Miri 2011

Woah... What a (Super dee duper) FUN day today was!

My morning started when I woke up suddenly after a really loud thunder clap went BOOOM outside my bedroom door..! It was storming.. after covering my ears with my comforter (I can't sleep with the sound of a storm and the thunder, it creeps me out but I love the sound of a mild drizzle. Yeah, I am weird.) I realized it was already 4.30AM and our leaving-the-house-time was at 5.00AM, so I decided to stay awake.

There was only one thought in my mind at that time.. How in the world are we going to load our luggage and 3 sleepy boys into the car during a freak storm?! (It wasn't really a freak storm.. Just very heavy rain but I like exaggerating.)  

That thought faded and I went back into snooze land..

After 5 minutes (It felt that short. Oh, am exaggerating again. Oops!) I felt as though I was in some hospital ward (You know... How white and bright they are.), then I realized it was just Mommy and her usual putting-on-the-light-as-a-wake-up-call.  

 Ugh, it's time to leave already?! Nooooo*

No, no, it wasn't like that. 

I am ALWAYS hyper when I wake up and it is time to leave for the airport!

Love the morning 5:00AM weather? So nice, chilly and cold. FYI I am NOT a morning person, my usual wake up time is at noon! 

So waking up "early in the morning" must be for something very special or I would just go back to snooze mode..

After driving for 45 minutes we reached LCCT! My third home!

My first is my 'real' ones in PJ and PD, my second is ICCA (My "homes" are pretty much the places I feel most comfortable.) and my third is well... AIRPORTS! 

I love airports, it usually (95%) means I am going to be transported to some distant land that has a 5 star hotel and lots of new places to explore. And of course loads of "junk" to swallow during the flight and a beautiful cotton candy like scenery!  

Nothing extraordinary happened in the airport...

Check baggage in and out, walk all about...

Oh wait, I had the WORST chicken pie in the whole world from DeleFrance and it was RM7.50!

The puff pastry was ROCK hard, it was SUPER oily and... I could make better filling with my foot!

Yuck... 

Below: After an hour in the air I actually found SNOWFLAKES on the window! (Saw some during the flight to Perth and thought I could only find them there since it was colder.. I was wrong.)

I have always been fascinated by "snowy" stuff since I have never experienced winter before.. (Except ice cubes though... I see it daily in the freezer.) 

Above: 

I spy land cap't! 

Below:

Land ho! 

The clouds were prettier live.. 

Above: 

Finally! Touch down at Miri airport!

Below:

Welcome to Eastwood Golf and Country club Miri!

LOVE This place!

Above:

Oh, that's me!

Below:

First stop of the day!

Miri Public Park.

We didn't really plan on stopping because we were kinda starved to the bone hungry (We didn't have breakfast. Unless you count that yucky mucky chicken pie and KitKat I had...) but there was a SUSPENSION bridge right at the entrance and it had an amazing view and it was FREE!

So yeah, we stopped to have a look around the park.  

Above:

 Almost all the hills I saw in Miri had this layer thingy (Like Indonesian layer cake!), it was rather interesting...

Below:

Can you believe that the Miri Public Park had a WATER PLAY area and a suspension bridge that was longer than Sunway Lagoon's?! 

Oh, did I mention it was FREE?

Lucky Miri residence...

Above:

 Part of the suspension bridge.

Yes, it is THAT long!

(We happen to find the YUMMIEST Bak kut teh in Miri town! Lunch was GREAT! Looking forward to go there again...)

Below:

Next stop: Crocodile farm!

It was around noon-ish and I felt rather worn out from all that un-packing into the resort and moving around Miri.

The fact that we were stopping by at the crocodile farm didn't interest me much at that point..

In 10 minutes everything changed when...

WE COULD ACTUALLY FEED 10 ft LONG CROCS WITH A FISHING ROD AND THEY WOULD JUMP UP TO GET THE FOOD (Dead chicken.)!

Never had that much fun feeding an animal before.. Although I didn't really enjoy the part when the jumped up and MISSED, they splashed stagnant-dead-chicken-crocodile-water on me!

It was thrilling yet fun feeding a croc! 

Above and below:

Some shots of the lucky ones that got fed..!

(These were the bigger ones, around 15 ft in length. We used a flying fox like

 thing with a reel to feed them a whole chicken (Dead of course but it would have been a lot more fun to watch it if it was alive.. Just saying!) and we used bamboo poles with a wire and a chopped up part of a chicken for the 8-10 ft ones.)

Above:

A video of Papa feeding the smaller crocs with the bamboo rod. (Excuse my screaming, I was VERY excited.) 

