Le ramblings of such and suches

Yeah, I know.. It's been sometime since I've last blogged! Life has been somewhat busy I suppose, well I have this crazy family (Correction, crazy MOMMY.) who enjoys planning for way too many field trips and outside-the-house-days and it kinda drains your energy and at the same time makes you value your at-home-time a whole lot more and since the boys and crazy Mommy are at the pool, I shall use this "Apartment alone" (Yes, we have been staying in an apartment for about.. 4ish or so days now, I can't remember cause time seems to be rather draggy here in this very small space! Ah well, at least I can get online!) time to blog.


Oh right, before I forget I might as well tell you what we are doing living in this tiny apartment that's located somewhere in Damansara..
I signed up for the 3 month City and Guilds patisserie diploma and the start of that three month course/diploma/thang starts on March 1st (Just a day before my fourteenth birthday!) and have I told you how much I love attending courses/diplomas/thangs?!
I mean.. It's always nice being surrounded by people who share your passion and being the youngest in class!
And by being the youngest you are usually-ish in the spot light and who doesn't enjoy getting attention, eh?
Oh yarh, that's basically why we moved down to this tiny apartment and I can hardly wait for March 1st to come! Even though I'm a teeny bit nervous on starting this super long course..
I think I read something about a uniform being included.. I hope a toque (I learnt what that white fluffy hat was called from Ratatouille! That show is AMAZING! My favorite line is probably Anton Ego's "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from ANYWHERE.")  is included cause I've ALWAYS wanted to wear on and one of those white chef-y uniforms with them big, black and bold buttons and whipping up patisseries everyday for 3 whole months!


ANYWHOO.. Let's start this post of with some cakes!

I am pretty proud of this cake, well not exactly the cake since it's just a regular butter cake (The birthday boy's favorite!) that's wrapped in a layer of butter cream and grey fondant.. So let me rephrase that, I am pretty proud of the CAKE TOPPER/figurine/sugar thang since this is my very first mythical creature and it turned out WAAAAAAAAAY better than I expected it to look!

Oh righty and it's my first time using a 'Wire armature" (A metal skeleton in other words.) for my sugar figurines and definitely sticking to them! How on earth could I not have thought about using them before?! I mean they are SO easy to make and they support the figurine SO well! Mr Infernal (Apparently my brother is quite alright at naming stuff to and I wonder how on earth he knew what an "Infernal" is.. Eh, strange person.) is still sitting in my cakery with all limbs and stuff intact, well the ants are slowly eating it's toes up but it is overall still in good condition! Usually gum paste stuff in my cakery that's left without a dehumidifier (A dehumidifier is a caker-who-lives-in-a-very-humid-part-of-the-world's bestfriend!) would turn into a pile of sludge overnight, it's a wonder how he is still standing on his own four feet.. Maybe I have to thank luster dust a bit too, hmm..       

Oh, speaking of luster dust.. I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINALLY USE THEM AFTER LIKE.. 3 YEARS! 

Long story short-

One day after reading some Alan Dunn book, 11 year old KCC decided to go get some PETAL dust to dust her rather ugly so-called "Gumpaste flowers" and she went to the only cake decorating supply shop she knew and it was called "Cake Connection" ANNND too bad cause they only had LUSTER dust left AAANNNDD she bought the luster dust dust cause she thought it would work only too bad cause the LUSTER dust was quite glittery and she ended up with glittery leafs and flowers.. THE END.

So yeah, I had absolutely NO use for them.. Until NOW! *Insert evil maniac laughter here* 

But before I splashed the "Holly green" luster dust on something told me to use a "Base color" and that base color (Speaking of color.. I asked the birthday boy what color he wanted his dragon to be and he said "Blue and red".. Or something like that, I only recall it as a horrid color combination! So since he has a horrible taste of colors I decided to make it MY favorite color, turquoise! I think I am a horrible sister.) was SK's "Hydrangea", one of my favorite dusting colors next to this deep, dark purple color which sounds a bit like "Aborigine"only it isn't and I can't believe I actually forgot what it is called! And a light pink called Tangerine, only I think CK labeled that dust wrong cause aren't tangerines orange? 

The most tiresome part of this particular figurine (My inspiration for Mr Infernal was from EVERYWHERE! I literally pieced together all my favorite parts of dragons I found on the web into one and he turn out looking quite handsome! Not Frankenstein-ish in anyway!) was probably the skin.. Each scale on that monster's body is HAND-POKED! ..With a Wilton 1L piping tip cause I was WAAY too lazy to actually cut out scales! Thank goodness I didn't do that or the cake would NEVER be done on time! 

The reason why Mr Infernal (I think I have got to stop calling it that..) has "Battle wounds" are because the birthday boy wanted him to be like you know those, errh.. Victorious hero from battle thingmajig, umm.. I think I'm ain't a very good explainer but basically Mr-Ahh I mean INFERNAL just won the battle!

One of the things I was MOST worried (Actually I was kinda worried about EVERYTHING since I have never made a dragon head to well, any part of a dragon before!) about was probably the claws and the muscles (I know them muscles are pretty minimal! I'll try to make my next dragon buffer! Hahaha!), only somehow they turned out the easiest to be made and I REALLY enjoyed making the feet! I make TERRIBLE human hands and feet but good dragon ones.. I think it's because the human hand and feet making was TAUGHT to me, I usually do better when I invent the whole thing and not to mention it's funner and free!

Zed Dabaliewee (She's one of my best pals!) came over to our Port Dickson place for the very first time on Fai's birthday and we made this poster together on the day after the party and now it's up on my cakery's wall! 

Okay, MOVING ON!

Equally as proud of my garbage truck! It's my very first pair of gumpaste "Wheels"!

It was rather exciting, getting an order for a gumpaste garbage truck topper (Unfortunately it wasn't a cake!)! Well, aren't all "Firsts" exciting?!

Never made SO many templates for a project before and never appreciated my craft knife this much too!

Again, it was interesting.. Exploring new techniques!

Since it was a garbage truck I decided to go ahead and paint garbage juice all over it and it made Mommy and Papa scream but I think a garbage truck with sludge all over lets the truck have a little more "Character" and after all, it's a garbage (Speaking about garbage.. I think I need to make better garbage bags next time round! These look a little like wontons.. Omnomnom!) truck and I doubt you have seen a squeaky clean one!

Making the maggots (Yes, that's what those mysterious white spots that are on the garbage are!) were fun since I had actual maggots to look at!

The day before making the maggots, Papa and I were plucking some weird fruit thing from our garden because he wanted to try to make wine out of them and MOST of them were crawling with maggots! I think these turn into fruit flies..

