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BYE BYE 2004! [ ... ]- 31.12.2004, Friday
The last day of 2004! Working as usual. After work went for steamboat with my friend and his friends. We're supposed to be going to Hornbill but couldn't find the a place to park our car, so we decided to go to Tokyo Corner at Jalan Mendu for steamboat. It's the cheapest in Kuching I guess... RM10 per head(drinks not included).

Very messy... oil everywhere, smoke everywhere, on the floor, the chair, the plates, tables even ourselves. You do not need any lotion anymore LOL! I was so full and almost thrown up (again!) in my friend's car. After steamboat for about 3 hours, we drove around Kuching to see how's Kuchingites celebrated the coming of year 2005. Polices and road blocks are everywhere. Traffic jams too. Many night spots had this countdown party but this year not that much people. It could be either because of close monitoring by the polices or because of mourning for tsunami's victims. Besides that, many people got married today too.

Not feeling very well and went home around 11:15pm. My whole body smelt of smoke. Need to take a shower and wash my hair too. Even my clothes needed to be washed or else the smell and oil will stucked there. It took me around one hour to get rid of the smell but to no avail. Ended up soaking it overnight.

So this is how my new year's eve went. Nothing much. Thought that the last few days of 2004 would went by peacefully but sigh.. Tsunami strike! More than 60 people perished in M'sia, Thailand was hit too. Luckily Sumatra blocked the way of the Tsunami for M'sia if not the whole West M'sia and S'pore will be gone but it's bad for Sumatra. Good thing that Borneo had not affected by it. I really couldn't not imagine if it happened here. Felt so sad for those victims. It's not a good ending for 2004. May God bless all of you in the coming year.

My new layout for my homepage will be reveal soon but not tomorrow. Lately quite busy, hadn't have time to complete my design and so on. I'll be changing server too, not using free server anymore, too many pop ups and advertisments. Hate it! The address(domain name) will still be the same and a new domain name will be available too. So see you somewhere next year in January with the new design. There wouldn't be any update for the next few days. Take care!

GRAND DYNASTY RESTAURANT [ ... ]- 26.12.2004, Sunday
Today is one of my friend's birthday, we had his birthday lunch at Grand Dynasty Restaurant, the same row as Jade Pot Tea House. Left: The signboard. Right: The menu stuck on the glass to allow passerby to see what they had to offer before going into the restaurant.

Left: Dried chili. I like it very much, spicy and crunchy. I usually eat it on its own, like to bite the dried prawns in there. Mind you, don't eat too much, u'll get stomach upset. Dried prawns and dried chili grinded, even though it's soaked in the chili oil, the crunchiness still maintain. Amazing! Right: (Left-Right) White Coffee, Barley and Sprite & Kiwi.

Left: Black Paper Pork Chop with Rice. Right: I don't know what is this.LOL...

Honey BBQ Chicken Rice. Hmmm... as for the interior's colour scheme, it's exactly like Jade Pot Tea House. It's a great place for having meals with family. It offered large vairety of chinese cuisine.

JADE POT TEA HOUSE [ ... ]- 23.12.2004, Thursday
After Roy Rogers, one of my friend complained that he's not full yet so we just turned to the back lane and here we are, Jade Pot Tea House.
Left: Stew Beef & Carrot with Rice. Right: Lavender Tea

Left: Blueberry Tea. Middle: Strawberry Tea. Right: Interior with yellowish lighting and the Blueberry Tea and Strawberry Tea looked yellowish brown under this kind of ligthing, I only realized the colour of both drinks after taking this picture with flash. All the furniture and even the floor are of the same colour scheme. Very clean place.


Left: The exterior. They closed at 9pm. We are one of the last few customer. Right: Location map.

ROY ROGERS STEAK HOUSE RESTAURANT [ ... ]- 23.12.2004, Thursday
Went to Roy Rogers for dinner with my friends. The interior is renovated already. The food improved too compare to last year. You can find one of the best steak in Kuching here.
Left: NZ Sirloin(I hoep I recall it correctly). Right: Grilled Chicken Breast, I guess... I couldn't recall the name.

