The Mid Autumn That Came and Went

Mid Autum or Chung Chau Jie, a harvest festival, is celebrated traditionally in China on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. Farmers rejoice over the abundance of crops after months of hard work.

Over in Malaysia, summer all year round, we celebrate with different reasons. Mooncakes and lanterns !  A time to binge on the high calorie snack and for the the kids, play 'tanglung'

When I was a kid, I remembered playing those animal shaped tanglung, lights dimmed, we walk around the house, each carrying our animal shaped tanglung, threading with care, not to drop, else we'll end up with 'for siu tang lung'.. and pity the kid whose animal shaped tanglung burnt to flames.

During those yerteryears, we indulge in traditional mooncakes from famous mooncakes  houses - Yook Woo Hin and Kam Lun Tai.

Unlike now, mooncake or Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated with much commercialism. You'll find mooncakes available almost 3 months before the festival. Every hotel and bakery sells mooncakes and varieties of flavours too (with many out-of-the-world flavors - cheese, sambal, gosh !!)

I still prefer my lotus single yolk. At most, I can accept white lotus single yolk. No other flavors, please.

Changing along with times, our kids now play with battery operated tanglungs. Amber has almost 10 of them, amassed over 4 years from her grandparents. Some play very annoying music, but the kids love them, what can I say ?

Hubs got her some paper lanterns with Mickey Mouse pictures (not-so-traditional, again). They were lying around the house coz we didn't have any candles to light them with. Amber pretended they were handbags and sling over her hands.

On Monday, we went to a friends house to have a pre-celebrations. The kids will play lanterns and the adults indulge in some chitter chatter with beer, snacks and all.

The candles ! We didn't have any candles !

So, off we were, on a frantic search for candles.

Giant
7-11
Hardware shop

No candles ! I can't believe it. I can't find a box of candles in my neighbourhood. !!!!


On Tuesday, hubs got her a battery operated one.. a goldfish that flaps it fins with blinking lights. He was so excited to show Amber the lantern. Guess what he did ? Passed the lantern to Amber, turned on his hi-fi and read newspaper  leaving Amber to 'play' with Mr Goldfish ! *sigh*

Yesterday, the actual celebration day, we were at my father's place for dinner. My nephews had passed the lantern playing age and no kids for Amber to play with. Luckily the neighbours invited her over to light some lanterns and later in the evening, hubs had an appointment and I asked him to drop me off at a friends house to play with some actual lanterns, lighting candles and all.

That was our Mid Autumn festival that went by...

'Tradition is only kept alive ...... if we chose to'

Happy Dumpling Festival

Frankly all I know about Duan Wu Festival or Dumpling Festival which falls on the 5th day of 5th Lunar Month is eating 'bak chang'.

A couple of weeks before the festival, MIL will pass us some delicious giant bak changs from Tampin, a variety I like with less or no beans, lots of tasty glutinuos rice, chestnuts, salty egg yolk, mushroom and streaky pork.

We've been obedient and had only one bak chang this year and 4 more are sitting in my freezer, hubs and I *heart* bak chang v much and we are saving our bak changs for lazy to cook days :D

Nice ?


Yumzzz...

I did some searching to find out on the history of Duan Wu here.

Observing our Chinese foodie culture is too interesting.. Once dumpling festival is over, we'll be ready for mooncake festival and then.. winter solstice, we'll be feasting on tang yuen.. Sei mou ? it's round the year feasting for us !

Wesak Day - 28 May 2010

On Wesak Day, we went to the Guan Yin temple at Jalan Ampang for prayers. Our initial plans to go Maha Vihara temple at Brickfields was aborted when we heard our PM will be there. I don't want to get caught in a 'no parking, people mountain people sea' situation.

Whenever we are back at my in laws, Amber will always bug Mah Mah when she does her prayers. Amber will want to light the joss stick, ask Mah Mah to carry her and place the joss stick on urns and she'll chant along with Mah Mah.. in fact, she's always looking out for praying time, waiting to bug her Mah Mah.

I told her we'll go to the temple on Wesak Day, she's excited and woke up '7cho8cho', and how I wished she'll wake up with such enthusiasm when it comes to school !

Lots of people. The temple provides vegetarian food for breakfast and lunch. Picture above is the entrance to the canteen. On festive dates and 1st and 15th date of the lunar month, the temple provides free food but devotees are encouraged to donate generously and do not waste food.
Not wanting to queue, we skipped this and lunch-ed elsewhere instead.

Hubs and I believe by instilling a belief in religion whilst she's still young, we hope she'll grow up to be a morally responsible person. Perhaps whatever we've missed to teach or guide her, religion will help.



Amber 'pai-pai'. She insist on praying to each and every buddha statue in the temple. I told her no joss stick or lotus candles. I believe we should preserve the environment and simple prayers is enough.

Praying to the 'thousand' hand buddha

Bathing the buddha

Some donations for the temple by some kind samaritans

We did our bit and put in a small donation to the temple.