And I kept them in a container like I usually do when I find snails/slugs/maggots/other creepy crawlies in the fruits and vegetables! Oh lookie here! I actually found an old post of my no-need-to-look-after-muchie-pets: My arys

So.. Sometime a month back or so, I suddenly fell in love with YouTube again! And this time.. With fashion and beauty videos! Yeah, that's my current secret, I mean not-so-secret-anymore obsession (Speaking about obsessions.. I am officially a scarf freak! No thanks to those "Forgot-how-many ways to wear a scarf video"!) !

I don' know why but I think playing with fashion is fun and I DO feel like I want to go into the fashion industry, it sounds fun!

And along the way I also found some jewelry making and re-vamping/re-using old stuff videos, I guess you could say I was pretty inspired by them and decided to try some stuff out by turning that old t-shirt to an off shoulder half top AND making bows..

Only I don't recall watching a bow making video but one day I just sat down making cloth bows and soon moved to ribbon pinwheel bows! 

As the days passed all my plain hair clips and hairbands has bows stuck on them and soon ran out of stuff to stick them on!

So one evening while we were out we went to a "Pasar Malam" and I stumbled across half a dozen hair starf-y shops and went on a buying frenzy! Who knew it was so fun buying plain hair accessories?! 

Making your own accessories is a pretty fun way to pass time I suppose! And not to mention you can wear what you made out!

Above: My re-vamped ballet flats!

Below: More bows accessories! The white cloth is from a long pant lining!

Above: Made this today after watching a "How to make a bohemian wrap bracelet" (I LOVE bohemian stuff! I mean, I have ALWAYS loved them since they are so "Island/vacation-ish"!) about a week back, only I made it without that troublesome threading!

-Karen Cuppy Cake

Bothers

I mean bRothers, my brothers who are bothers. Weak smile*
Oh and some other ACTUAL bothers...

I just realized I haven't posted ANYTHING in about a week... Oopsies?
Anyways, half way through that very silent week... There was this day when it was raining horses and ponies the ENTIRE day and the next morning after (Didn't want to enter and cake since it was wet and I was positive that working with gum paste was going to be hard so I kinda "ignored" the room that whole day.) I went in to find that...

1. My humongous white 22" cake board (I only use such HUGE cake boards for competitions, they somehow scare me that's why I enjoy making mini cakes and mini wedding cakes! But of course what's the point of entering a competition and not err... I mean staying in your comfort zone. Like last year, I used square cake dummies instead of the usual round because I wanted to get over my square sharp corner phobia...) that I was in the middle of completing a gothic lace on top was the color of yeast (And sticky to the touch, all the fondant cover dummy cakes were too! And it felt more like some sort of icing instead of fondant!), obviously it was some sort of yeast colored fungus... (And the 3 mini bottom tiers that were a "continuation" of the gothic table cloth like thing were fungused up too! I took a day for EACH mini bottom tier things with such a small tip that made my right palm almost disabled!)

2. My black gothic (This years entry is very goth/vampire inspired, I think you realized that already..) necklace inspired,  #0 tip was... was... A black puddle of muck around the round grey cake dummy, with the runny, melted black royal icing running down, all round the cake like messed up eye liner!

3.
My (I think I need to stop saying my but that was my SUPER hard aching hands work that was a cake wreck in a DAY! No one would ever know how frustrated I felt at that moment, EVER.) multi colored, hand painted (And piped.) stained glass window inspired tier separator was another eye liner running down mess with a brown not black pool of VERY watery royal icing at the bottom!
I spent about... 3 Days in total on that tier, all ruined, sigh...

That day was another one of those days where I absolutely HATE the country I live in, WHY did I have to be born in such a HUMID country?!
WHY couldn't I have been placed um... A bit... Higher up?
Not long after, the flood gates couldn't stand it.
And not long after that my whole shirt was soaked with tears and I was curled up in a fetal position on my favorite couch trying to concentrate on reading a horseback riding book I borrowed from the Science center library but... My eyes didn't seem to be able to focus on anything.

Now that I recall... I cried last year too, working on my entry.
In the end my entry only had 3 tiers and a cake topper when it was supposed to have five, I am PRAYING that wouldn't happen this year.
And hopefully they won't ask me to go on stage to speak again and if they do I hope I don't start crying.

Conclusion= I think I cry too much... It's amazing how I did not die of dehydration.

So anyways, the only thing that could make me happy was...

You guessed it (Or maybe not...)! K-pop/Kapoop.
So after a couple of days of full time kapooping I think.. I am finally mentally, alright to start over again.
And this time... Armed with those dehumidifiers!
I have my fingers, toes and any other part of my body that I can cross, crossed now and I am also praying that it would make the 1 1/2 hours rather pot holey (Believe me, I tried counting the amount of portholes/bumps on the way to KL! But somehow lost count!) journey to Sunway giza at some very scary time in the morning and I would be 3/4 asleep so... Errh. I think I should think too much about it right now.

Anyways (I LOVE this word! It's my "change subject" word, I think.), my laptop was being hogged by some people/person so I was getting a bit restless this morning...
I can't start my day with out my "coffee" (That's what Mommy calls err... it.), it used to mean just Facebooking but now I think... My SHINee is more important.

(I was supposed to complete this post last night but my Dad managed to grab it from me to do his Rotary work so since I had to wake up early the next morning, today, for horseback riding, I went up to sleep.
ANYWAYS I am "half leasing" KC now, can't remember if I said that already in my previous post and "half leasing" give me the ABILITY to ride him 3 times a week, chose Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, if you must know, 3 hours a day! Before leaving I mummified myself with... Looks at tape dispenser*, apparently it is surgical tape but it is just expensive masking tape to me... Let's see I had to tape both my ring fingers at the "middle joint", my left finger had a bubbly blister burst, skin peeled out, healed slightly, cut, healed, peeled off and now it looks fine I think, hopefully I won't cut it again and my right finger is fine but I will be "mummyfrying" them forever because even my right alright finger seems rather painful after riding WITH the "surgical tape"! And... Patching up some random parts of my body. For the record I ACTUALLY ran out of plasters! KCC never runs out of plasters, EVER. So I had to use some nail polish remover cotton and surgical tape to make my own plaster and "patch up" my body..
ANYWAYS, I am going to purposely overuse this word in my post today. Since I was "half leasing", full leasing is 6 times a week I think, I would DIE if I full leased a horse... KC, I OFFICIALLY know what it stands for! KC= Karen Cuppycake's horse, HAH! Okay wait, let me start again, Since I was "half leasing" Karen Cuppycake's horse there of course, were no "instructors" and I could... Go clockwise and anti a billion times so I could sploosh in the big fat puddle that the little bit of rain created at dawn! Disadvantage= No people yelling at me. Kinda miss that...
ANYWAYS after the usual 6 rounds of "fast" walking, not the usual "sleep" walking I do with Key, I mean King, I keep mentally calling Key, King today, I mean King, Key, sigh... Started on the sitting trot, it was getting easier but I think I was getting used to the bumps so I decided to try what Zarina and the riding book I have been reading's technique but somehow I... Bounced around even more!
So I somehow tried err... Different ways to sit in the saddle?
After a couple/handful of minutes I had ACTUALLY got it! I was supposed to "relax" my waist and follow the flow but it was somehow rather tough so instead of concentrating on keeping your waist stuck to saddle your stomach! And kinda push it down and forward-ish, kinda hard to explain so when you concentrate on your stomach your waist is free to do what ever it pleased so whatever it pleases = relaxing!
YESH! I felt as though as I had crack the Da Vinci code or something.. Humongous grin*
So instead of my behind being painful it was my stomach but I guess after 1 1/2 months horseback riding... You are used to pain!
The rest of the 1 1/2 hours on Karen Cuppycake's horse was bliss...
So I had a VERY enjoyable "leasing" today, yippee! Can't wait to ride again in the evening!
Okay! Back to the story!)  

