business. The business came first. We didn’t have a holiday for the longest time because we didn’t have proper systems in place – if we weren’t around, the business couldn’t run itself. If something happened, we had to fix it. No one else could do it for us. (Maybe I should start another blog on sharing the lessons learnt in our 13 years of business. Hmm…just a little maybe.)
And did I tell you we were a work-from-home business in the early years? Yup we were. I could tell you about the incredible joys and horrors of working from home.
So tell me, are you in business? What do you like about it? What do you despise about it? If you’re not in business, do you wish to be in it one day?
Isaac's Tips for Getting Your Own Mojo Style
I like Isaac Mizrahi simply because he’s funny and gay and not ashamed to be who he is.
It could be I adore his name, which is quite a marble in the mouth.
I think I started to really pay attention to him when he appeared on one episode of Project Runway.
I’m still very much into style and fashion and over the years, I’ve developed my own sense of dressing.
I don’t subscribe to brands just because they are there. I just want to wear clothes which fit me and look like I’m wearing them, not the other way round.
That’s why I’m really not brand-conscious at all. I can wear some pasar malam stuff, or I can wear some boutique stuff. I can carry clothes happily by turning them into a style of my own. I add some accessories and mix and match and in no time, I’ve got my own mojo. Plus I love making my own accessories!
I read Mizrahi’s How To Have Style book and loved it, just as I enjoyed Nina Garcia’s book, Little Black Book of Style. (Here’s a tip: find useful style and fashion tips from books and blogs. Don’t follow blindly but follow what makes your body shape look enticing.)
Style is really confidence – it has everything and nothing to do with clothes.
I read a quote which stayed with me over the years – this was a great booster in times when I wasn’t too sure about myself (yes, I have had a bad perm before, I have also been gangly and tall and thin and I used to wear specs!) – it goes: “If you are not yourself at 30, you will never be yourself at any age.”
We all need to learn to be comfortable with ourselves and I don’t mean physically but emotionally as well. When our foundation is strong, we can handle anything that comes our way.
A Little Bookshop Story
I don’t have much space on my bookshelf anymore. In fact books are spilling off the shelves, perched precariously as they are. Yet as any diehard bookworm will tell you, there is nothing like coming home with a bagful of delicious finds from the bookshop with a big silly grin as if we’d discovered the most precious gems in the world.
To me, there really is nothing like a book.
As a child, I’d spent countless hours with my head stuck in a book. I was quite embarrassed to be called bookish and nerdy but that was essentially what I was.
Back then, it was all for the joy and pleasure of reading and letting stories carry me up and away to lands I could only imagine.
Until today, that book habit has stayed. Of course my repertoire includes lots of marketing and business books, besides the fiction and memoirs which I read.
Each country I travel to, I make it a point to poke my head into a bookshop.
In Cochin airport, before departing India, I found Sankar’s which despite its relatively small size, sold fantastic contemporary titles aside the usual Ayurvedic books on health and healing. You guessed it. Although I had checked in my luggage, I decided to hand carry the pile of books – the selections were that enticing, not to mention cheap!
The books were of good quality, printed on quality paper and not the see-through type of paper we usually associate with Indian reprints. Added to this, after conversion from rupee to ringgit, it was really inexpensive and worth buying.
When I was in Hong Kong in March this year, again one of my quests was to find at least one of the three bookshops I had jotted down. With real estate being what it is in HK, bookshops should be quite interesting. I mentioned to Nic that we really should look for Flow, a secondhand bookshop in Central, before we left. We wandered down some narrow streets in Central and almost gave up as the warren of tightly packed shops and confusing signboards completely overwhelmed us.
It was one of those evenings where dusk really fell fast – we felt chilly and had to duck into Lan Fong Yuen cafe for a rest and a cup of its famous milk tea (only to discover that they proudly proclaimed the milk was imported from Malaysia!). Once we felt rested and re-energized by the tea, we stood outside the tiny cafe and casually glanced around us. What did we find but Flow the bookshop, just a few steps away from Lan Fong Yuen!