Ahh... I never enjoyed myself THAT much in a mini zoo before!

After a long day exploring Miri we decided to relax by the jetty and beach to end the day...

The waves at this beach was scarily HUGE and choppy! Maybe I am too used to the ones in Port Dickson!

There were actually people SURFING (Imagine... In Malaysia!)!

Walking by shore, beside the the swaying trees, salty sea wind blowing in you hair, hearing the waves crash on to shore, watching the beautiful sun set...

The perfect way to end our day in Miri.

~K

P.S 

Stay tuned for Day 2 in Mulu! (Hopefully I would have time to do so!)

How to: Free-hand Gum Paste Rose (The Karen Cuppy Cake way!)

*Sob! I accidentally closed the blogger tab when I clicked on the Facebook tab to see who sent a notification and the tutorial was 3/4 done! Grr... Okay, now I have to re-type the whole thing! Where is the auto save when you need it?!

Yippee! Another new tutorial up!

I didn't really plan on doing one today it just popped up because...
Well today is a pretty normal day even though it is my "actual"' birthday.. Wait kinda more on the boring side actually and there was the box of goodies that I had laying around in my caking room and it had like 10 packs of SK Sugar flower paste!
Since the Sk sugar florist paste was something new (I have been using Wilton's gum paste , I wanted to try it out REALLY bad! (I just like playing with all types of 'sugar pastes' I can find around me and figuring out which one suits me best!)

LIGHT BULB!*
It's time for a new tutorial! (Since I pretty much had all the time in the world and a ton of sugar paste!) But what tutorial? Puzzled face*
I had a request for the "Whimsical free-hand flower" (The rainbow colored one..? Remember?!) on my "13" birthday cake I decided to do a free-hand rose tutorial since there weren't any other request or anything else I could think of!

Okay! Enough chit chat, TUTORIAL TIME!

You will need:

60 grams of Squire's Kitchen Sugar Florist Paste or Gum paste (No fondant!)

A piece of kitchen towel

Icing sugar in a shaker

Water or edible glue and a brush

Vegetable shortening

A glass cup (Optional)

YOUR HANDS

 Step 1: 

Take some gum paste (I can't really say how much. It really depends how big you want the rose to be.) and roll it into a cone.

It should be about 2 1/2 inches tall.

The most important thing in this step is to get the tip sharp and pointy.. So do that okay? 

Step 2:

Roll the rest of your fondant into 1" uniform balls.

Step 3:

Petal time!

Take a 1" ball of gum paste and roll it into a shape of a tear drop.

Step 4:

SQUASH!

Step 5:

Use your thumb and index finger to pinch the edges of the 'squashed tear drop'.  

The ends (At least 2 cm to the middle.) should be REALLY thin, you should be able to see the wordings etc on your non-stick mat.

Step 6: 

Apply a thin coat of water on the cone with you paint brush.

Step 7:

Wrap the petal around the cone as shown. 

Place the petal slightly higher than the cone, you don't want the cone to be seen only a hole only a needle can fit through.

Quick tip!

Remember the optional glass cup?

This is what it is for..

Instead of taking your gum paste in and out of the zip lock bag to prevent it from drying you can just keep it under the glass cup.

Much quicker!

Now for the rest of the petals...

 Step 8: 

Use your paint brush to apply a thin coat of water on the area that I marked.

(No! You don't have to mark it! You can if you want to though..!) 

Remember, only on the right hand side and half way down or you are going to end up with a sticky mess instead of a rose! 

Step 9:

Okay look at your cone and see where the first petal "ended", you are going to place the second petal there.

 Leave the "un-glued" part open, you are going to place the third petal there.

Make sure it is a LITTLE higher then the first petal. 

Okay so you slot the third petal in the "un-glued" part of the 2nd and this is what you get.

Now apply a little bit of glue at the ends that are sticking out and just glue them down to the cone.

Yay you completed the very FIRST layer!

Step 10:

Again start where you ended in the second layer.

Add 2 petals.

This is what it should look like.

Didn't take a picture of the third layer.

This is the fourth. 

Fifth.

Step 11:

By the sixth layer the rose should start blooming a little.

Bend the edges back a little.

Opening more on the 7th.

Step 12:

Pinch the middle of every petal on the 7th layer and bend it to the back a little.

Roll the sides of the petal back a little too.

Step 13:

The last layer may be rather tricky.

Do the pinching the middle and rolling back (Roll them more this time.) thing again.