So, yesterday my Dad was hogging the laptop from morning till late afternoon from his Rotary work, rolls eyes*
Wait, I think I already said that and the fact that I was half dead without my "coffee".
Somehow... Fai managed to drag me to read a HUGE Pokemon book (I think it was some annual or something we did "Number coloring" too, 1=Pink, 2=Green typa thing. I kinda forgot that he couldn't color very well since he enjoys drawing more I think and he is pretty good at drawing his knights and other mythical stuff, no way I could draw those when I was 7! I think my favorite things to draw then were fat giraffes and butterflies... So I kinda taught him how to color "evenly" and of course teach him colors!) to him, I think need to tell you that I don't read to my brothers very much but I found it kinda fun and tongue drying so I managed to read about... 3 stories and after every two minutes Zed dabaliewee would reply to my text so I would have to run from the hall to the study since the phone was charging!
It was a fun sister-brother bonding time thingy, then me, Han (Fai wanted to play with the uno stacko..), Mommy and Ean cycled (I cycled with Han, Mommy and Ean walked. Han wanted to stand on the "extended back seat" at first but after 10 seconds he slowly started to squat then after 5 seconds he was sitting because... Apparently (I seem to over use this word too..) I am too skinny to hold on too while he is standing.) to buy some Malay kuai (Nice fresh currypuffies, om nom noms.) for tea, Mommy and ean didn't follow us back because Ean wanted to go to the beach and the moment we reached home Papa was done with his hogging and went to the beach as well, unfortunately for me the "remaining" boys got to the laptop before I did to play their Poptropica, couldn't stand my kapoop urge so I asked them to open up a new window and type "Y" in the search bar and press enter (Hah! Auto youtube. Winks*) while I put head phones on.
Then type "R-I-N-G-D-I-N-G-D-O-N-G" in the youtube search bar (It amazing how happy they can get while typing something out..) and press on the first video that comes out, they were pretty pleased with themselves, still have no idea why.
After a couple of seconds Han yelled out: I LOVE this song (I think he remembers listening to it on Machika's iPod..)! It has angels in it right?!
They were supposed to just go back to their Poptropica after pressing "Play" for me but they wanted to watch the angels then Han yanked out my headphones and said: I want to listen too! Fake frowny face*
After rewatching it for the second time he pointed at Onew and said: I like this angel.
And when he came on again he said: THAT'S my angel!
I was pretty shocked that he could recognize him since I could only recognize all off them after like... A couple of days! I think he has better eyes/brains than me.  Laughs*
Showed him Lucifer but he said he liked the "Angels" one better but this one was O.K and Hello but he said he liked the other two better this one is boringgg... Annoyed face*
Not long after the loaf of bread Ean or was it Han or Fai? Baked was done so we had a nice bread and a slab of butter picnic. Smiley face*

When we were half way through (When the "rest" came back and after dinner was cooked.) dinner Han suddenly went "Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Fantastic" (I still don't understand why ALL kapoop songs like putting in random English words in their songs, I suppose that's like their... Trade mark?) and I kinda fell off my chair laughing and choked on some rice! (Got a deathly what did YOU do to Han when we were away glare from Mommy.)
I didn't expect him to remember ANY of the lyrics from the song..!
He sang that awkward verse again when he was brushing his teeth, hahaha! He enjoys singing the awkwark verse at awkward moments...
I hope this doesn't continue...

~K

P.S
I changed my mind about having no pictures in this post, here are the disaster photos I took while clearing out my cake room: Entering crime scene*

 Above:

My "Stained glass window" inspired cake separator, I guess now it REALLY is stained, the grey dummy cake was the gothic necklace inspired one and now the top of it has a photo copy of the stained glass inspired cake's RI piping!

And... Try spotting the pale pink (Un-dusted, whew!) roses.

Below:

My stained glass inspired cake separator working place, notice the black watery pool, it was stiff consistency black RI awhile back... (Ignore piping bags.)   

Above:

My 3 tiers on 3 base (Inspired by the royal wedding cake.) with a half completed cake board. FUNGUSY!  

Below:

At least I managed to save two tiers of work... They are now "drying" in my cake room.

Above and below:

YEAST FUNGUS THINGY

Above:

Managed to save the cake board as well by scrapping off the paper!

Goodbye... My beautiful (Freehand piping in monochrome...), sob.

Below:

More fungus?

Swathy-Machika-Blooregard 2

Yippee I actually made it to the second post! (I am usually too lazy to do so.)
Want to know Blooregard's version of her visit to Peedee? Check this out: Penguins grow on trees (Don't laugh at her post's title, I mean laugh as much as you like she will probably be killing me anytime soon so I guess a little more embarrassment won't hurt. Grin*)

Okie dokie orie pokie porky! Let's start.. Uh, I mean continue! (Again stuff didn't happen in this order, I have goldfish memory like Blooregard says.)

Henna:

Machika has been obsessed (And I have been all my life! I still remember that visit to "Little India" (One of "Little me's" favorite places when we lived in Singapore. Love the Indian "Bling", as in the bangles and saris! Apart from that and the henna I love Indian food especially that particular very squishy shop that had an "upstairs", we would usually sit "upstairs" because I insisted to, (I always enjoyed being on top, like the top of a double decker bus, a bunk bed etc.) and the only thing I would order there was an ENORMOUS bhatura or 2 midium sized pooris! Loved the fact that it is an edible balloon (See! I was actually addicted to edible art since then! Funny recalling it all of a sudden. My favorite cake shop was "Polar's cakes" and I actually ENJOYED eating the edible image then, ewww! And I would persuade my mom to get me a mini edible image and butter cream chocolate cake (I actually waited to get home before scoffing it down and savoring the chocolate butter cream covered edible slowly after the chocolate cake was long gone!) every weekend since we would usually be hanging around in one of the many shopping malls we visit and maybe going to Singapore's wonderful library after that, I wish Malaysia had Singapore libraries sometimes..) and I would try to eat it before it collapsed, I don't think I ever succeeded though but it was always fun!) , Singapore  when I was 5, 6 or was it 7?  I LOVE the feeling of the cool crushed henna leaf paste being "piped" onto the back of my palm and watching the henna-ist doing her magic and seeing the usually floral design take shape within minutes! I personally can't take "long term" projects very much, I have to see almost instant results.)  with henna since our visit to Batu caves in March (Or maybe before that, am not too sure.).

