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!
Last week was pretty interesting, well to me at least.
A lot of impromptu stuff, like sleeping over in two female human's houses and going to... Three shopping malls, huh.
So ANYHOO, it started on Thursday when we went down to KL.
Oh right, just before we left the house I found a toad in my favorite pair of silver fluff ball ballet flats the "hard way", as in I put my foot into the shoe and felt err... Something, something.. Lumpy, cold, rough and it MOVED! Strange, I thought toads were wettish but it wasn't.. Well, thanks for not wetting my shoe Mr/Ms toad and also thanks for not wanting to budge when I went frantically throwing my shoe on the floor.. Hmm, I wonder if you are still in there.
Naw, doesn't that little toad look pweety?
Was texting Bloo (My best friends are my entertainment during car journeys, send some random message to four of them and one of them is bound to reply right?) in the car and she is somehow spontaneously going to babysit Kisa (Just in case you were a wondering.. Yes, it's my job giving people weird nicknames!) since she was home alone and since I was so close by I decided to join the babysitting club.
It was the first time all three of us have met.
Well, I guess that's one of the draw backs from not going to school.. You don't meet your best friends everyday (Unless you consider a skype group video call "Meeting up".) and the chances when you meet one of them the other isn't there.
After some girly hugging, screaming and Christmas present exchanging..
I have never gotten such awesome presents before for Christmas, well.. Usually family members give you things you don't really like and in my case they usually give me extremely boring books or well, I guess you get it! I still wonder what's the point of giving someone a present just for the sake of GIVING.
Kisa got me this FABULOUS sketch book (Just when I needed a new one too, perfect timing!) that had a giraffe on it and it actually had "Giraffe" printed on it in a humongous black glossy font!
Being the weird person I am, I started going a little too happy!
The sketch book was my favorite type, brown paper bag colored (I love covers that are draw-able! I started doodling with Bloo's sharpies as soon as I got my hands on them to brighten the cover up!) cover, plain white pages (I have a THANG about drawing on those "exam papers", the lines are rather annoying.. And the fact that are called "exam papers".), metal ring binded and a very personalized cover (Something about being UN-vertically challenged and my favorite animal has always been a giraffe!)!
And Bloo got me a.. Momiji doll!
The name.. Um.. arh.. Aaa... Has some special meaning to me and I plan to be very secretive about the meaning so HAH.
And a hand written letter (That had more puffy stickers than words! Eeek.)! How on earth could she have remembered I loved receiving those?! I doubt I have mentioned that I liked them in a LOOONG LOOOOOOOOONG time..
And please don't be too surprised when I say those were the best presents I have ever gotten in my entire life (Excluding Mommy-Papa presents, of course. It's illegal to compare those to others.) not just because they were given to me by two people who can make me die of laughter from a single word but the fact that they were very.. Meaningful, I suppose..
The rest of the evening went by rather quickly..
Eating chocolate chip cookies, listening some-language-that-isn't-English rock (I am somehow attracted to listening to anything that isn't English, maybe after this it would be Egyptian rap!), Bloo annoying me by putting on kapoop (Yes, I got rid of the bug.), meeting Alfred the duck, Kisa playing the piano, Bloo TRYING to play the piano, Bloo's crazy exercise class, Desperate house daughters meeting over pizza, yes, I cam up with that!, making Kisa chock on coke, it rhymes!, meeting Kisa's sisters, dancing with Kisa and well, other suches.
The next day Bloo and I went shopping for her "Cosplay outfit", costume in simpler forms I guess!
We ended up at a tiny place in Sri hartamas, a couple of blocks away from ICCA and little did I know that little shop was JAM PACKED with people!
It was crazy, let me tell you that!
The manager and the store assistant going nuts looking for costumes, the customers waiting impatiently and surfing through the many catalogs, the air conditioning was on low so it was rather suffocating and I.. Had a splitting headache for the first time in a rather long time, it was rather torturous I might say, I thought my eyeballs were about to fall off at one point!
It was pretty fun trying out the costumes, especially the gothic and frilly corset long dressy ones even though they were all humongous on me!
It's funny how they only have them in one size..
Bloo settled with a super cute bloo, I mean BLUE "Japanese school girl" outfit and extremely high white platform boots!