Happy Wesak Everyone !

Christmas @ Pavilion

It was just like not too long ago when I just started blogging and posted about Christmas at Pavilion here. Time flies and we are back to Pavilion again and the Christmas decorations are up, this time it's reindeers, reindeers and more reindeers, in and out of the complex and it's amazing, really huge, nice, pretty and all.

p/s on a side note, I can't find anything new at KLCC, I hope they don't recycle the tallest Xmas tree this year, we're done with purple, gold, red tallest trees. . . haih.. I wonder when they'll come up with something new.

We went to Pavilion to meet up with big brother and his family who were shopping at Low Yat for Nintendo DS. I'm not a keen on gadget shopping and I asked them to meet us at Pavilion instead and had a good time snapping pics with Amber and hubs.

This huge reindeer is inside the mall, a few of them with sleighs and all.

At the entrance of the mall, more reindeers with snow theme. Very pretty and christmassy sight.

Then the cousins came back from their Nintendo DS shopping.. we took a few group shots together.

Only one word describes her... 'HAPPY' with the presence of so many cousins. She wants to follow them home to kong-kong's house and sleepover.

Do-Re-Mi-Fa......

Then she remembered the cotton candy Aunty Pearl got for her at Genting, and insist I buy one for her.

One cotton candy, that's all it takes to make the little kid happy.

Christmas is coming soon and I wish everyone a happy time shopping and whipping up Christmas dishes.

Happy Deepavali

Happy Deepavali Everyone !

I look forward to this celebration every year coz that's when all my aunties, my sis and I will gather in my Tua Kor's house for a big makan. This year hubs is sick at home, nursing a bad flu and the little one prefers to stay home with Papa.


Tua Kor cooked lots of curries for us. Curry chicken, chicken rendang and a dry chicken curry. She also made nasi briyani for us. To douse down the spiciness, she made cucumber, onion pickes and air sirap for us. She also braised a pot of Hakka char yoke , from my grandmother's recipe which all of us loved so much. For desert, she baked butter cakes, made kuih talam and jelly.



Everyone enjoying their meals... My Tua Kor was walking up and down, filling our plates with food !

Yummy, yum yum, home cooked feast.

While we were having our meals, and Indian man came to join us for lunch and offered prayers. He was previously a security guard at Tua Kor's condo but has since resigned. Tua Kor's unit is just next to the guardhouse and I think the guy has been sniffing Tua Kor's cooking for some time. He did say to Tua Kor that he'll drop by on Deepavali to have lunch and he did. I guess even the experts in curry knows a good pot of curry when they sniff one.

She did not make of her famous murukus for us this year. Her muruku mix has gone bad. Tua Kor mixes her muruku flour from scratch, buying good quality rice, beans and sending them to the mills to be grinded to flour. She's staying alone now and nobody helps her to send the rice for grinding. I volunteered but I need to know where to find flour and spice millers. Please let me know if you do come across any around your housing area. I miss her murukus and will do anything to help her get those murukus out. LOL !

Thank you so much Tua Kor for giving us a wonderful meal.

The Best Lemang

Hubs and I love lemang very much. We see so many lemang stalls sprouting up during the raya weeks, all over MRR2 and Ampang. We didn't know which was good and afraid we'll end up with some hard rock lemang that'll gives us indigestion.

Then Annie raved about the lemang her colleague bought from Gombak. She said it's soooo good and soooo soft.. I msn and got her to get directions from her colleague. Go along MRR2, coming form Ampang, exit Gombak, turn left and lemang stall is on the left.

So, hubs and I went with an empty stomach and found the place easily. Since we hungry, they
gave us lots of samples to try. Nice.. very nice. The more we try, the more we wanna buy. I asked our friends, Thomas and Joanne to join us for dinner to share the lemang.

There's 2 big lemang stall there. Look out for ISTIMEWA LEMANG DAUN LEREK.
Open 24 hours, call 012-2343974 / 012-6558241 if you need directions. Their operating permit expires this Friday, 16 October 09.


So many bamboo sticks. Business must be good. Lemang must be good too.



Daun lerek is indigenous to the Pahang jungle. The owner told us they get their supply from the orang aslis. So what makes daun lerek special? The hard leaves keeps the lemang texture soft throughout and it also lends and very nice aroma and color to the rice.




See, a big leaf. Lemang still very firm but soft on the insides

The top of the lemang. Annie told me the slimy stuff is actually santan and not 'fatt moe'. Aitelyu, this the best part. Hubs walloped it.

Our own small 'makan makan & selamat beraya' party :

Fresh chilling cucumbers

The lemang. Hubs gives thumbs up, before we could finish, he already planned for a second round while the lemang stall is still open and how we wish they'll be open all year round instead of just one month.