The petals may be a bit on the droopy side so use some of the kitchen towel (Shred them a bit.) to support the back of the petals until they dry.  

And...

(Once it dries..)

YOU'RE DONE!

~K

P.S Enjoyed my latest tutorial? Comment please!

Shipped in from UK

Owh Mai Gawd! This is going to be the best birthday EVER (Well so far in my life.. The last few weren't very great. They were just ordinary and I hate ordinary, you know that right?)!
I am feeling so hyperjumpingofthewallscan'twipethatgrinoffmyface right now!!

Anyway... It started out like this.
A pretty packed and planned day from 11-4 PM..
But I had that it-was-going-to-be-a-good-day feeling from the start since the things planned were food, library, more food and COLLECTING SOME MYSTERIOUS PRESENT FROM ICCA!

Did I mention I LOVE libraries? Well the one we go to at least.
Since I have something to look for in every floor makes it even funner!
I would take the lift up to the top floor and walk down floor by floor until I reach ground level.

Goes like this: DVDs-Red spotted books (I hate them since you can't borrow em'! They have the 'advance' cakey books up there. Like Margaret Braun's Cake Walk and Colette Peter's Wedding Cakes to dream on etc.)-Other cakey books and cook books-Polymer clay books-Paint books (Acrylic, Oil, Water color. I got Van Gogh's biography and art works today, it was brand new!)-Craft project books-Fiction (Got the whole Percy Jackson series today just to try it out.).  
Okay! That's about it! By the time I meet up with the 'rest' (You know the usual people... Mommy and the boys) I would be carrying a VERY tall/high (Same thing right?) stack of books that are about to topple.

Then... I would go home (To ICCA today.) with my mind filled with ideas for my next project!
And that's why I love libraries!

For some reason we parked at Sunway Giza (Remember THAT place?! I went there 3 days in a row from dawn to dusk for the ICCA cake competition!) and walked over to the ICCA building...

To me S. Giza is a place filled with memories from the cake competition rather than just a shopping mall...
The cake competition was one of the GREATEST highlights of my life in that 12 years living quite well boring-ly? It was probably the BEST 3 days in my life, I had never been THAT happy before, ever.
It pretty much turned my world upside down after that!
The memories of the competition came flowing back flowing back... It made me... SMILE LIKE THE SUN FALL OUT OF BED SING LIKE A BIRD DIZZY IN MY HEAD SPIN LIKE A RECORD CRAZY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT....!

When we entered ICCA we were greeted and taken upstairs to collect my 'present'.
They thought my mom was Karen, yeesh. Never seen a 13 year old cake decorator before?! Owh... Maybe not...?

We were greeted by another staff that made the same mistake again...

AND THEN..!!

I SAW THIS HUGE PRETTY BOX BEING PRESENTED TO ME! Faints*
I screamed my heart out.. Inside. It was pretty had to control that scream. (I had a feeling that if I did that staff would look at me funny so.. Yeah?)

And man... That was one HEAVY box!
For a split second I thought I was going to own a brand new Kitchen aid mixer and I was praying that they would give me a purple colored one... (If you didn't know... I am PURPLE crazy! Which is a bit on the sad side because purple fondant fades into a really UGLY blue if it is exposed to light.. Sob!)
Then I remembered being told that it was a Squire's Kitchenish gift.. Poof went that thought/dream*

I sneaked a peak before we left the building...
It was filled with EVERYTHING!
It was CRAZY!

We had pies and pastries in S. Giza and I got the chance to have a look at every single item that was inside that hat box...
Christmas came WAY early this year! It felt so amazing...

 Above: Can't believe I actually got a hand written note! Sob..! Tissue please?

 Above: See that 7KG thing up there? 

Below: My mountain of SK's paste! I just ran out of gum paste yesterday, they must have read my mind on what I needed most! 

 Above: My eyes nearly popped out when I saw the price tag! That's one expensive bottle/container thingy of edible glue! I wonder when I will ever use it...!

Below: PME Tips! Which includes a #000 tip!! I guess they expect me to do some SERIOUS royal icing string work for the next cake competition or something!   

 Above: I was expecting 7 bottles of paint and paint brushes like the SK's diploma.. I opened it last since I pretty much 'knew' what was inside. My jaw dropped (Again!)*
Below: I have been eying this book for quite some time ever since I first saw it in Kinokuniya KLCC!
To me she seems to explain the technique better than Alan Dunn but her flowers aren't as advance...
Oh well! Glad I finally got it!   

Can't wait to use my new toys!!!

THANK YOU Squire's Kitchen and ICCA!!!!

~K