I was pretty surprised when she came back in June with a plastic bag FILLED with black, brown, glittery and even henna that you could paint with but that of course spoils all the "piping" fun in it!

In minutes our wooden glass topped dining table was turned into a beauty parlor desk with henna tubes scattered (My new favorite word, I think.) all around!
Guess who did "Beautifying" (AKA "Henna-ing" with "Inai" leafs but since we were in a beauty parlor I might as well call it "beautifying".) ?!

ME!
The closest thing I ever did to beautifying (Lets see... I don't use make-up and even my strawberry flavored lip-gloss which I bought when I was 7 is still laying in pristine condition somewhere at the back of my nail polish drawer.. Oops did I just say "N-a-i-l P-o-l-i-s-h"?! (I have always loved "Nail polish-ing, I think before I was the "Cupcake girl" I was pretty much known as the "Nail polish girl". I remember those days in the dojo half of the class would be asking me what my nail polish color this week was!) Yeah... I suppose that's the only "beautifying" thing I use which it more like art than beautifying, I think. Ever since I got a bottle of "Gothic morbid black" nail polish (My parents were going to "Central" to do grocery shopping, Sharp-eyes-for-accessory shops-me spotted one and there we, as in me, Swathy and Machika stayed until my parents were done shopping, we kinda weren't finished with that shop yet when they came to drag us home. I have a feeling we should be thanking that shop keeper for "Baby-sitting" us for an hour or 2, oh yeah, I forgot we bought stuff. LOADS. I am pretty sure you wouldn't want to hear my what-I-bought list like the last post so I shall just zip up.) that had a super fine brush my nails were basically blank canvases. Note* Woah! That was one long "bracket in a bracket" post!) was probably doing an egg white facial (Trust me, even Machika though I was mad that day.) and finding a box of my grandma's eye shadow and doing my version of make-uping, a black eye, red nose and rainbow colored cheeks on Machika, she kinda did the same to me! I never though make-up was so fun!

It was my first time "Henna-ing" yet it came quite easily since I actually put the henna into a #1 piping tip and piped as though it was royal icing not mushed leafs! The only problem was I couldn't lift the "icing" of much so  the first few minutes of piping was pretty awkward but I soon got used to it, I guess.

Check out the hand and leg (Hand's mine, Leg's Machika's. Kinda did a switch mani/pedi last night, use machika's slime green and she used my glittery purple. Love the fact that both of us love "weird" neon colored nail polish!) below, those are my henna designs with probably my own twist (If you have noticed, I like piping random dots on!), like it?
  

I did M Kucheh's hand and ankle (She requested for a butterfly! I found it pretty challenging but it turned out pretty good I suppose!) too and Machika's other un-henna-ed hand too.

Since I haven't piped in ages my hand felt as though it was on fire and that all my finger joints had been dislocated, the same feeling I had during the SK diploma, ughs.

To those that aren't familiar with "Henna-ing" you would have to allow it to dry (That means no moving your hand or foot, at ALL!) for at least 50 minutes to an hour then wash it off, it would leave an orange or brown henna "Tattoo" on your skin and that would probably last for a week or two at most. 

Machika was pretty impressed with my "Piping" skills (Of course, who wouldn't? ...Is it that obvious that I was kidding?! I think I should brag more...), she said that it would be nice if we could open a tiny henna and accessory shop in Tokyo together one day and use the cash we earned to travel the world. Oopses! Did I already mention that in the first post?! "Thousand apologies"! (Tags Swathy! Don't you dare comment on this post, "Por favor" or "Bochana" or "Oh blimey" or you vill ve veli dead, I vill be sending "Chairman Mao's" ghost to haunt you , Mwahahaha! Use Su Li or was it Lee? accent*) 

Is it THAT obvious that we have been watching too much "Mind your language"?! Fine. The Soons passed us    their whole collection when we made a trip down to Kuala Lumpur with Swathy and Machika, we did a tour of the "Central Market" and it's art museums and... It's many tiny accessory shops!

I think we stayed up till 2AM that night watching "Mind your language"! We completed the whole series in 3-4 days!

I am pretty sure in this "post" I covered more than henna so moving on...

Signing out as Beautifying Bootie Beautee Parlor Karen.

Melacca AKA Melaka but I think I prefer it's "English" name, thank you very much.:

We visited Melacca twice, once with Swathy AND Machika and the next time without Swathy. Sob.

Melacca visit 001- We probably slept at 1 or was it 2 AM?, we were busy chit-chatting I suppose, as usual. Woke up at midday when we were supposed to leave the house at 9AM to Melecca, oops.

We left as soon as our feet touched the bottom of the stairs or was it after lunch? I told you I have gold fish memory, we took the coastal road (As usual.) down, got lost somewhere halfway but I was too sleepy to bother much.

Our first stop was the "Cheng Ho" (Ugh! Do I HAVE to explain who he is?! Wikipedia is only a click away! And as said so above I can't remember much and to make it worst my brothers are playing with their new toy, a machine gun. Or was it a riffle? Or sniper? All I remember was a eunuch, personally I think it should have been called "Eu ouch" instead. He went on 6 or was it 7 voyages in total and he went from China all the way to Africa, the order he was given was to explore west. He had a fleet of 120+ or was it 1200?! ships from a growing vegetable, water, life stock ship to humongous battle ships, it was basically a floating Chinese city, he had a crew of 24000. He was ordered by the emperor to spread peace or something like that so he was given silk and stuff like that to distribute. The emperor's favorite gift (He basically traded Chinese stuff with the stuff where he went place's stuff and brought them back for the emperor. Melacca gave him a few trunk fulls of spice, they were very valuable then.) was a GIRAFFE but it wasn't a African one though. On his 6th voyage the emperor died so his voyages stopped after some time the "new" emperor asked him to sail again and that's when he died somewhere in the Indian ocean. Sob.) museum on Jonker's street since we parked (Parking is rather hard to come by over there.) some where near it.

Tour, tour, read signboards, look at exhibits then finally it was time for the short Cheng Ho "movie", we had the whole theater hall to ourselves since we were the last customers of the day, nice. Blah blah Cheng Ho stuff then they were speaking about how he sailed the world? 70+ years before Christopher Colombus then there was a bit about him and his ship was called "Santa Maria" and at that exact moment me and Swathy screamed/screeched "SANTA MARIA" (In a Juan/Spanish accent with both hands half-way up, fingers curled in a bit, head tilled up slightly*) add a few hundred exclamation marks after that! And then of course we burst out laughing, Mommy and Papa did too! Yes, "Mind your language" again! Ahh... I so want to replay that moment again!