Spent the rest of the afternoon till evening sleeping, the only thing I remember was how lovely it was to hit the bed after I staggered out of the car and pulled out my boots and waking up to see Bloo staring at me as though I was dead and had suddenly woken up! Hmm, that sounded creepier than I remembered it, oh well. I felt much better though, with the headache gone and the scorching hot afternoon sun gone as well!
Bloo's Mom's (Mai gawdt, there are loads of "'s"!) friend, Jane took us for a "Girls night out" in 1U not long after I awoke from my slumber!
Had simple noodles for dinner than off I went shopping with Bloo, for the first time ever in our three or so year long friendship!
That's kinda what happens when you live like.. Maybe, 500 kilometers or so, maybe further away from your pals.
Our first stop was strangely Daiso (Since we couldn't find a decently priced hair stuff shop!) to get Bloo some fluffy hair scrunchies to complete her outfit (And some ribbons to tie around our wrists and neck but we soon found out they had adhesive at the back so we returned them! Bloo was having a look at the ribbons while walking about and she suddenly went "KAREN! There's glue at the back!", oh whoopsies.), some pinky nail polish (To make stuff even cuter.) and then some random walking around and taking pictures with the lovely Christmas deco!
Above:
We just realized we could share clothes so we walked around 1U in each other's pajamas!
I spent the rest of the night painting my finger nails "Barbie doll" (I don't believe it is actually called that though..) pink and Bloo spent HER night splattering her fingers with baby bloo, I mean BLUE and pink, it was a fabulous piece of modern art I might say.. And yakking and telling more grandmother stories.
Not all that weirdly, Bloo's alarm (That video up there.) didn't work the next morning or maybe it just wasn't irritating enough.. I guess I take THAT back, the alarm is VERRRYYY irritating..
CF (Comic Fiesta) only started at 9am but.. Oh dear here we go again, Bloo's Mom's friend wanted to take us out for breakfast at Levain (An old bungalow that was turned into a bakery/cafe thing.) and we had to be there SUPER early to avoid the crowd, like 8AM type of early.. Not too easy for two people who are rather used to waking up at noon.
Breakfast was rather.. filling, super filling I mean EXPLODING!
Had a set that conceived of scrabbled eggs, bacon, salad, sausages, ham, toast and butter and after that some chocolate cake to stuff you up even more!
Above:
Bloo, I mean BLUE people outside Levain. Bloo in her cosplay outfit! (I did a bit of hair tying in the car on the way to CF!)
YAY! Comic Fiesta at last!
The first thing that greeted us once we entered the convention centre (It was held @ KLCC) was the CROOOWWDD!
I think this was the very first time I have seen SO many people jam packed into an area!
Met up with Zed Dabaliewee at the ticketing hall. Yes, there was an entire hall just to get tickets and the whole hall was packed with people looking for their friends and cosplayers putting their finishing touches on!
We each received a "Survival kit" (Or so it is named!) and it contains some mints (They strangely tasted very good despite the fact that it had brown dots on them..), a bar of chocolate, hand sanitizer and some.. Malay magazines!
Just as we thought the queuing for the tickets was bad, we had to queue from the OUTSIDE (As in from the park!) to get into the hall and by the time we got in we were all hot, sticky and sweaty!
And.. So was everyone else so it was quite, stinky! We were all squashed inside the hall so it wasn't a very pleasant experience I might say..
Met Kisa and her sisters at their booth and decided to drag Kisa away to walk about a little!
I think there were about a hundred booths there but it was a pity that most of them sold the same things!
Badges, mugs, posters (I didn't find posters of any manga/anime I knew, sob.), very cute cloth hats (Too bad they were about RM50 each..), key chains, hmm... Well, stuff like that!
I think the cosplayers were the most interesting "thing" there (Next to the live bands that sang in Japanese!), it seems like they pose for a living because they do it SO well and the details on their costumes!
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!
Yaaaay! Finally! WiFi! Yes.. I have been internet deprived for the last few weeks or was it a month already?! But.. Surviving without it wasn't all that hard mainly because I didn't get the chance to get bored or let alone have anytime to rest since we moved in since we had non-stop visitors! S'not a bad thing (I didn't expect much visitors since we were going to move to Port Dickson but I guess I was pretty wrong, as usual!) but sometimes.. I need some time to myself to do my own things, like clean up my VERY messy-boxes-everywhere caking room!