Left: NZ Black Pepper Steak. Man... it's big, I was so full and the I had to ask me friends to help me to finish the salad. Right: Garlic bread, very crispy and smelled nice. It was served piping hot.

Left: The interior. Right: (L-R) Fresh Lime, Orange Juice,Kiwi Juice
The best thing of taking photos here was that no one care what u're doing. Even with that bright flash from my camera no one even bother about it. I don't have have the address for it but this is the contact number, 082-421198. I don't know how to explain the exact location it's near Grand Continental Hotel, Upwell, DHL(the other block of it) and Mita Cake House(the nearest to it).

DONG ZHI [ ... ]- 21.12.2004, Tuesday
It's the time of the year again for the chinese community, Dong Zhi, for more information click here as I'm not so sure how to explain about it. Here are some photos of "Tang Yuan". Left: The dough for "Tang Yuan". Right: "Tang Yuan" ready to be served. This is cooked with ginger, no pandan leaves. Bottom: Almost finish eating it. Pretty sticky.

COFFEEMASTER [ ... ]- 19.12.2004, Sunday
While on the way home, my friend sms me and asked me out for dinner, so we went to "Taiwan Siau Chou"(I don't know its name in English) at Padungan opposite BING! Had Singapore Fishballl Noodle and Papermint Tea. It was packed and we planned to go to other place for dinner when they told us that no one was available to cook the noodle. They're all too busy. Then while drinking our water halfway, many customers left after their meal, the person in charge told us that the noodle is available as not many customer now and the cook can cook so we ended up having dinner there. Man... so salty... had enough of salty lunch this afternoon and now another salty dinner...

After that we went to Coffeemaster at Somersat Gateway, 4th floor for another drink and a chat. Not much people there. Very quiet. Just realized that they had changed the menu already.

Left: Interior of Coffeemaster. Right: I ordered hot chocolate. Yummy... very thick chocolate.

Left: Syrup for Iced Latte. Right: Iced Latte.

LUNCH [ ... ]- 19.12.2004, Sunday
Went for lunch in Sematan, one of the seafood center there. It was fully packed and we had to wait to be seated. We ended up sharing a table with a family of three. The food are cheap. We waited for 1 hour for our food to be served.

Left: Butter Prawn, very salty, The best Butter Prawn is at Buntal. Right: Mixed vegetables soup.

Left: White rice. Right: Baby Kailan cooked with oyster sauce.

SEMATAN TOWN [ ... ]- 19.12.2004, Sunday
Stopped by the market to see what they sell and eneded up bought a coral. You can bargain as much as you want. They sold decorative seashells and corals. We bought the first one in the second row from the right in the second photo. It cost us RM13 and we asked for a free shell.

SEMATAN PALM BEACH RESORT [ ... ]- 19.12.2004, Sunday
At first we could not find where the resort is and I ended up calling one of Catscity member for direction and it turned out to be further up from where we were. So stupid LOL... very clean place, it's a new resort and ppl talk about lately. It a new resort. Weekends and public holidays are fully booked until CNY 2005. It's a nice place for honeymooners, enjoying the sunset at the beach, so romantic...

Left: Signboard at the entrance. Right: Canoes for rent

Left: BBQ area for rent. Right: One of the place to stay.

Left: A shot of the chalets. Right: The beach

Left: Beware of falling coconuts. Right: The beach.

Left: Cafetaria and Activity Center. Right: Canoes for rent and the beach.

Left: The beach. Right: The chalets.

Left: The Activity Center and check-in area. Right: Entrance to the resort.

LUNDU TRIP [ ... ]- 19.12.2004, Sunday
Went to Lundu with my family today and it took approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with the average speed of 80km/h. Nothing much to say here, here are some photos:
(Left)Lundu Market, (Right) On the ferry, (Bottom right) Stalls along the road that you can see while waiting for taxi. Most thing sold there are RM1 only. (Bottom left) Bought a packet of "Kuih Sepit", very famous snacks among the locals, it's made from egg, sugar and coconut milk.


