Family

My Kakak
This is my kakak holding our neighbour's baby boy, Tariq

Love to go Teppanyakiying with my kakak at Sg Wang and O.U

Kakak and Abang Johan's son Darwisy....he's so handsome!

My Kakak

Although our opinions may differ,

Our thoughts are not so alike,

We are still twin sisters,

And I love you alot.

I'm the only one who can understand

why sometimes some people would not understand her

Why sometimes some people tends to misjudge her

why sometimes some would even say terrible things about her

why sometimes some people would hate her

because I am her twin sister.

Sarawak trip - Sarikei

A Memorable Wedding in Sarikei

Er looked so pretty... believe it or not, she did her makeup all by herself. She's a pro, think she should be a *mak andam and open up a business in the andaming. (*wedding makeup artist in Malay language)

Sudir and his brother shared their wedding

Melawa lah.. apa lagi... melawa je keje kau...

I took this picture at morning of the wedding ceremony. It was of the house's backyard. I just felt it looked awesomely classic.

Sudir's nephews.. cuteness!

A night before the wedding...

(left to right: Fried Chicken Crispy and original, Rice and Chicken mushroom claypot)

Sugar Bun. The Sugar Bun. The Exclusive Sugar Bun. Yes. You can only get them in Sarawak. I heard it was in Sabah before, but they've shut the business down. I had my breakfast, lunch and dinner there. I'm not gonna describe about the food though..someone said that people came as far as Sabah and Brunei to savour the fried chicken... they somehow tasted much more delicious than KFC (that's not what i said though).

Hey..what's that I see flowing out the side of your lips? Are you drooling now?

This picture is of just about the whole town actually. It's very itsy bitsy teeny weenie lil town.

But with its own unique breathtaking aura and vista...

A walk in the Park in Sarikei

Mak...? ohhh mak... timbul lah mak... Merah datang ni.....maakk..?

(dah nak start nyanyi dah...music please..ehemm)

Wahai perigi, perigi, airnya biru,

Tempat bermain, bermain, pari dan mambang,

Mohon izinkan hamba merayu ibu,

Izinkan hamba merayu ibu,

Bagi penawar, hatiku yang bimbang,

Wahai bonda, ibu kandungku.
Wahai bondaku, bondaku, si ikan kaloi,

Timbullah bonda oiii timbullah, tunjukkan diri,

Nasi melukut dengan sayur keladi,

Nasi melukut, sayur keladi,Untuk bondaku, di pagi hari,

Wahai bonda, ibu kandungku

A song lyric from the classic film Bawang Merah & Bawang Putih (red onions and garlic) starring Latifah Omar

Er: Mana?

Saint: *Tuuuu naaaaa...Tuuuuu naaaa....

Mimi: Ha..? kat sini ade ikan tuna ke?

(* Tu naa - Sabahan slang for saying tu dia / tu hah / yang itu )

Back to front: Huge, medium and small

The Budget Travellers - Travelling on a Tight Budget - Pelancong Sengkek yang sedang pokai. hehe...

Sandakan Trip

This is how the people in Sandakan drink their cincau (grass jelly). with milk. delicious kan?

The wet market

Other than Sepilok, Bazaar Ramadhan and Seafood restaurant, the fun place I visited was the wet market. You must be thinking what kind of Idiot am I for enjoying a trip to the wet market. Honestly, I didnt really get to see very much of Sandakan because time was not aplenty on my host's side. She was very busy running her stall at bazaar ramadhan and I've already expected that, as I only came up to Sandakan to meet up with Amanda, Santi's family and getting a feel of Ramadhan there. Perhaps I can blog more on my next visit when it's not fasting month and we can get around easier. Besides, i really cant wait to meet up Er's son, Shahriez. she just gave birth few months back and I still havent got the chance to see the baby boy.

Back to the wet market... seriously, i did enjoy the trip. I bought lots of Udang Kering, bird's eyes chillies, Ikan bilis and much more. Stuffs like these are quite cheap at this market compared to those in semenanjung. Early in the morning, I do mean very early, like as early as 5am, there'll be fruit and veggies sold outside the wet market by the local villagers and pinoy immigrants. They sell seriously fresh stuffs at more seriously cheaper price. You can get a basket full of veggies enough to prepare 10 rounds of mixed veggie dish with only RM10. I swear.

That's a stuffed posteur of me at the harbour view restaurant, during merdeka night.

Eating out in Sandakan
Food in Sandakan is alot about seafood, Chinese cuisine, Philippines and Indonesian influences.

I assume the locals like their food grilled, steamed and boiled instead of fried, because that's what I often had over there. For fast food outlets, they only have KFC. And you can only find one mamak restaurant if I'm not mistaken.

I heard Lobster is also big here, but i never got the chance to consume them. here's a list of what i've tried.