Flow was on the first floor, above a contemporary Thai restaurant on Lyndhurst Terrace. We looked around for a way to go up, only to find the stairs were located behind the restaurant!
Up two short flights of stairs and we entered into a book haven. It wasn’t much bigger than my hall at home but oh the eclectic titles made me swoon. Books of all shapes and sizes, of all subjects, even audio CDs were available. From design to spirituality, from fiction to Chinese history, you name it – Flow had it and at reasonable prices too. (I found out about Flow from this article – it was one of HK’s best indie book nooks.)
If it were not for the fact that we had to rush off to attend an Irish dance performance (that month being the Hong Kong Arts Festival and we specifically bought tickets for this performance), Nic and I would have been stuck in Flow till closing time. When we got back to SP’s apartment that night, we gushed so much about this secondhand bookshop that she visited it a few times after we left HK. I said I would visit Flow again the next time I visit HK.
About a week ago, SP emailed, saying that Flow would be closing up as rent prices in HK was rising dramatically. I was saddened! Flow was one of the best finds during our trip to HK, much better than any of the cafes or museums we’d been to. On its Facebook page, it said it had been 13+ years at its present location and they were having a sale prior to moving. I hope Flow is moving but not closing up!
Of course, in Penang I have my regular secondhand bookshop in 2020 in Midlands One-Stop. I go by every now and then to check out its stash of Terry Pratchett books.
Everyone in KL and PJ – at least all my bookworm friends – had told me that I should go to Book Excess in Amcorp Mall. I have been to Payless Books but friends literally persuaded me that I should go to Amcorp Mall to see for myself.
And so I did. The place was huge and its books were new and affordable and I wanted to take every book home. It was like finding a pot of gold! Every book simply cried out to be taken home.
I had to make some choices – I knew I wanted them but I knew my shelf space was running out. I so wanted to read Agatha Christie’s autobiography and Paul Coelho’s memoir. But you know what, I did buy Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France as well as a book on beading. The rest were pure business books. We bought so many books we qualified automatically for their member discount card.
It’s a blessing and curse sometimes to give in to my book-buying spirit!
Dirt Has Inertia
I’ve never felt more hopeful for Malaysia than today. Now. At this very moment.
It helps that I live in Penang, the state that is a little bit of rebellious rock ‘n roll.
It helps that we have a Chief Minister who doesn’t mince his words nor goes around frying up char kueh teow to please the crowd.
He may make mistakes here and there, but you know what, he is also undoing the mistakes of the past 30 or so years.
Cleaning up takes time. Dirt has inertia.
At least he’s got balls. Can’t stand a man who has no guts.
You know, the courage to stand up for what’s worth standing up for. Remember this man was jailed for his beliefs and fighting the truth.
Yes, since 2008, I’ve felt even more hopeful. The coalition may be a bit unsteady on its feet at some point but the thing I see is, it has managed to transcend the boundaries of race and religion.
Before, you voted for your race representative.
Now, people will vote for a solid belief, hope for the future. I’ve heard friends saying, “I don’t care if he’s Indian, Malay or Chinese. I am voting for change.”
It’s not a fad, nor a radical new thing which will fade with time. It seems to me that Gen X and Gen Y are happier unshackled by the ghosts of 1969. We are a lot more fearless because we don’t know that bogeyman. It’s not real to us and it doesn’t mean a thing.
It doesn’t take us away from our hopes.
This brings me to my vision of what one day we will be.
We will be true Malaysians.
Call me an idealist but I’d rather be a warrior idealist any day and fight a good fight than be a chicken and pretend things are all going well when they aren’t. I’ve written about friends who emigrate and I wonder if they’ve lost all hope and prefer going away.
Whatever it is, I am eternally optimistic that things will be better once we are all Malaysians – not just Malay, Chinese, Indian, Iban, Kadazan etc.
Yes, dirt has inertia but there are ways to make things clean again.
Meandering Down Hatyai Streets
One of those things I enjoyed was exploring Hatyai on my own, on the final day.