After stopping at my cousin house's for a while, then off we went to Sematan.

DAY DREAM BBQ HOUSE MAP [ ... ]- 17.12.2004, Friday
Got the map and the address:

LIFE CAFE [ ... ]- 10.12.2004, Friday, cross-posted in catscity
After having dinner at Day Dream BBQ House, we went to Life Cafe at Ewe Hai Street. The two guys went there to eat supper, I couldn't eat anymore, drank too much juice for dinner and I'm still full. The interior has soft lighting and using paper lanterns as their lights. It's not candle inside LOL!!! It's bulb! Don't be stupid, who will use candle for that? It's very dangerous and also the staff would be very busy replacing candles. The interior design are quite unique, oriental style with each table using tea's names to identify. There are books available on the book shelve for you to read, all in chinese.

I'm not a noodle eater, I can't eat noodle, I'll be full after 2-3 mouths. The two guys ordered Life Cafe's Spicy Noodle("Ma La Mien" in mandarin) and also Life Cafe's Dry Noodle("lau Mien" in mandarin). I ate a little bit of both. Just a few mouths, I'm full! There are three level of spiciness for Spicy Noodle, low(small), medium, high(big). It's really very spicy even with the least spicy ones(at least for me, one of my friend complained that it's not spicy enough, he used to eat the spiciest ones). As for Dry Noodle, sigh... again I'm not a noodle eater and I couldn't comment on it whether it's good or not because whatever noodle tasted the same to me, even KOLO MEE!!! Except beef noodle. The food decor are very taiwanese. With strips of cucumber and carrots for the noodle and also a must have, minced meat that are marinated with certain spices I guess... not sure what kind of meat was that. I couldn't figure out the taste, it's definitely not chicken and tasted more like beef. I don't know.

As for our drinks, we ordered Lover Plum Jasmine Green Tea, Lime Jasmine Green Tea and Shaked Milk Tea. I'm not sure how that 2 drinks tasted but for Shaked Milk Tea, it's very thirst quenching even though I drank a lot of juice before coming here and thought that I couldn't not finished the whole glass, once I tasted it, as if I'm hooked, I could finish it!

Life Cafe also provide hot chinese tea, it's served in tea set, if you prefer to make the tea yourself. You must have the right skills to make the tea or else u'll ruin the whole thing or I think they will have the pros to guide you. Otherwise you can try their range of iced teas and hot teas, from jasmine green tea to rose black tea. They have a range of coffee too from iced to hot coffee, from Kopi O to Latte. They also have vegetarian food. There are a wide range of chinese food, or I should say taiwanese food. Better go there and see for yourself and experience it. I'll spoilt everything if I reveal too much. This is the address: No 108, Ground Floor, Ewe Hai Street, 93000 Kuching, Sarawak.
By the way, while walking at the 5 foot path to Life Cafe, it felt like walking at the 5 foot path leading to Berjaya Duxton Hotel's, Tanjong Pagar, S'pore. Since there are also two stretches of old chinese shops and it's one way street with cars parking at the both side and it's very quiet at night. Only a few pubs opened with luxury cars parked there. However, here, only 2 food outlets opening with common cars parked here. ;-p Also, the street here is as clean as S'pore's. Thumbs up to Kuchingites!

DAY DREAM BBQ HOUSE [ ... ]- 10.12.2004, Friday, cross-posted in catscity
Went for a dinner with my friends, 2 guys and I'm the only girl. We could not decide where to eat and ended up finding places to eat in I-View monthly magazine. So we went to Day Dream to have our dinner. The food there wasn't bad. One of my friend ordered Black Pepper Seafood Spaghetti and it tasted very good, never before I tasted ones this good. Prawns were big and was cooked with black pepper sauce, you can taste the sweetness and also a little taste of black pepper. It's a nice combination and make sure u eat it while it's still hot, I guess if it's cold, it doesn't taste that good anymore as the smell of the seafood will come out, this is pretty usual for seafood. It's Day Dream's new menu. Recommended.