I am also a strange breed of human (Ehem.) that can get bored of human interaction but not time to myself and that makes "People" think by homeschooling (I mean un-schooling but that's even harder to explain what it is to people that ask "What school do you go to?", After that I would have to give that long speech/lecture about it and they all end up having that "Question mark" look on their face that never fails to make me laugh.. I have a feeling the "Question mark" face is from my bad explaining...) I am anti-social (Oops! Am I?!) and I... Lead a boring life?
Oh sugar, how did I end up talking about my "schooling" life? Okie! Back to the subject!
(Ehem!) The adventures of Carrot Guppy Egg, Swathy Sawadeeka (Sawadee-ka= Hello in Thai.), Machika Nakajima and Basil Tea-ah Blooregard (One flavor of tea I would never try.).. Mysterious moosick*
Right.. Where was I? The first visitor since our "Move in" was Machika the International youth exchange student from Tokyo, Japan that we can only host during the school holidays (We hosted her in March, here's some posts I posted (DUH.) about her visit in March: Sand Castles and Origami Cranes) and we first met her in December during my last cupcake booth in Shangri-La) because she has to attend a public Malay school in TEMERLOH! (Poor her..)
I invited Swathy, my ex-next-door-neighbor to PD as well, she arrived a few days after Machika.
Our adventures (Not in that order... I kinda forgot what happened when since we were busy almost everyday!):
Korean Pop (One of the most important things Machika has influenced me with.):
*Note: Listening to K-pop right now with Thea (She is the Blooregard in the title of this post.. I CAN'T believe I actually got HER, of all people! Addicted too! At the moment she LOVES SHINee's Ring Ding Dong, just like Swathy, vierd.). Have been SUPER addicted to them, I have a feeling that I have been listening to it every single hour, wait MINUTE of the day. Yeah, it's the lastest "music phase" I am going through I suppose. Don't worry it will probably go away soon like Gwen Stefani, Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, Enrique Iglesias and Lady Gaga did!
On the first night Swathy arrived Machika put her Ipod and introduced us to K-pop (Let's see... I only know 2 K-pop groups, Wonder girls and Super Junior (Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry" washing hand dance is kinda stupid doncha think so?)..., Wonder Girl's Nobody is quite good but other then that I find both of the groups quite dull, I guess cause I don't understand Korean, eh? or maybe just because I don't bother trying to listen.) Probably everyone else in Asia does too, my K-pop knowledge was pretty close to zero!) , it's funny how she never showed us any "Solo singers", they were all in groups and I was surprised how many members were in one! The minimum was 5 and it goes up to 13... Scary.
Machika likes quite a few groups, To name a few: Tohoshinki, Bigbang, Girl's Generation, 2Minute (I think there was a 4Minute too...), SHINee.
I remember Machika introducing me to Girl's Generation during the December cupcake booth, I didn't take much interest (I FOUND it hard to appreciate a song in a different language I guess...) in it but they seem to have gotten more "interesting" this time round.. Hm.
A list of my favorite K-pop songs (Not necessarily in that order. Where did I remember hearing that sentence from?):
GEE!-Girl's Generation
My #1 favorite of all time! (This was probably the first Korean song Machika played on her Ipod during the cupcake booth! Can't believe I thought they were boring at first...)
Goosh they are so cute! (They seem so cute and bubbly, unlike those I usually listen to. By listening to them in the morning I think I have developed a positive attitude for the entire day..) Wide open eyes bulging out face*
We (Me and Thea.) found a dance tutorial for this last night (We were going K-pop intense research, shhh!) but I think we will never EVER succeed in dancing to this ever. Let alone in 3" high heels (Or were they taller?) and skinny jeans...
Note*: Never try lyrics version of this song or ANY other Korean one. You would probably not be able to read them (Even though though they are in English not that Korean thing.) since the words are super long and... weird.
OH!-Girl's Generation
Their next song should REALLY be called "Em", that way you get "Oh Em Gee"!
This song is fine, not as good as "Gee" though, what do you think?