After the museum we went up with Poh poh ang Kong kong, my Mom's parents for lunch.

They took us to a tiny open air food court, I don't think you can call it a "Food court" since there were only 15-20 stalls and only 8 were open! That was right next to the very beautiful Portuguese (Mommy says "Malaysian Portuguese basically look like a mix of Chinese, Indian and Malay. And that they have "European" surnames, I don't think I would be able to spot one just yet.. Tags Blooregard, MWAHAHA!) village that has a "Moat" around it and beautiful bridges to cross over. Another thing, one of them is haunted, someone cut of the heads of that village's "head" people and hung them from one of the bridges, nice?

A Chinese porridge shop and a rice and soup shop.

The only place on earth I would survive my whole life and not get fed up of the food.

I LURRRRVE (Remember to roll the "Arrrrrrr" a bit for me, eh?) fish porridge (With A heap of pepper, another head of sesame oil and a dash of soy sauce. What do those foodies say again? Oh right. A COMPLETE match make in heaven! Scoffs food down*) and ANY bowl of Chinese herbal and non-herbal ones as well I guess.. you throw at me!

Karen Cuppy Cake's list of favorite Chinese (Chinese or maybe just Malaysian Chinese..? people make the best soups in the world!) herbal and non-herbal soups:

• 1st Place: Snail and slug soup AKA watercress soup (When Mommy makes it she usually finds a dozen tiny snails and slugs in the watercress which I usually put in a container with a few stalks of watercress and observe them for a week or so then dispose of them in the compost heap, I am not really sure if they lived or not.. Probably not. So that's basically the history of Snail and slug sloup. One of those soups which I actually eat everything from the vege to the meat unlike herbal soups. I don't exactly fancy eating roots and stuff like black chicken but of course the soup's scrumptious!) and herbal black chicken soup. 

Some random not that bitter herbal soups that I don't know the name of come next and  then there is old cucumber (It isn't really over ripe cucumber, it is a different sort of vegetable all together, really.) soup and ABC soup (Potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, black pepper and chicken.)

When all hope is lost AKA when those soups aren't available at home then it's time for the almighty... Canned mushroom soup!

Okie, back to the story! 

At the Rice N soup shop they also sold tiny saucers of "Steamed" stuff like egg or "Cawanmushi" like Machika calls it and steamed mince pork with salted vegetables, yummm.

Note* I am practically drooling right now.

BEST.Dinner.You.Could.Possibly,Get.On.Earth. Well next to "Yong tau foo" @ Peel rd and a nice bloody medium-rare Sizzling steak @ The Ship. (And a nice bowl of shark's fin soup with some crab meat thrown in it, if you don't mind.) Why exactly am I tempting myself again? Ughs.

"People" say I am a fussy eater, I think I just have good taste buds. (Like what I mentioned in my Ratatouille post. I am exactly like the food critic. "I don't like food, I LOVE it and if I don't love it I don't SWALLOW" I guess I have "Laid off" quite a bit this few years, sob. I am losing my inner "fussy-ness".)  

Okay back to the "Melacca" subject, I can speak about food for the whole day but just not this one.

After our very early dinner we went down to the "Around-the-moat" for a lovely evening walk.

Me-Machika-Swathy @ That-Portuguese-moat-place.

Then... We went to eat again, not very surprising if you lived in a family like mine. Weee Lurrrve (Roll that "Arrr" again for me please!) Foood!

Just a short intruding, not much point story: 

We (Me and Blooregard.) were ordered to wake up at "Oh six hundred" the next morning by Papa so we slept "early" (My early is anytime before 12 midnight. I go up to my room @ 12, Pick a book and finish reading by about 1-ish or 4 if I plan to do a speed reading series marathon. Oh, love the freedom of finally having my own room and turning the light off at will, I still wish I had that *Clapclap* off light or at least the switch beside my bed would be nice thing because walking or more like running my legs off in the dark from the switch the bed is the most terrifying thing, ever.) at 10PM, without supper.

We had the usual "Sleepover" (I don't understand why they call it that when we don't sleep more than 3 hours at a sleep over because we are too busy talking and talking and talking some more!) chit-chat once I switched the light off and made a dash to my nice safe bed and my "Invisibility from ghosts cloak" blanket, this time I think it was about K-pop since I got her addicted as well! May thy K-pop disease take over ze vorld! Evil maniac laughter*  

Blooregard said she was a little hungry then she started talking about FOOD.

She said a name of a food and i would answer if I liked it or not, my answers were usually longer though.  

For example: She asked if I like apple (Or some other fruit, I think it was Sibble berry pie, I don't really recall but all fruit pies are the same to me.) pie. My reply: Fruits don't go in PIE, it's disgusting! Only meat does! Especially beef, Mmm beef pie! I am pretty sure I went on and on and on (Sings that Abba song!) 

Not very long after I screamed: LETS GO DOWN FOR SUPPER!

Blooregard: Yes! In 26 minutes! Woo hoo!

That Blooregard is pure evil, I tell yah! Eeeeviiiilll!

End of story.

SEE?! I can't stand skipping a meal and supper is one of my most important meals of all (Brunch, lunch, Tea 1, Tea 2, Dinner, Supper 1 and supper 2)!

Melacca visit 002- Not much to say about this trip.

Went to Afamosa (The fort not the theme park thing.) for the 5th time or so, it's getting rather boring and I almost died of thirst in there since I and the rest of the crew forgot to bring our water bottles!

Shopped like mad in Jonker's walk and the tiny shops at the base of the fort, I love walking (Or more like running since there were sooo many shops and sooo little time!) and feeling a few dozen bags clang against my leg..  

Had dinner at my favorite place again then off we zoomed home!

MelaKaren signing off!  

Blooregard:

I dedicate this entire part of the post to Miss Basil Blooregard the munchkin since she can sleep from 1AM till 8 PM a day and she can't cycle so there isn't much I can do with her except talk, do french tips for her beautiful long finger nails (I can NEVER have long nails, they are so darn uncomfortable! I have no idea how "Long finger-nailed people" stand it... And I actually mastered the art of french tipping! Woo hoo!), drag her to the beach one day and wake her to eat. Laughs*

During her first night a bat flew into my room and started crashing into my walls and going round and round like the metal ball in a pin-ball machine. Even without my glasses I could see a black shape flying on top of us, kinda scary (the scary part was probably it screeching and making weird sounds.), even for me. A few bats flew into our hall before but never into my room and how on earth did it get in?! My door was shut and so was my glass sliding door to the balcony..

After five traumatized screaming our lungs out minutes I decided to put on the light and open the door.

The bat dropped onto my rug but I dare not drag it out so... I went to call my my dad.

After a minute of violent shaking.. He didn't get up, nice.