They also have Black Pepper Chicken Spaghetti, I think it would taste lovely too but instead I ordered its BBQ Lamb. I should have ordered BBQ Beef as other friend was ordering BBQ Lamb too. Oh my goodness... I forgot that lamb will have lots of bones and it's not easy to eat but it's nicely marinated and the meat was tender.

One of them ordered large carrot juice, yes... large was really LARGE!!! I ordered a small orange juice. We waited for quite a while, and expecting that our food would only arrived at 8pm. After we finished our food, it's only 8pm. My... we ate so fast. We're there around 7:15pm, wasn't a very long wait but it felt long, not sure why? The staff are friendly. The food isn't expensive and very reasonable. It only cost us less than RM30 for our dinner. Worth for money but mind you the lighting was a bit dark or it's too dark for me. I couldn't really see what I'm eating and having quite a difficult time to locate the bone and the meat LOL... There are many decoration lights on the wall, very cute but it's not bright enough. Even with the candle on our table, I still find it difficult to see what I'm eating. So if you're like me, better sit outside, it's much more brighter.

It's located somewhere in 41/2th mile and it's quite hard to locate, it's quite remote. However, as long that the food is good, by hook or by crook, people will find the place. I'm not really sure on how to go there. My friend did the driving. I didn't manage to get the full address. It was a lot of people, almost all the tables were occupied. So... this proved that the food is good, no doubt!

DURIANS, RAMBUTANS... [ ... ]-05.12.2004, Sunday
Today went to Serian, before going to my grandparents place we went to Serian Town. Here's the shots of the market:

You can find all the jungle products there, not only that, u can also find handicraft, sarawak traditional delicacies, potted flowers etc.. It's Durians(right), rambutans and mongosteens season and you can see lots of them in the market but were expensive because it's a Sunday. Other days they are cheaper, they are trying to take advantage of the city people that go there for a weekend getaway. However, there are also stuff with reasonable price. Also the ducklings for sell(left)!

There should be more photos from Serian Market but I only manage to took a few because we didn't stop much but just walked around. My dad tried to bargain the durians but to no avail, took us quite a long time there and we just left empty handed as she didn't want to compromise. Oh well... nvm, we've been having it for weeks already, given by my relatives from Lundu.
Here's the tips on how to choose good Durian(based on my dad's experiece helping my uncle sold durinas when he was young):
1. Smell it, the stronger it is the better.(Some ppl found durian smelly espcially foreigners such as ppl from Europe, America, China etc. even in one episod of Fear Factor, Durian is used as one of the things for the the contestants to eat LOL... it's a piece of cake for us!!!)
2. Shake it. If u can hear the sounds inside that's mean it's good.
3. See if there are/is squirrel bites or eaten by it, it's good as squirrels is good Durian choser. ;D
There are still more but I forgot what else LOL...

After hanging out there, we went down to my grandparents place. We got lots of Rambutans from my uncle's orchard. There are 2 colours available, red and yellow. The diffrence I don't know how to differentiate it seemed the same to me. I guess it's all the same exept, it depends on the breed.
Right photo, rambutans still on the tree.

Taken down from the tree. Cocoa tree near the river.

So that's all I can say about my trip this morning. Should have the photos of how the inside of Rambutans and Durians looked like. Still have the chance coz my house will always have the supply of these fruits within the month of December. By the way, Durian is the king of fruit and mangosteen is the Queen of fruit.

THE LAST MONTH [ ... ]-01.12.2004, Wednesday
December... the last month of the year. Time really fliesssssssssssss... a few days after today will be the end of 2004. What to do next year? I don't know yet. It's time to ponder about it.

Hmmm.. I guess 60% I'll be going to S'pore next year after CNY, not so sure yet. Still doing some research on it. My dad will be asking my relative and also his friend, a principal in one of the secondary school in Pasir Ris to help. I've found some jobs in jobstreet.com and mostly they wanted S'porean or S'pore PR. Argggg... I'm not, might have to ask my aunt to sponsor be if possible. Still not sure... will see what the end result of the research. Sigh... so hard to make decision, isn't it great if i'm the kind that can just leave everything behind without thinking too much. It would make life easier LOL...