RUN DEVIL RUN-Girl's Generation
A song even worst then "Oh" (I hate the black and white clothes, takes all the cheerfulness out of them and they aren't them without their colorful clothes... The day after hearing this video, actually the "Gee" one, I actually wore my pair of PINK shorts thing and... Tried other things to make myself look Koreanese. Smiley face*) but very useful if you need someone to run faster.
RING DING DONG-SHINee
When I first listened to this song I kinda DIED from laughter (Actually because I couldn't breath and my tummy hurt.)! 100% You will too! How can you not when the song is called "Ring Ding Dong" (It's actually "Ling Ding Dong" since they sing in that Korean accent..) and they look like a chicken with all that feathers and... THAT leg thing they do during the chorus and that "Fantastic Elastic" part, I still do not get they are trying to say...
Man they are amusing, one of those song that never fail to make me laugh!
This song is probably on the same rank as "Gee".. Maybe more now. Grin*
Found a dance tutorial for this one. Didn't succeed. I think I was close though...
HELLO-SHINee
They wear BRIGHT pink lip stick (it's scary...) in this one...Gosh, they are amusing...
Today.. I finally can different shade who's who in the "SHINee" (The name's girly too, blinks*) group:
Tae Min-The guy with strawberry short cake hair (He always looks so cute and baby compared to the rest!) in this video and is the youngest, 17.
Onew-Scary smile guy with long hair. Shivers*
Key-The one that looks like Adam Lambert. S'more obvious in the "Ring Ding Dong" video.
Okay, I guess I don't really know the names of the other two but I got them nicknames!
Orang Utan (I didn't come up with that name I SWEAR! It was Swathy!)-The one with the enormous eye bags and the one that has messy (Orang utan-ish) hair in the "Ring Ding Dong" video. Love his rapping, to me his is more interesting than M&M's. Never liked rap but love Korean, I mean his rappin' in "Ring Ding Dong".
Blonde dude (Didn't come up with THAT name too! Thea's fault! Also referring to the video above, I thought this was supposed to be the description of the "Hello" video but... Never mind!) AKA The-one-that-looks-the-best AKA "Chong Heong" (Pour oil, as in that praying oil lamp thing in Cantonese, learnt that word from my Gramma.) That how his "Actual" name sounds like, I find Korean names and words kinda hard to remember.
You must be wondering why I didn't do a group introduction for the GG, the problem is I STILL don't now who's who yet, there are 9 group members for heaven's sake (I am not talking about that Japanese alcoholic fermented rice drink that has to be drunk hot.) !
Korean Karen (Try saying that 50 times, fast!) Signing out!
SHOPPING:
Machika LOVES shopping AKA She is a shoppoholic, like me only I only shop like once every 5 months and before Chinese New Year (That's one of the reasons why I LOVE that time of the year.).
I have mastered keeping the shopping temptation away but Machika kinda broke the darn wall I put up, sheesh.
Oh well, she needs sooomeeoonnee to accompany her when she shops (We both enjoy shopping for the same thing, accessories not clothes. Tis' nice to have found someone who does! And is a bargain-holic as well, woo hoo! Too bad she lives a few countries away... We were discussing about opening up a henna and accessories, she says the accessories here are SUPER cheap boutique on some very famous-shopping-street-in-Tokyo-which-I-forgot-the-name in 2 years time then use the money to go backpacking around the world or just around Japan and Korea and... Attend some concerts!) right?
When our family hosts Machika I always feel super guilty, I think it is that feeling that those-people-who-are-never-happy-with-their-weight get when they eat too much sinful food. It's like I enjoy myself TOO much, we go out almost everyday (Not just to shop but I guess we shop half the time.), do fun/interesting stuff.. Sigh!
Wish we could have hosted Machika for a longer time!
KLCC.. It seems to be our favorite shopping place since we went there twice (We only went shopping trice I think.. Twice in KLCC and once or was it twice too? In Jonkers street, Melecca.), once during the first time we hosted her in March and another time in June.
I personally dislike that shopping mall because of the lack selection and the sky high prices, it's the only place (In Malaysia) that has those rather "Crazy" branded shops, once during the second visit there we walked into a rather normal looking shop (Since there was a 50% sale sign on the front door.)... That sold a t-shirt for RM 1500+, that was one scary walking-into-a-shop-experience.