Time for plan "B"!

Get all you important belongings and "RUUUUN"! 

This girl ran (Tag Blooregard. Vampire kisses #1, Trevor Mitchel, the woods, tee hee!)  to her grandma's empty bed (She went back with M Kucheh to Ipoh.) in perfect condition (Mine is full of crumples, pillows all over the place and my blanket on top of it all. I find it a waste of time doing it all up then messing it up again at night and the night after that and that.) room and I actually made up the bed again the next morning, I think it looked quite good and up to grandma standards.

The next most interesting thing was sending her back (I am just kidding but Blooregard is waiting very  impatiently for this post and I am feeling very sleep indeed and my gums hurt a bit from that scaling I did at the dentist today so I might as well hurry up.) home, not exactly home because then I would be sending her back to Penang! Just back to her Mom I suppose you could say.

First stop- Pudu Raya.

Dropped Papa off there to take a bus to Ipoh (This was the day that we had to wake up at "Oh six hundred", we woke up at 5.30AM but too bad my parents only woke up at 7AM...) and supposedly Blooregard as well but that kinda changed after a few phone calls.

Second stop- Library.

And.. It was closed, nice.

Third stop- Amcorp mall.

We zoomed (Spotted a tiny fashion accessory boutique called "Karen's Collection" and it had all my favorite things in it but the prices are waaay over my price range!) upstairs to "Book Xcess" and Blooregard went crazy over the books and it prices, very much predicted by psychic me. 

Spotted a Cathy Cassidy book I have always wanted to read, "Angel Cakes".

The "Guy" in the book was called Dan (Watta boring name.) and at one "Scene" he was helping his mom (Called Karen and she runs a bakery and she makes caaaakes! Seems like today is "Karen Day".) give out cupcakes in the pouring rain and he was wearing angel wings, which instantly reminded me of what SHINee wore in their "Ring Ding Dong" video so I pictured him giving out cupcakes in the pouring rain, wearing some angel wings and... Dancing the "Ring Ding Dong" dance. I couldn't help it, I started laughing my lungs out and I am pretty sure the whole store noticed but WHO CARES! Read it over and over again and therefore I laughed over and over again!

It was a nice book and it was only RM17 but after reading the back cover it said 9yr and above, so that book clearly went back on the shelve.

Now Blooregard is starting to "Woof" me so I guess my post is done! Till next time my dear followers!

Carrot Guppy Ache

Helga

Meet Helga, my shadow puppet that I made during the Sticks, Stones, Broken Bones preview out of A4 size card stock and that Christmas tree fluffy plastic garland thing!

I/We got the chance to perform in the VERY empty hall of mine (We are currently in the mids of shifting to our place in Port Dickson (I can't wait to start un-packing things into my new cakery! Woot woot!*), Sunday would be my last day here in PJ! So my hall is furniture less at the moment, PERFECT for a shadow puppet show!)) with my brother, Fai  and our shadow puppets!

Above:

Helga feeling rather bored, she's picking her nose. I made her it her own booger, I am sucha horrible puppet master!

(Like her warty nose, very tangled hair and fangs?!)

Below:

OMIGOSH! You did WHAT?!

Above:

Helga's scolding/shouting pose she has with my brother's most of the time... 

Above and below:

Meet the puppet masters!

I can't wait for another puppet workshop we are having tomorrow with Mr Bunk! Thanks for organizing another one, Mommy!

~K 

Stick, Stones, Broken Bones

Me: You know what?

YOU/ Person reading my blog at the moment: Just TELL me already I am NOT saying "What" because you want me to say "What"!

Me: You just said what TWICE ,Dearie. I am pretty sure you can say it again. Annoying smiley face*

YOU/Person reading my blog at the moment: Jeez, oh fine.. WHAT?!

Me: I think... I just came back from the greatest show on Earth or Mars or Neptune or Jupiter or Saturn or even Pluto! Oh... Is it not considered anymore? My apologies!

Ehem. How did you like my little play? On the one I went to today wasn't as annoying and boring as this it was SO hilarious I was totally out of breath from laughing my head off by the time the 1 hour shadow puppet show ended!

I REALLY wished it was like a couple of hours longer because that 1 hour felt like 20 minutes! It was over in no time! But if it was a couple of hours + I would probably be dead since no air could enter my lungs from all that laughing! EVERY single scene was pure AWESOMENESS! Simple yet AWESOME it made the whole theater of audience laugh their head off and "Hooting"!

HOLD IT! You know what? (Haha! I am asking that question again! Whoops!) I am in the NEWSPAPERS  (Whoops no "s' but I think it sounds better like this.) because we went for the preview of the play/show a couple of days ago and we got to make our OWN shadow puppets out of cardboard/card stock and plasticy fluffy Christmas garlands for the hair AND go on stage to make our very own shadow puppet show (I made a female witch/vampire named Helga that had a SUPER warty nose, some messy fringe and a long pony tail and of course, FANGS! I did bite my brother's puppet's neck quite a lot, his looks like some Roman king because of the garland that looked like that leafy crown they have! We also found some pencils on the floor and pretended they were magic wands, we made our puppets cry out a couple of Happy Potter spells at each other and pretend to faint/die! Hahaha! *I did a quick scan of what I wrote and found out I wrote "Happy" instead of "Harry", did you notice? Tongue sticking out smiley*), I had an AWESOME time there and it managed to convince us to go for the actual show! Again! Smiley face*

Check it out: HERE
It should be pretty easy to spot me, I am the odd one out in the row of little kids on stage! Hahaha!

Above:

Mr Bunk AKA Jeff Achtam Helping me start off with my (My Mulu bracelets made a nice necklace for my witpire!) hand puppet! The bottom part of your thumb is the bottom jaw, awesome right? Gosh! I wish I was THAT creative!

Below:

Mr Bunk performing Micheal Jackson's "Moon walk" during the preview, it was one of the 3 he demonstrated but this was the one I loved the most because he made it do lotsa crazy things! 

So anyways we had 3 extra tickets (We bought a package thingy-ma-jig.) so my Mom told me that I could invite 2 of my friends since my brother, Fai asked his bestest friend in the whole wide world Arian to come already.
I invited Zed Dabaliewee and Swathy without expecting them to be able to come but they DID in the end! I was super surprised and of course SUPER happy!

I haven't seen ZW in a REALLY long time and I was pretty excited that I could FINALLY meet up with her again! She came early to my place and we played our "traditional" game of Screaming Scrabble, a game that uses the scrabble tiles without the board that was taught to me by my Uncle! It is pretty much my FAVORITE board game in the world!
Want me to teach you how to play it? Just don't cry if I win okay? Tee hee!
We did tweak it a little since we have been playing it for AGES to make it more interesting, as in more difficult  of course!

Pretty soon it was time to leave for the PJLA theater in Jaya 1, we had Wendy's (I personally love that particular Wendy's because it's only channel on their TV is MTV!) for dinner since it was just opposite it!