This was after the morning market adventure. I am not a big shopper so my idea was to check things out and buy only if it caught my fancy. It was blazing hot as I walked down tiny streets, far less busy than the main thoroughfare, and I thought, really far from the Malaysian tourists.
As this was the last day, I wanted to see things at my own pace. Our bus was leaving at 5pm so I had a few more hours. Our bags were already packed so the only thing was to return to the hotel and return the keycard to the reception. So I wasn’t really in a hurry at all. Plus I had a little bit more Thai baht left and wanted to spend it all. It wasn’t worth carting home and exchanging it at the money changer.
The hotel breakfast wasn’t anything to shout about so I was quite hungry when I left Lee Gardens Plaza. I decided to see what the locals were eating. I read that if you are alone and undecided on the food of choice, just follow the locals and eat what they eat. You can’t go wrong. Local food can be very appetizing.
Down a narrow and quiet street I walked. This was definitely not a tourist street as it looked, smelled and sounded like a working class neighbourhood. Quaint shops with dark interiors beckoned as I ambled past. I had no itinerary. I was in no rush. It was about noon so a number of locals were shuffling into these shops for their lunch. Unlike Penang, it wasn’t about variety. Each shop sold one type of food – either rice with roast chicken or braised pork with salted vegetables. Each shop looked very family-run with everyone from young to old helping out. But the shops were clean with cool, dark interiors and mostly Chinese appearance.
A plate of white rice with braised pork sounded like a good lunch so I entered one of the shops and sat down. The stool was tiny, so was the wooden table. Anyway, it was only 40 Baht or RM4. They served me quickly and to my delight, the rice came with a small plastic bowl of pepper soup and some salted vegetable by the side. My lunch tasted very good indeed that day.
There’s something inherently wanton and liberating about a foreign town, being on one’s own and taking time to really enjoy one’s simple meal. Other customers were chattering away in Thai but I was lost in my own reverie. For a moment, I thought that bliss was really this – a meal made with heart, in a town I could get indelibly lost in.
After a leisurely lunch, I was eager to traipse and see more of working Hatyai. No one called out to me and asked me to buy things (you get this in the more touristy areas).
Along the way, I saw a man sitting at the kerb, selling peanuts. I didn’t really want any, not after the meal I had but he was so endearing – he actually offered me peanuts to try. I smiled, took some and went my way but not before snapping a photo of him. His toothless grin told me he was happy that I made him a ‘star’ in some way.
I continued to explore, not knowing where I was going. I hoped I wouldn’t get lost but even if I did, I knew that all I had to do was jump into a tuk-tuk and tell him to go to Lee Gardens Plaza.
My brains were almost fried because the noon-day heat beat down without mercy. Yet the lure of the smelly market was too strong. I didn’t know which street I went into but it had stalls selling salted fish of all types. Hatyai is dirty and worn but it also charmed me in a way.
When I finally found my way back to the hotel, I met up with Cecilia and her family. We decided to spend our last baht in Swensen’s while waiting for our bus to arrive.
I like meandering down musty, working-class neighbourhoods and watching the locals work and go about their daily lives. What about you? Do you like this part of travelling too?
Hatyai With Dancing Ladies, Almost Final
After such a wonderful foot massage the night before, I woke up with more energy than the day before! While today would be the day we would leave Hatyai, we had planned for more shopping.
But first, we needed to fill our tummies. The hotel provided free breakfast but the breakfast spread at Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel was nothing to blog about. It was just food to keep one’s tummy from growling. The spread wasn’t extensive and it was hard getting a spoon or even a fork! The guests of the hotel swamped the breakfast area so it was like a free-for-all.
We’d planned to go to the Sunday market to buy edibles. Hatyai is famous for many edibles – fish maw, cashew nuts, dried scallops, dried oysters, Koh Kae brand of flavoured peanuts, seaweed snacks and more. Even the not-so-edible stuff is famous such as Zebra brand stainless steel pots, steamers and such. And then there are the leather and non-leather bags, purses, pouches in addition to clothes and shoes.