It was originally planned that it was just me and Machika going shopping for half the day (Machika was supposed to go to KL because she had to attend my Dad's Rotary meeting in the evening and her chauffeur has to follow.) at Pyramid or Midvalley (I was looking forward to go to Midvalley since the day before we were talking about "Papa Bread", my favorite (And only place where I eat.) cream puff shop that Machika also liked but she likes some very weird flavor and I like the plain chocolate one. JEEZ! My mouth is wateringggg....) , my two favorite places that were SO close to our PJ house.
But Mommy followed and naturally the boys as well and the places we wanted to go to weren't "Kid friendly" so "POOOF" went that plan, sob.
Thank goodness there was a humongous sale going on in KLCC, we covered up the whole building.. Twice.
When we got back I had to get a couple of new boxes to keep my new bracelets (Very proud of the goth ones, yum.), necklaces (I actually found a chocker! Correction, TWO! A black fishnet-ish one with beads and a dragon fly hanging down and the prize find of the day was one that was made of pieces of cut up shells and black beads that was originally RM 150+but I got it for RM 20, I love how I shop, I guess it's because I look behind all the display items... Found a chain mail look a like one, I nearly wanted to buy it for Fai only I suddenly remembered he wasn't a girl, too bad.), rings and hairbands! Woohoo what an awesome day! A very well 6-7 hours spent!
I guess I have been addicted to buying accessories since the time I went to Mulu, Sarawak and bought a rattan ring and a couple of handicraft wood-ish bracelets.
Ever since that day my #1 fashion goal was to fill my whole hand up with bracelets, I think I kinda got passed that amount already...
It's almost like that time during one of those weddings or was it Chinese New Year? I had no "formal" (As in a dress, I hate skirts. Still do.) clothes to wear so did a 5 second "Please I want lots of dresses" wish, now I have got a "reasonable" amount and there are no "formal" functions to go to.. Nice.
I have a feeling I should be saving my wishing dust for more important things in the future, eh?
Jonker's walk (Or was it street, something like that..), Melacca-
I never thought I would like that place so much, who knew there were so many interesting things there besides "Ice kachang" and historic (I love history, to me it's one of the most interesting subject by FAAAAR! I don't understand how "school kids" can complain so much about their "Sejarah"...) buildings/sites?
You could say that place is and I am pretty sure will always be better than KLCC!
Sigh.. Shopper Holic Karen signing out!
Pasir Panjang forest reserve beach and Tanjung Tuan Lighthouse beach and Sand castles and Beach Clean-up:
One of the things Machika wanted to experience (Machika wanted to be a fisher women and environmentalist after her university which she says she will be studying business. Kinda confusing, I know.) in not all that green and forest-y anymore Malaysia was nature.
Pasir Panjang forest reserve beach:
Who on earth goes to a "Forest reserve" to go to the beach? We do.
Only this beach isn't your ideal sun bathing, powder-y white sanded (I have learnt to hate that typa sand because the powder-y whiteness in them are made by crushed corals, sob.) beach.
Take a look below..
A maroon rocky haven filled with life (No mossies, sea roaches or sand flies there, bliss.), crystals (No, I am not kidding.), shells, snails (I love them colorful round shelled sea snails, don't you?) and best of all.. You have it all to yourself.
Above:
Lovit when I come across a huge inhabited rocky beach that is all MINE to explore.
Below:
Machika shares my snail-y love interest.
Showed (More like placed 10 on her hand and allowed the snails to give her a slimy snail spa, one of my most popular tour attractions.) them to her during her last trip to Port Dickson in March, she has loved them as much as me ever since.
Above:
Cowries. Papa says they are not, I say they are too. Papa says they are NOT cowries at all, I say they are at least cousins. Wadda you fink?
I have ALWAYS loved (I am speaking common-Malaysian-shells-tively, of course rare shells are always nicer, eh?) cowries and/or their cousin, I don't know why. I just do. Oh have I mentioned that I LOVE sundials too?! (Not the ancient Roman watch, Silly! They are very interesting spiral shells. I Occasionally find a few at the beach-that-is-a-10-minute-walk-from-our-house.)
There were SO SUPER many cowrie cousins in that beach that I was actually getting lazy bending down and picking them up! I kinda did a duck walk after a while since my head was spinning after all that bending all that way down and coming all that way up.
Below:
My prize rocky find of the day!