While we were waiting for the food I decided to give Swathy a ring to remind her about the show and it turns out she was out photocopying some stuff?! Gave a her a bit of a "talk" and she came anyway, late but she came so I am pretty contented. Smiley face*

It turned out we were 5 minutes early for the show in the end! Woo hoo!
Since both Zed Dabaliewee and Swathy has never seen a shadow puppet show in their entire life they were pretty darn jumpy excited! And so was I of course! I have never seen one before let alone go for a play! Unless you count the preview!

Then all of a sudden "PLOOPF" the lights went off and we were sitting there 3 rows away from the stage in COMPLETE TOTAL darkness... Ooowh.
Swathy did a "Whoooooooo oooowh" in my ear, I let my fingers go slowly down ZW's spine! What fun we had scaring our selfs!
After a couple of minutes in the rather noisy darkness, everyone started wondering what happened to the lights! A single spot light came on and in came Mr Bunk wearing a funny looking shirt with a vest on top, too short rather high up pants and a woolish hat (He wore quite ordinary clothes during the preview!) from the entrance at the back!
All eyes were on him and he was checking on all of us and then he went into the row behind us and... Took of f on of the audience's shoes! Those black type of shoes you wear with a tuxedo. Which left the whole crowd VERY curious on what he was going to use it for!

He then asked the owner of the shoe if it was "Expensive"! How...Very kind and the he did some of his puppetery magic on it.... He used some masking tape (I noticed he absolutely LOVES them!) and added a stick? or something straight at the heel then he took a rainbow clown wig from a line of costumes behind him and a balloon, he started blowing the balloon the the wig it was starting to look like a head then he threw a roll of masking tape to one of the young audience in the front row and asked him to tear a few strips for him, he began to stick them to the balloon in a very interesting way that it stuck out, once he was done with that he told him that he could keep the roll of masking tape as an souvenir! And then proceeded to cut it into a pair of glasses, a nose and mustache! (I am not too sure if the rest of the audience could see it but I could since I went for the preview! I could see taht Swathy and ZW looked pretty blur? on what he was doing!) Then some "movie" music came on and the balloon clown with glasses was watching TV on the screen, he made it laughing during the funny parts and act really scared during the horror/gory parts and made it eat popcorn and guess what the shoe was?! A drink! Genius! (The shoe got passed back to the owner after that!)

After that there was 'Kung foo" fighting, Chess playing, dancing with a air guitar and horse back racing! Every single act was SO clever (And funny, DUH! We would clap as loudly as possible and "Woot" after every scene! I have NEVER done that before! Because I have never watched anything this amusing and clever! You should see what he uses to create the scenes and puppets with and the way he handles them! He was lying down on his back during the "Chess playing scene" because he was using his hands to control a husband and wife puppet's heads, his FEET to control their hands and to move the chess pieces and his mouth to control their TONGUE! And to speak of course...)!

I have 5 words for you, JEFF ACHTAM.IS.A.PURE.GENIUS.
It's a MUST watch if you have a chance to! (Before he flies back to Canada! Hurry people!!)

~K

P.S Zed Dabaliewee and Swathy if you are reading this... Guy in the white shirt! Hahaha! Huge grin*

Something orange 2

Am playing with my food again!

And is starting to LOVE eating oranges! Just for the peel!

Wanted to make something that look EXACTLY/Egg Zac Lee (I remember once I actually forgot how to spell "Exactly" because I was so used to writing/typing in my own "Language"!) like the the wooden wall decoration mask thingy I saw in a craft shop in Miri town!

I think I succeeded! Except for the painting part (And the fact that it is only 4 inches in length and the one in Miri was.. 1 meter tall!.. Or maybe taller.)! (The mask I saw was black and it was covered with rainbow colored polka dots that had an interesting pattern. Love that mask SO much! Too bad it was like a thousand or something, would have loved to hang it in my room!)    

Couldn't make anymore today because Fai (That's my 7 year old brother.) took the rest of the peel to carve them into a castle, a grumpy face and a skull.

I have to admit they look pretty good! I am VERY impressed.. And embarrassed because there is no way I could carve something like that (Out of orange peel!) when I was 7. 

And he did mention he wanted to decorate cakes with me in my bakery next time, so I guess I will hire him for cake carving since I am completely useless in that!

Can't wait to take up wood carving!

~K

Something orange

Was just feeling rather bored/lazy/tired this afternoon and I had just eaten an orange and there was the peel left over so...

I was just thinking about the wooden carvings (More on the wooden decorative masks and shields.) I saw in the craft shops in Miri/Mulu and decided to carve the orange peel just for the fun of it.

My only tool was my one and only craft knife, love that thingy-ma-jig it's so handy.

For some reason it turned out to be an alien like mask thing... I was pretty proud of it and it was fun playing around with the knife and peel (Even though there are a few holes in my fingers now, thanks to my clumsy-ness.)!

Maybe, I would just take up wood carving one of these days, sounds petty fun and enjoyable as a hobby to me!

Now the orange peel body-less alien is made some sort of wondering spirit and boat (Don't laugh, they have a WILD imagination.) by my brothers, it's nice to know that I am not the only one who likes it!

~K


P.S I have a feeling that I haven't blogged about Mulu yet so I guess I would just do it right now... 


10 seconds later* Or maybe not... The laziness it taking over my body, bit by bit. NOOO!

13 Part 2

You may be wondering why my "13" post was so short. I hate short posts, what's the point of blogging if you blog such a short "story".. Well I just don't find it worth it.

Anyways, what a FUN time (Eating, playing at the pool, yakaty yakking, eating, opening the BEST birthday presents ever (Thank you, THE A MAKARONI for that load of presents you got for me and the fun we had shopping in Times Square, AMRITA for the cupcake necklace... I LOVE IT! It is the cutest thing ever!, ZED DABALIEW/PURPLE TWIN for the purple present that was wrapped in purple wrapping paper that had a purple box that contained a purple necklace!, ADRIAN and JOYCE  For the pink mini washing machine, are you saying my clothes stink?! and MOMMY and PAPA for the TRAFFULA TREE! I hope you didn't mind me blogging about my presents or maybe you just skipped the whole part (Meanie!), but I REALLY loved every single present I received from you AWESOME people!), murdering (Oh don't ask! It was fun though!), Screaming scrabbling, playing badminton in the "Haunted" squash court that had spider webs, broken floor boards and dim lights and eating some more!

The party was FABULOUS and when I got home I was greeted by a couple of comments on my birthday cake photo on Facebook, "13" Blog post (And most surprisingly the comments and "Likes" on my photo was by my "Friends" that I was pretty sure didn't think I existed until today.. So, you secretly stalk me, eh? Hahaha!) and my "13" Birthday cake photo on CakeCentral!