Fruits too are aplenty but my Thai aunt told me to be wary of such fruits. Thais, whether knowingly or not, use additives and preservatives to ensure their fruits last longer and look better. At one time, no one bought longans from Thailand because the longan farmers oversprayed their fruit with chemicals! I don’t know if it is ignorance but it is better to be safe.
One of those common sweet snacks you can find is the dodol or durian sweets. They’re chewy and sweet. Great as gifts but really, how many can you eat in one sitting? I’d rather have the real thing!
Anyway, Cecilia had popped into a crockery shop to check the price of a steamer she wanted to buy. Saw this cute little pug! I wonder if he is for sale!
The market is the must-go place in Hatyai. It’s typically like our markets in Malaysia except that this one has both food, clothes, bags and shoes. It’s the kind of place you want to go and poke about just because it is so damn interesting. Thai markets are treasure troves. Like I said, most stuff are cheap and kitschy and full of bling. Quality-wise you’d be better off buying elsewhere BUT if you are eyeing food, they do have good things on offer. Why is it that Thais produce better foodstuffs than us? Food like glutionous rice, agar agar powder, even fresh mee and kueh tiaw! I mean you don’t have to look far to know that Thai rice is absolutely fragrant and delicious, even on its own.
Dried seafood is apparently THE thing to buy in this market and its surrounding shops (which do such brisk business that even if you run out of Thai currency, they’d happily take your Malaysian Ringgit). One particular shop directly opposite the market looks like a jewellery store, all painted in yellow with bright yellow lights. But it sells dried seafood like fish maw, scallops and oysters. And it is BUSY!
So yes, Hatyai is a tempting little town with lots to buy. For Penangites, it’s a weekend escape for the whole family. Food is perceived to be cheaper and far more delicious, especially Thai tom yam and those “muu” or pork dishes. Hatyai doesn’t make a dent in your pocket and it’s not so far away that you cannot feel at home. Plus the enterprising Thais speak Mandarin and Hokkien fluently these days, apart from Teochew so you won’t even have to learn Thai.
What more can you ask for, in a weekend getaway for shopping-mad Malaysians?
The Hip Way To Being Green
I count myself lucky to know Don and Mylene.
It started with someone giving me their phone number a few years ago because I wanted to contact them to give a talk at Mensa Penang.
They invited us to listen to their environment talk at the Pulau Tikus church one morning.
I was totally in awe of the tireless work they do.
They could have been enjoying a happy retirement in their home in Bukit Mertajam but they felt compelled to help the environment by teaching people a cleaner, easier method of recycling household wastes. The method also produces enough money for the local community to donate to their favourite causes or charity homes.
In fact over the past 12 years, they have helped raise over RM50,000 for their local charities. All these from two people who believed that they could. This does not take into account that their method is also helping many companies and hospitals and households in Penang go green easily. (Their method is clever and easy. The usual recycle bin method brings a lot of problems – dirty, smelly and who cleans the bins anyway? Their method makes recycling an accountable and effortless habit.)
Besides going all over Malaysia to give talks, they also teach people how to compost household scraps. Don’s method is the method I am using right now.
And I can vouch that there are no flies, no smells and no stink. What I get is rich compost – so rich that sometimes little seeds start growing right in the compost pots!
Over the past year and a half, Nic and I have thrown out very little rubbish because we recycle anything that can be recycled and we compost our organic food scraps. (I say this before prior to this, we lived high up and didn’t have the space to do all the green and eco-friendly things we wanted to do. Now that we’ve moved to a ground floor apartment with a scrap of backyard, I am now greener!). I save up used cooking oil to give to Mylene each time I see her. She passes it to a contractor who uses this cooking oil to make soap.
Whenever we meet up, we have many stories to exchange, primarily because Don and Mylene give a talk once every two weeks upon invitation from factories, NGOs, hospitals, schools and corporate bodies. They are also a couple who have enough energy to put younger people to shame. It is not easy for a couple in their 60s and 70s going all over Penang and sometimes all the way down to Johor to give free talks.