Chicken and beef satays

Cucumber, satay sauce, beef rendang, ketupat.. yummzz

I made some teh tarik to go along with the food. Malaysia is such a beautiful country, we'll find every occasion to have a makan-makan :) Now, I'm looking forward to Deepavali this Saturday!

Happy Mid Autumn

This is going to be the most awkward Mid Autumn festival post coz there's no mooncakes and lanterns.. Why ? Mama too lazy to play lantern with Amber and while MIL cut mooncakes, Mama was too lazy to take photos.

We left for Tampin after work on Friday night. It was the longest journey home ever. I picked up the maid and Amber from childminders, lock up the house and went to town to pick up hubs. Major traffic jam. I guess everyone balik kampung, the Chinese go home to celebrate Mid Autumn festival and our fellow Muslims celebrate Hari Raya with relatives and friends. The whole KL city was chocked with cars, and we were crawling all the way to Sg Besi toll, you'd think traffic would be clear past toll but we could see cars queuing after taking their toll tickets !!! Aiyoyoyoyo !!!! Another 20 mins queue past the toll coz the lanes converged from 8 t0 3 !!! Well, luckily it was quite a smooth drive back from Balakong onwards, I guess most cars are still stuck in town unable to get to highway.. LOL !!! We reached Tampin at 8.45 and little missy had to scream for toilet stop just 5 minutes before reaching inlaws.. She refused to 'tahan' until my in laws house. My mistake for not bringing along her potty. So we stopped at some creepy looking medan selera for her to relief herself.

Ding dong ding dong... reach home, have dinner and too lazy to play lanterns. Tedious task to insert in candles, find place to hang, etc. We did play a bit of fireworks though.
I just lazed around watching tv and Amber and her Yuen Wen cheh-cheh ran around the house, up and down, front and back, laughing, yakking and making lots of joyful noise !

I caught some pics of them :


See their ears? Clipped with ginko nuts !LOL !!!! The maids were in the kitchen cracking gingko nuts and these 2 girls kept asking them to clip their ears.. Wuah... happier than playing lanterns.

Running all over the house but stop n pose for pictures when they saw me with my camera.

Even asked me to take their back view.. LOL!

Giving me funny faces. Cheeky girls !

Then, later at night, we all went to mamak for teh tarik and chit chat, a walking distance from my in-laws. It was almost 11pm but since it's a holiday and festive season, I just let her have fun.

Running up and down the walkway, jumping and laughing. She's so happy to be back to the grandparents home.

Busy with don't-know-what...

Both of them like to sit on hubs lap, each one side while hubs jiggle them like a rocking horse.

The next day, MIL did her prayers and Amber helped with lighting the incense.

Simple praying with chicken, roast pork, vege and mooncakes

Then the 2 girls dressed up and styled their hair with hairclips from Mydin.

Both of them very cheeky and cute, always pose for me to take photos.

We got ready for our festive dinner.

This is what we had for dinner : from bottom clockwise : roast pork, sweet and sour pork ribs, braised mini nga-koo, steamed chicken, mixed vege and steamed sausages with potatoes. Almost similiar to CNY reunion dinner. LOL ! Some dishes, like the one left, mini nga-koo (arrowroots) are only eaten during festive dinners. To be eaten with lettuce leaves. My favourite.

After dinner, we went to FunFair, the kids saw the spotlights flashing up to the sky from home the night before and we promised to bring them there. Naturally, both of them very excited and waited in anticipation.

This is the first and last ride I took with her. Very , very scary. Amber's should be sitting straight holding the handrail, but the G-force caused her to lie down instead and I had to hold her while maintaining my own balance. Look at the safety handrail, very scary don't you think ?

I haven't been to any rides in a long long time, more than 10 years (last ride-all-you-can trip was to Universal Studio) and I must say, age is cathing up and I'm not game for this kind of 'excitement' anymore. I thought I'll just fall and die if the Lucky Star ride goes wrong, I mean what happens if a screw is tight and fall off ? LOL !!! The 5 minute ride seems like forever. This was Amber's first exciting ride and she kept wanting to go for another round. No way man... not with me and I also fear her safety.

We steered these 2 girls for safer rides instead. Both of them very 'kan cheong' esp Amber who hasn't been to a funfair before.

We kept asking them to go for safer rides.. elephants..horses...etc.

Queuing up for the Ferris Wheel

Luckily, my nephew accompanied them.. I don't fancy going up and down Ferris Wheels...

The carousel rides, better than Merry Go Rounds at Tesco.

Use 'token' system and most of the rides are manned by schoolboys !! I was surprised, they don't know much about safety but I guess the funfair operator has to find ways to cut down cost. Funfairs ain't very popular nowadays.

At the carousel. See the grass on the floor ? Funfairs at held on grassfields. Hardly see them around anymore and it's also a good experience for Amber.

A 'safer' elephant ride

All of us waiting for them to complete the rides so we could go home. Can you see Amber on the blue carousel?

So, that's our Mid Autumn weekend, no pics of lanterns or mooncakes... haih...