one last look kuching

after the wedding festivities, we had a day with nothing to do :) 

having nothing to do was, and always is, a luxury. 

so we did the things we enjoyed again, like jalan bishopsgate coffee, and bought too much piah for my granny's good. i also picked up some kuching white peppercorns for hay mee and went crazy at the bakery with its oven as big as a room. sort of like a malaysian version of a boulangerie.

my roomies exercised again while i vegged out and watched trashy D-rated horror shows. and then i got scared and didn't dare stay in the room alone. so i was forced into the sunlight and got some reading done by the pool. it's about time i started traveling with my notes, as a concerned friend pointed out, so i have taken note (haha) and will endeavour to revise on the go while in japan. shinkansen has got to be my absolute favourite mode of transport (yay!) and because i have to solo trip into the ulu, i just might get some studying done during the study break :(

saturday night

later on saturday night after the glorious joyride, we went to mustafa in a vain attempt to re-inject some semblance of normalcy into the already surreal day. much as i wish that cheese and champagne at sunset was an everyday occurrence, it is not. also, we did think it would be funny to end the day with an adventure of a very different kind. so we scored curbside seats at sakunthala's and blew a pretty penny on prata. we people-watched, immersed in the cacophony of sound that is little india. after we'd licked our greasy fingers clean, we hopped over to mustafa in search of a shower brush. of course, we instead left laden with a year's supply of toiletries and other odds and ends. nothing like a spot of midnight shopping at its thronging best!

one for the ladies

(photo from tsura)

as we tiptoe into september, don't these autumn stackable rings look divine and oh-so-season-appropriate? tara is one of the most gifted artist i know and looking at her first collection, i'm spoilt for choice. would pick everything in a heartbeat! do swing by her website that just went live to see more of her captivating work. particularly appreciate how she's remained true to the theme and captures the essence of divinity in nature.

hong kong and the magic pots

apart from collecting my bag, hong kong was a happy blur of gluttony and excess. i've come to expect no less than that from a trip with my granduncle and grandaunt. they've some firm friends in HK who pulled out all the hospitality stops. from fetching and sending us everywhere, to booking us into the hong kong jockey club and arranging for one exquisite meal after another. they made me feel like royalty! happily allowed myself to be stuffed with the best bo lo bao and dimsum of every kind. when asked to pick a favourite, i really couldn't! it was all so yummy :) and, i popped my goose web cherry (disgusting as it sounds) and within minutes of being cajoled into trying the webs, i was sucking on the bits of bone and spitting like the churlish champ i am! yay me for being adventurous and up for anything...

haha.

also, while i didn't shop at all, save a flouncy blue dress i'm going to wear to all three weddings i'm attending this national day long weekend, i did come home with 10kg of cookware because a friend sells some pretty darn amazing pots!

"It should be an interesting evening of friendship mixed with sharing our mutual interest in' health care' that our Health & Lifestyle Channel www.hlctv.net  promotes and broadcast to Asia with a good Lineup of TV Programs with my vision for HLC to serve our people. In line with the 'health care' theme we are promoting 'safe cooking' with 'Blanc' the world's first white nano ceramic cookware - Introduction: -http://www.blancwok.com/en/blanctv/blanc-knowledge / www.blancwok.com . Blanc is non-toxic cookware unlike Teflon cookware that is very toxic." excerpt from friend's email

who'd have thought! not me, as i lugged my stash to the concierge in the middle of the night and plaintively asked them to tape the boxes up for me. and then i bumped into my very attractive neighbour who raised an eyebrow and no amount of explaining could convince him that i'm usually not that aunty in real life. note to self: when in nice hotel in HK with cute boys in the vicinity, don't go anywhere looking / acting like his mother. sigh :(

p/s an overzealous science tutor told me at 11 that teflon was the devil and i believed her. a decade later, turns out that she was right and i'm so glad to have a pot that gives me the benefit of non-stick cooking without the toxins from teflon. incidentally, betcha didn't know that teflon is originally white but has been dyed black so as to mask the flaws as the material disintegrates with heat onto the pot / pan!

hong kong

hopped to HK for the weekend to pick up my bag. it somehow felt as close to the adoption process as i can currently imagine. no, not knocking adoption or belittling it by likening it to collecting a bag (people and possessions are two very different things). but to me, at this point, that's how it felt.

defensive disclaimer aside, i'd been romancing this bag for years and after finally mustering up enough courage to ask for one, it all happened so quickly. thank god for fairy god-aunties who know people who know people, how they conjured exactly what i wanted within a fortnight (especially after i walked into the store cold and was snootily told to return in four years) is beyond me. but i am ever grateful :)

as i was unwrapping my bag in the hotel, not knowing whether it was inner or outer stitch i.e. soft or hard, i imagined that's what having a child would be like. like you want a child, but you don't know if it's a boy or a girl. and you don't really mind as long as it's a child but at the back of your mind there's a preference. so, rather embarrassingly, i shrieked when i felt the firm outline. it was outer stitch and suddenly all was very right with the world.

of course, there was more to HK then picking up my bag, so more on the food tomorrow.

day 34

friday 11 june 2010 madrid

finally hit zara after admirable restraint the past week. had recced while in barca but it didn't make sense to lug all my shopping with me as i bus-ed across spain. my patience was rewarded and i shopped till i dropped. thank goodness i was able to detax! and, even without sales (they're at the end of the year), the EUR40 blazers i bought retail for S$130 back home. teeeheehee :)

met friends for lunch at el tigre tapas bar. amazing atmosphere, everyone crammed into this tiny hole in the wall and with orders of sangria, we were plied with plates of complimentary tapas. tapas is great by itself, but free tapas with an order of EUR4 sangria is even better. so for EUR4 (yes, i can't get over it) i'd an entire meal.

after lunch and slightly inebriated, i went in search of iberico to bring as gifts for when i visited J in aix and the Bs whom i was staying with in Paris on my last night.

when i was done, i bought a stack of postcards, sat in the park and wrote to my heart's content. 

day 12

thursday 20 may 2010 montalcino

the other life-changing experience this holiday, in addition to pasta fresca fatta di casa, was brunello wine from montalcino. oh brunello, where have you been all my life??? and it was going for a song in the many enotecas in montalcino, complete with complementary munchies. be still, my heart. so we sipped our way through montalcino, sampling (what seemed like) every year and vineyard and picked up a few choice bottles to bring home. i am brunello mad at the moment and it's reason enough to make a return visit.

 snigger. the things you see.

like neeps. teeheeehee!
ps love the mini decanter at the spout. too cute!

day 9

monday 17 may 2010 around bibona

you've not had breakfast until you've had a farmhouse breakfast. we'd organic, free-range eggs (from ida's organic, free-range hens) and the yolks were so yellow they made me almost delirious. there was also the freshest, fluffiest apple cake that she baked earlier in the morning. ohmyword, an apple cake like no other (apples from her own trees, of course). i suppose the recurring theme this tuscan holiday was to eat local and save the earth, nevermind the belly. i ate so much local produce that in my head, i was single-handedly offsetting my otherwise giant carbon footprint. green substitutes and the like, you know? like if i ate eggs from ida's hens, i wasn't eating eggs that had been produced by grumpy battery hens and transported millions of miles to my plate. oh no! i was saving the earth by eating. and who can argue with that logic? :) but seriously, local produce is my new religion. it took every ounce of self-restraint to stop me from quitting before i even start and uprooting to live like a hermit farmer in tuscany, sustenance farming and making the extra cent from city slicker tourists who've never seen a vine in their life.

and what's almost better than eating local produce? shopping for local produce to bring home!