It is a tireless and oftentimes, a thankless role as environmental ambassadors and green crusaders. I hope I have their enthusiasm and energy when I get to my 60s.
What is not strange is that we love visiting them and each time we do, we have a feast!
Most elderly people will cringe at eating unhealthy stuff but not them. Oh not this feisty Eurasian couple!
Don loves his ‘too kar’ and so do I. So when we meet up, we go for ‘too kar’ (pig’s trotters) in Nibong Tebal which has a totally sinful version. This time around, we went to Look Yuen Restaurant in Bukit Mertajam for braised pig’s trotters. It was still unbelievably sinful and like chocolate, the gelatinous bits melted right in my mouth!
Besides the main star of the lunch (the trotters), other dishes which were heaven included Nyonya-style prawn sambal with a kick, springy fish ball soup (normally I don’t like fish balls but this was an exception) and stirfried sawi or mustard greens. Before we tucked into our main meal, we ordered 2 rounds of fruit rojak from the stall located just outside the restaurant. Pure yumminess!
Plus Don never says no to chocolate ice cream or chocolate while watching golf on TV.
Now how many senior citizens you know who are so darn cool?
Hatyai With Dancing Ladies, Part 2
If you read Part 1, Part 2 is where it gets interesting.
We were spending a two-day, one-night weekend in the Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel in the heart of Hatyai town.
It was a clever idea to get this hotel as it was smack dab in the midst of all the activity of the town and surrounded on all sides by malls, shops, restaurants, Western cafes and roadside stalls.
With such a great location, it’s just minutes away from all the shopping and eating we could all indulge in. (Later I found out that these ladies wrangled this hotel at the last minute due to knowing one of the directors of this hotel, who was an ex-student of Han Chiang High School. Normally this hotel is fully booked and packed to the gills with Malaysians.)
In fact, it’s built right on top of a shopping mall. I had a good view of the town from the hotel lobby.
I decided to take a quick nap after we checked in although the ladies decided to succumb to the shopping bug downstairs. I think a bit of shut-eye would make me more alert as I knew we would be staying up late (at least I knew I’d be!).
Around 4.30pm, we were again in our tour bus, shuttled to the Hatyai Floating Market.
Now I know and you know that this is really a tourist gimmick. Trust the enterprising Thais to create a way to give tourists something to do and something to eat and something to see. After all, if you really think about it, Hatyai isn’t exactly Disneyland. Spend more than 2 days here and you’d be bored to tears. It’s great for a weekend but anything more is overkill.
It was a bit of a let down because the market vendors had lined up sampans along the embankment of a river and seated all the food business folks into these sampans. It wasn’t as if these sampans were cruising the river and you could stop one to get your food.
Ah well. Maybe it was just jaded old me.
In typical Thai style, the food was enticing and presented well. Even drinks were sold in cute clay Doraemon mugs you could take home! But like Cecilia noted, who knows if the unglazed clay mugs were washed? They could be dusty and dirty. True.
We decided to just browse around. The rest of the market showed just how creative and enterprising the Thai people really are.
One stall had items such as handbags and cowboy hats made from aluminium or beer cans.
This lady was deftly putting together a cowboy hat made with flattened pieces of aluminium beer cans.
I also chanced upon fresh tamarind fruits. Tamarind is high in Vitamin C and the fruit is encased in a brown shell which breaks easily. Unlike the tamarind used for cooking, fresh tamarind is sweet and sticky, much like a fresh date.
It was a warm afternoon with the last rays of the sun beating down on us. I decided to quickly walk across a bridge where I soon came upon a stall selling fried bugs and fried worms.
Now I’ve seen enough of this on TV and was eager to bite into one. I had to know what the texture of a fried bug would be.
A number of people gawked at the bugs on the trays, stopping to snap photos but none were buying.
I decided to buy a packet (it was only 20 Baht or RM2). I asked the seller if I could mix 2 types of bugs into my one order. He was too happy to do so. I chose fried worms (looked a bit like the worms you get in pet shops to feed birds) and fried grasshoppers. I figured at least the grasshoppers ate proper green stuff unlike cockroaches, which was also for sale but the cockroach was huge and I didn’t know if I could bite it in half!