A baguette!
So (Sob.) proud of that little rock!
Above:
Told you there were crystals! The "beach" was basically littered with them! There were pink ones, multi colored ones, black-ish ones and ones that look like gigantic salt crystals!
Below:
From left to Right: Machika, Me and Fluffy headed Ean bear with our finds.
Tanjung Tuan Light house beach:
It was the 4th or was it 5th? time hiking up to the Tanjung Tuan light house (The Leong family enjoys taking their guests there I assume.) but only the second time going down to the beach since we were usually quite exhausted by the time we got up the hill so there was not much energy left to go down a long steep concrete rather leafy stair case down to the beautiful un-touched beach (It's another forest reserve I think.. Every year they hold some raptor watching event there. We don't have to go all the way there since we get to see the swarm of a few hundred raptors fly across our house during that migrating season.) but this time the hike up felt shorter, VERY cool and relaxing and of course less tiring (It felt only like the first half of the hike compared to the first few times we hiked up. I have gotten fitter, I assume.) than the last few walks (Since the road is tarred, I don't think i should call it a hike anymore.) up.
Above:
From Left to right: Machika, Swathy, Me and Nigel on top of grassy light house hill, woo hoo!
Below:
Us (Spot me!) exploring the beach during low-tide. It felt like heaven getting out of the mosquito infested hike down! (It even had that tiny bright light opening to the rough sanded, coconut-y beach! Heavenly?)
Above and below:
One of the most surprising finds during this visit to the Tanjung Tuan beach were the CORALS (There were actual CORALS in Port Dickson! Unbelievable!) we found when the tide was low.
I guess I don't have to go far to look for corals! Hmm... I would like to snorkel there one fine day.
Above and below:
MORE corals! (Love the one below, it looks rather interesting.)
Above:
Machika and Fai under a mangrove tree.
Below:
Me, Swathy and Machika having a water break under the nice breezy and cool jungle err.. canopy? Smiley face*
Below:
Me and Swathy with one of the many lovely rock formations that were formed by waves.
Our beach:
Err how do I describe this beach..?
We visit it a couple of times every week.
When the tide is low it exposes a BEAUTIFUL muddy-ish sand bank that is usually filled with crabby holey homes after a while and is of course perfect to build sand castles. The only problem with it is that the tide comes up WAAAAY too quickly, sigh! That's one thing I hate about sand castles, they are too temporary!
Not all that many shells here compared to the Pasir Panjang beach but it's the only place with beautiful shiny, round pebbles! I am currently trying to fill my balcony's floor up with it to make it feel like the beach only with out the sand, FAB!
I love cycling to the beach (Of course it is more fun with a buddy.) and stopping half way at a mini wooden food shop (I don't think it is much of a restaurant.) to grab some "Curry puffs", some syrup and some "Nasi goreng ikan bilis" (Anchovy fried rice.) if I am hungry then speeding down that mini hill without breaking (With the sea wind whooshing in your hair it is AWESOME! But too bad cycling up takes some energy..) to the beach.
And if there are guests I would give them the special Karen Cuppy Cake VIP tour of the rock pools (A tiny net and bucket is all you need to have fun! There are tons of invisible, it sounds better than transparent right? tiny shrimp, tiny fish, some sea slugs if you are lucky, seaweed and LOADS of baby rock crabs!), rocks, snail spa! (I remember Machika telling us that OUR beach was better then Hawaii! So I guess I would tick that right of my dream vacation list!)
Cool! I didn't know there were so many things to write about! Grin*
Above and below:
Sand Castling with Machika, Amrita and Samanta. (Building another one of my famous arches!)
Above:
Mommy's panoramic photo of the beach. I think she needs more practice, eh?
Below:
Building a sand mermaid tail on Arian!
Beach Clean-up:
My last and final "Beach" category post! Whew*
Something me and Machika did almost every free day we had!
After seeing the beautiful pristine condition Tanjung Tuan beach our beach looked quite in a mess.. It had lots of trash scattered all around probably by picnickers since there wasn't a proper rubbish bin there and when there was a party it was even worst! We found balloons, beer bottles and of course a BIGGER mess to clean up! So that day Machika decided we needed to clean things up since she wants our beach to stay like that forever because she says the beaches she visited in Japan was completely destroyed, there was just the black volcanic sand and COLD black-ish water, scary!