It was an awesome moment I tell 'ya!
Because... People actually LISTEN to my words and well cake stuffies, it feels great that I am noticed..! Huge grin*

Well... I guess I just had one awesome early birthday!

~K

Castle Cake

It has been ages since I posted in here! Feeling so guilty... (I usually do if I don't post for more than 3 days or so.)

Maybe I shouldn't feel guilty because I have been SUPAH busy collecting 'Ang Paos'!

A SUPAH (I seem to like the word 'SUPAH' a lot today in this post, wait.. It isn't even a 'Real' word. Oh well!) Late GONG HEI FATT CHOI/HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR To All My Followers out there!

Anyway... Back (Oh right, we weren't even there yet!) to the cake!

It was a rather last minute-ly done cake, was busy with "See above"!

But I managed to bake and decorate this rather huge castle cake for my 7 year old brother in 2 days!

I am so proud... Of MYSELF!

This was going to be my 2nd "Carved/Sculpted" cake ever! 

I felt rather nervous 'Sculpting' the cake!

I wonder when I would be able to sculpt such beautiful cakes like Debra Brown... Hmm... (Whoops! Daydreaming again!)

The Castle Cake in pictures (And some words!) :

   

 Above: The 'Cutted' and 'Stacked' soon to be castle.

Below: Looks like a pile of scrap cake doesn't it?! (I am pretty sure mommy fainted when I 'carved' my pretty golden brown, perfectly domed butter cake!) It is the soon to be 'hill' below the castle.

 Above: Ta-dah! See, it worked out quite well eh?!The birthday boy and me spent ages making the grass with star tips! 

Below: The steps in on!

 Above and Below: I guess I had to take a break from 'sculpt-carving'.. The knights (Took the pictures before dusting them with sparkly dust! Looks shinier now!) were inspired by Debbie Brown's. Eu Fai (The birthday boy) designed his own flag, I heard it looked like the Swedish one.. Haha! 

Above: THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!

Below: Eu Fai and his castle.

~K

Ipoh-Day 1

The past 8 hours has been REALLY awesome!
I hope the rest of the day will be like so...

I was woken up by Mommy at 5 in the morning!
She was busy packing the boy's clothes in my room with the light on (Of course), I am a pretty light sleeper so I got woken up and my brothers were still snoring and looking quite dead-ish..
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get back to sleep, Yeesh..

So I got dressed and went down hugging my favorite pillow looking half asleep (I think I looked like a 5 year old sleep walking), it was surprisingly chilly this morning..
The 'chilly-ness' reminded me of the cold 10 degrees Celsius early mornings in Perth!

Half awake I had my every morning-and-every-other-time-when-I-am-free cup of coffee (Mommy says I am addicted to FaceBook as much as she with coffee! So it becomes my cup of coffee..), Delicious!

After packing all our baggage and 3 deep-in-sleep boys into the car we left for Ipoh..

I am pretty sure (I was half asleep or asleep throughout most of the journey, I took photos of a lot of village scenes, palm and coconut trees, road and sky when I was awake! Speaking.. I mean blogging about pictures.. I forgot to bring the camera adapter to upload the pictures into my lap top! Noooo! I guess YOU will have to wait till I get back home tomorrow! I wish we could stay longer, the hotel is awesome!)  we took the rural road to Ipoh..
Passing every small town...
I find it them SO much nicer than Kuala Lumpur!

Finally! We reached Batu Gajah (Who names a town 'Rock Elephant'?!) to have some 'Kopitiam' breakfast..
Yum yum...

We had Porridge, PAN MEE (Mwa hahahahahha!) and Yong tau foo..
I took a billion photos of the shop houses and old-ish buildings that were in Batu Gajah!
The skype.. Whoops! I mean SKY! (I didn't do it on purpose!) Is SO super nice today...
Reminds me of Perth, Again!
  
1st Stop of the day:

Tin Dredge! (Why on earth call it a 'dredge'?! It reminds me of a grudge... Scary, old and frightening!)

It is Malaysia's only surviving tin dredge (Yes, I just did some research..)!
I thought there were many... Oh well.

It is located in Chendrong, Tanjung Tualang.

I guess it was just okay... I wasn't really impressed by it.
There were no signs or anything when you enter the dredge...
It was just old, dusty, sink-y (It is lob sided! So scary..!), hole-y (The metal or something like that flooring was rotting? I thought it might just collapse and I would fall into the deep, dark hole... Yike!) and it old machines reminded me of 'Jurassic Park'!

So yeah... I didn't enjoy it.

On the way in to the Tin dredge we saw a 'Buffalo farm or something' (I have horrible memory... I couldn't even remember what I did this morning without asking!) sign.
We decided to drop by the 'farm' after the Tin dredge.

(Just got back from the pool! The water is FREEZING! It was like swimming in a steam/water fall! the pool was new so it LOOKED nice but I could not enjoy it, at ALL! Just put 1 toe in and you get shivers all over your body in no time! Anyway... I managed to dunk my self in and freeze! For the first time in my life I sun bathed ! It felt like heaven.. Ahhh! As if I am not burnt enough already! It was fun but I am NEVER EVER going to swim in the pool again!)

Cows, cows and more buffaloes!
Snaps a billion more photos* (The scenery was fabulous!)

Next stop: Kellie's Castle!

I didn't expect much over here, it didn't look like much after all!
But oh... I was wrong, VERY wrong!

It was a pretty hot afternoon and the moment you entered the castle it instantly cools you down...
Many corridors, rooms, underground cellars, secret stair cases to explore!

The first underground passage we went into was the wine cellar!
It was VERY dark! (They should really install some lights!)
Luckily we had some torch lights!
I felt rather er.. Scared? going down the narrow windy stair case... Deeper and deeper underground.

I assume Kellie must have loved wine because he had a billion wine rack thingys!

My least favorite room in the whole castle was the linen room...
There were lots of wood that were cemented with the walls to make shelves, they reminded me of a morgue!
The size and width of it was just nice to fit a human body... Creepy.
I have a feeling that I have a super wild imagination...    

I enjoyed the secret escape staircases (They were steep, windy and high. I imagined myself as a duchess escaping from a castle invasion, I guess it is nice having a wild imagination some times!)  from the rooms and being on the roof top? of the castle!
I felt like I really was 'King of the world' (That has REALLY wobbly knees!)!
The breeze up there was awesome!
Not to mention the fact that the skype (Not again! I mean SKY SKY SKYYY!) was so blue, we were surrounded by oil palm estates and jungle, if only I could just pause that moment and not have wobbly knees!

My visit to Kellie's castle was just plain AWESOME!

We finally made our way to Ipoh town at noon..

I don't think there is much to blog about the rest of the day in Ipoh town..
Eat, sleep, pool, doggies, visiting and more eating!

~K

P.S
Please wait for the pictures!
They will be in their places in this post the moment I get home!