To make the bugs more palatable, the seller sprinkled some seasoning with a squirt of soy sauce.
Everyone looked at me, even strangers who were milling about and snapping photos of the bugs. I just speared one with a toothpick and popped one into my mouth. The fried worm tasted like dried prawn or “hae bee” albeit with a softer texture. It wasn’t bad at all.
Next I tried the fried grasshopper, about an inch long. This offered a crunch and it was also rather tasty. No icky taste at all. This could be the start of my love affair with bugs!
As I was happily munching on my bug snacks, Noel and BL were watching me. It looks horrible if you’re not eating it – your imagination powers up your innate fears about worms and creepy crawlies. It’s like Fear Factor – voyeurs tend to be more emotional than the people who eat those taboo things.
I offered Noel and BL some and they sportingly took some, though Noel wanted to have some water ready before he swallowed his fried worm. I told him that it was not fair to swallow it – he had to chew it and taste it.
It was a novelty all right but it was something exciting and fun and it capped the day for me. It was far more exciting than any pseudo floating market.
More to come… shopping on my own in Hatyai’s night market and a late night surprise!
Hatyai With Dancing Ladies, Part 1
It was one of those spontaneous things – I got invited to join a group of line dancing ladies from Han Chiang for a weekend in Hatyai in January (yes this is a very late post but better late than never ya!). Nic was visiting Kuching for the week and I had nothing planned so I thought, what a great idea.
I was amazed I could wake up that early for our bus ride into Thailand. I hadn’t been to Hatyai in years – not since the last time my uncle and aunt drove us there. I know Hatyai may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I know it’s a fun, kitschy place. It’s all things weird and funky. And did it get funkier as the day went!
Once we reached the border, it was quite a chaotic jam. As it was a Saturday, lots of cars and tour buses were making their way into Thailand too. Our bus took more than an hour to inch its way toward the border which separates Malaysia from Thailand. Technically, it was just a long gate. Once we passed the gate, everyone got down to clear immigration. We had to get our passports stamped.
Now I don’t know if you know this but apparently, our tour leader had to “visit” the Thai immigration office while we patiently lined up. He was “doing the necessary”. If he did not do the necessary, then the immigration officers might give us hell and slowly take their time. Can anyone confirm this? Apparently it’s an open secret. People just pay and move on. After all, they just want a weekend in Hatyai – so a few ringgit here and there won’t kill anyone.
Our first stop was for lunch (a very early one for Hatyai standards) just a few kilometres after we cleared the Thai immigration. Everyone who visits Thailand has 2 things in mind – food and shopping. Presumably, there’s nothing more delicious than real tongue-searing tomyam soup in Thailand.
Thai people are also big on “muu” or pork dishes so besides the ubiquitous tomyam, we had to order the braised pork leg with its gelatinous skin. The tomyam worked well in creating an appetite and a contrast to the richness of the simmered pork leg, tender in each mouthful.
Once our lunch was done, we trooped into a traditional style biscuit shop a few doors away.
Apparently these travelling companions of mine were old hands at this.
They knew which shop to buy from, which restaurant to eat at.
I marvelled at the way these ladies descended upon the biscuit shop. (It’s a wonderful change for me. Usually I am the holiday planner when Nic and I go travelling. This trip really allowed me to sit back and let others make decisions for a change.)
It wasn’t asking about the biscuits – boy, these ladies knew what they were after.
It was just a matter of deciding how much to order!
This shop sold kuih kapit with floss filling besides “thnee kuih” and all types of Thai biscuits and delicacies with a crunch.
In the end the ladies ordered tins of kuih kapit. Luckily, our bus was only half full so they could really shop to their hearts’ desire.
And this was only the first 2 hours outside Hatyai – we hadn’t even reached our hotel yet.
To be continued…. (where I get to the pseudo-floating market and eat a bunch of bugs, much to my friends’ disgust!)