So off we went with 6 big, black garbage bags and our bikes, M Kucheh, her kids and my Gramma (Kucheh= Dad's sister AKA Aunt in Cantonese.) followed in her car, which became quite useful in the ending of my "Beach clean-up" post.
Our beach is separated into three sections or "coves" you could say, we started of with the largest, most popular and most littered one. The one which we usually go to is the one on the left of "first" cove/beach where not many people know about because it is pretty hidden.
And it so happened to be low-tide at that time, perfect for uncovering trash that were stuck in the mud!
Very soon our 6 trash bags filled up and we soon started dumping the muddy bottles (One of the main things/culprits that were being thrown in the sea or beach.), containers, shoes and almost ANYTHING else you can think of! It was like a mini super market on the beach!
Soon that became a mini land mine of muddy smelly trash, YUCK!
Despite all that yuckyness I had never actually had THAT much fun in the hot, sticky, sweaty afternoon sun playing in mud and picking up "other people's" trash before!
We also found a few dozen mangrove seed pods in the many "tiny mountains" of washed up garbage!
It was fun teaching Machika how to plant (And spot them! She was having trouble spot those long green, brown spotted seed pods at first. Maybe it was because I collected them all already.. Oh well!) them in the muddy, rocky mangrove area!
Just the night before we had our finger nails paint and french tipped (A new technique I just mastered!)! They were gone in a few minutes (Most came off when we were digging holes in the rocky, muddy ground for the mangrove seed pods!) but it was worth it, don't you think so?
One of my/our most interesting find of the day was a sign board from some "public" (That's all I could read from that Malay very muddy sign board! I am pretty sure "Awam" means public right?) place!
While I was un-covering some buried-in-mud-trash I found a piece of rusty, thin-ish metal sticking out so as anyone (I think.) would do is to go investigate what is THAT?!
Called (More like screamed! She was WAAAAAAY at the other end of the cove/beach!) Machika over to help me dig after trying to "feel" out what it was under the muddy, murky water!
We dug, dug, pulled, dug, stepped away for awhile and cleaned more trash up somewhere else to help the water clear so we could at least see a wee bit, dug, tugged, dug some more (Repeat a few hundred times.) and finally dug out a WHOLE sign board with the metal frame and "legs" still attached!
I felt rather proud of myself after dragging it with all our might to the sand shore.
After 5-6 hours of beach cleaning we decided we should pack up and go because we were puffing and panting and almost fainting!
The next hurdle was the "How do we take all of THESE to the dump?!" challenge, the 6 bags of trash went in (M Kucheh's car was turned into a garbage truck, oops! .. And thanks!) first, easy peasy.
What about the rest?! And how on earth would we dispose of the sign board?!
After doing some "DEEEEP" thinking we first pried of the metal frame, it was quite easy since it was pretty rusty, the nails were scary! Then we broke it apart a bit then tossed it into the boot of Kucheh's Vios! Then we tried folding the sign board by bending it a little then jumping on top, it was pretty fun, lemme tell you that! And TA-DAH it could fit into the boot! Woo hooooo!
We trailed behind the car with our bikes and then helping to toss (I missed sometimes too.) the VERY heavy (Some were filled if glass bottles, metal, wire etc.) bags of garbage and sign board into the humongous smelly trash-littered-all-over-the-place-because-of-the-monkeys bin then cycling home to get a dozen more bags that we all filled up. Repeat trice (Minus the signboard part.).
I have never cycled that many times up hill before so by the time we got home I collapsed on the nice grassy lawn that made me rather itchy when I got up.
The next few (About 3-4) times we went it was just me and Machika and our bikes so we could only carry a bag each, too bad the tide was low all that 3-4 times we went so we could only clean up the shore but at least we did SOME clean up.
One of those days I started with a new eco-friendly project, a chandelier (Hey! Won't it be nice if you could help out too? Since I need I think a thousand of each before I start! Maybe you could collect 50 of each comment below or email me then I could pass you my address then you could post it to me! Tis' a good idea right?) made out of bread chips (You know that thing that seals the bread bag.) and aluminium tin tags (That thing you use to open the can with.) and surprisingly I found quite a number when we were cleaning up so that made it even more fun!