• BAKSO (flavourful chicken soup served with rice cubes or glass noodles, chicken bits and condiments such as peanuts and chilli sauce) at Pasar malam


• COTO (peanut soup with beef and everything you can extract from a cow, served with rice cubes and special chilli sauce) at the ramadhan bazaar


• Butter prawn rice


• seafood steamboat buffet with lots of mudcrabs


• seafood buffet at harbour restaurant with lots of grilled seafood


• mudcrab cooked butter sauce style and a type of fish cooked in soy sauce at this one restaurant ( darn i cant remember the name)

Not that much, you wanna know why? coz it was fasting month and I only get to eat after berbuka. whatever I ate, nothing beats the best taste of MAMA SANTI's cooking! she cooks the best chicken korma that made me salivate just thinking about it!

Sandakan Trip

Amanda in Wonderland

Amanda's the best part of my Sandakan trip. She's just so fun to be with, adorable and very entertaining. I was so happy when Santi told me to give Amanda a bath. She enjoys being in the water so much that I've no problem giving her a bath. All i did was put her in the wash basin and she'll splish splash while I shampoo her very little hair. Gosh I miss her so much...






This is her comot face after eating chocolate. she made funny faces when I let her taste the chocolate. I got to know later that she's never tasted chocolate before (oops!)coz no one in the house likes chocolate. I guess I've just encouraged her to eat junk food....ngee!

Soon after that she fell asleep. she only take little naps in the afternoon and normally wakes up after 2-3 hours.

There was this one time when she woke up to join us for sahur (imsak) at 3:30 am. It was really funny. We were all eating and suddenly she came crawling and smiling at us. Everyone was so terkejut coz we were all so mamai (half awake) while eating, and she came silently creeping...hhehe.. I guess the smell of mama Santi's fried fish woke her up.

This pic was taken at Bazaar Ramadhan. Er decided to bring her along coz she made her muka kesian (irresistible cute face).

According to Santi, this is her muka tols tols (blur facial expression)

Sandakan Trip

Yummilicious Sandakan seafood

A marvellous seafood steamboat buffet at Trig Hill.

Stuffing my face with the mud crabs

Santi's sister, Er. Er, very much like me, truly loves seafood.

Me and Santi.

On my last day in Sandakan, Santi's sister Er and her husband Sudir brought me to their favourite seafood steamboat buffet spot in Trig Hill. I cant recall what was the name of the seafood restaurant, but the buffet was good and the price was reasonable.

They also serve plenty of mud crabs over there which were quite unusual coz we dont get alot of that in semenanjung... KL i mean.

I had a great time and I was so full!

Sandakan Trip

Bazaar Ramadhan - Participating in Sandakan

My trip to Sandakan last year was basically about meeting up Santi's family, Amanda (my adopted daughter) and witnessing the town's Bazaar Ramadhan which is basically the highlight of Santi's family, every year. Santi, including her mum and dad wakes up as early as 6 something am to prepare for the food and drinks which will be sold at the Bazaar Ramadhan around Sandakan's Town Centre. I offered to help on the drinks preparation so Santi assigned me on the tangy buckets which were the Ice lemon tea and Ice Lime bucket. I had the simple task of cutting lemon and limes and squeezing out the juice, and not forgetting, brewing the tea.

*Bazaar Ramadhan: A lively food bazaar that can be found in many town and cities (in Malaysia) during the fasting month. Basically one can get all the delicacies needed to quest the hunger after fasting the whole day at these bazaar.
Mama Santi is frying a whole lotta eggs..the fried eggs is an add-on to the fried mee they're selling. (which were so good and tasted different from the usual mee goreng in semenanjung.) They use dry mee kuning cooked in a special seasoned gravy until it reaches the right mee goreng's consistency. I can say it's not oily, it's very simple and definitely yummy!

Inspector Santi inspecting the drink buckets thoroughly before they get carried over to the Bazaar.

left to right: Flavour essence for cincau, ice milo and air jagung. These 3 drinks required condensed milk, making it the most 'exquisite' compared to others... really? Not so. Of all the 7 drinks, Vanilla Blue was the bestseller. It's basically blue food colouring mixed with a bit of vanilla essence and alotta sugar and milk. I'm not very fond of it coz to me it tasted rather like liquid antibiotic. I think the best tasting drinks were the tangy ones like Ice lemon tea and lime juice coz i made them! hehehehehe.... (kidding!)

Buckets line-up... oh yes, did i mention that the drinks were sold at RM1 per plastic (in generous litres)?

The road that leads to the Bazaar...

Sandakan Trip

SEPILOK - Orang Utan rehabilitation centre They may be cute to look at, but be very careful when you're around them... they can get 'too friendly' if you know what I mean...

Yes, I'm a bit scared. You can tell from the pose, right? haha..

I'm not very sure what this one's up to actually...

All I can explain about Sepilok is that it's a big forest, I do mean BIG. You'll be surrounded by extremely tall trees which are very old and huge. Vast greenery and plenty of fresh air, though it can get very warm on sunny season like the time when i was there. The weather was seriously hot, everyone was sweating but all of them waited patiently to see the Orang Utan which disappointingly did not appear on that day.
I only saw monkey antics but that was good enough. I have to tell you I'm much more mesmerised by the forest itself. The trees are taller than KL's highrises... It's forests like this that made me so very proud of my country.